Ep 685 - Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Summary

Overdue – Episode 685: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Hosts: Andrew and Craig
Publisher: Headgum
Release Date: January 13, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 685 of "Overdue," hosts Andrew and Craig delve into the enchanting world of Toshikazu Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold. This episode explores the novel's unique blend of magical realism and emotional depth, positioning it within the burgeoning genre of "healing fiction" that has gained global traction amidst turbulent times.

Book Overview

Andrew introduces the episode by announcing his selection: Before the Coffee Gets Cold, part of a series by Kawaguchi that has captivated readers with its heartwarming tales. The book centers around a magical cafe, Cafe Funicula Funicula, where patrons can time travel—but with strict rules that ensure the past remains unaltered.

Craig humorously relates their own ritual of savoring a late-night cup of coffee from their favorite diner, drawing a parallel to the book's central motif of savoring moments before the coffee cools.

Exploring "Healing Fiction" [03:08]

Andrew references a New York Times article titled "In Tumultuous Times, Readers Turn to 'Healing Fiction'," highlighting how cozy and whimsical novels from Japan and Korea are offering solace globally. He draws a comparison to the popular TV show Ted Lasso, emphasizing how both provide warmth and kindness in a seemingly cold world:

Andrew [03:41]: "This show, one man made cookies like that much came out and was very warm and fuzzy... everybody's reaction was like, wow, I really needed to see these people be this nice to each other."

Author Background and Cultural References [07:10 – 15:17]

The conversation shifts to Kawaguchi's background. Born in Osaka in 1971, Kawaguchi initially pursued a career in manga before transitioning to playwriting. His play, which later became the novel Before the Coffee Gets Cold, won the 10th Suganami Drama Festival grand prize, marking his success as a playwright.

A fascinating cultural touchpoint is the book's title, referencing the Neapolitan song "Funiculi Funicula". Craig shares an amusing anecdote about multiple composers adopting the tune, inadvertently causing confusion about its origins. They also discuss its appearance in popular media, such as the Thomas and Friends series:

Craig [11:23]: "It's a funicular, Andrew. Going up Mount Vesuvius... made me really mad that Grape Escape isn't on the Wikipedia entry for Funiculi Funicula."

Time Travel Mechanics and Rules [17:51 – 30:48]

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the intricate rules governing time travel in the cafe:

1. Only Patrons: "The only people one may meet while back in the past are those who have visited the cafe." ([23:30] Andrew)
2. Immutable Present: "No matter how hard one tries while back in the past, one cannot change the present." ([23:45] Andrew)
3. Solo Time Travel: "In order to return to the present, you have to sit in that seat alone." ([29:34] Andrew)
4. Time Limit: "There is a time limit. Before the coffee gets cold, you must finish your business and drink the whole thing." ([30:05] Andrew)

Andrew uses a detailed example involving a time-traveling gunman to illustrate how the rules maintain the integrity of the present:

Andrew [25:24]: "If, say, a murderer traveled back in time, she would have a good reason to leave it alone... the present doesn’t change."

Craig nods in appreciation of the whimsical yet firm approach:

Craig [30:04]: "Okay. The third rule... you have to sit in that seat alone."

Character and Story Analysis [30:48 – 43:06]

The hosts delve into the four interconnected stories presented in the novel, each highlighting different aspects of human emotion and connection:

1. Fumiko and Goro: Fumiko revisits the past to reconnect with her boyfriend Goro, who is moving to America. Despite her efforts, the present remains unchanged, emphasizing themes of acceptance and emotional closure.

   Andrew [25:06]: "No matter how hard one tries... you cannot change the present."

2. Kotake and Her Husband: Kotake uses time travel to gain deeper insights into her husband’s struggle with Alzheimer’s. This journey fosters a stronger bond and understanding, illustrating the power of empathy and support.

   Andrew [35:41]: "Her getting this letter doesn't change anything about the present... but knowing a little bit more about his inner life changes how you interact going forward."

3. Hirai and Her Sister: Hirai attempts to reconcile with her sister, who tragically died in a car accident. Through time travel, she uncovers her sister’s true intentions, leading to personal growth and familial harmony.

   Andrew [39:56]: "This is about changing the future more than it is about changing the past."

4. Kei’s Future Journey: Kei, a cafe staff member, travels to the future to meet her child, grappling with her own health challenges. This story explores themes of hope, legacy, and the enduring impact of our choices.

   Andrew [50:21]: "It's strongly implied that she's not around by the time her daughter is 15... but it’s left ambiguous whether the future can change because of stuff that you went forward."

Critique and Reception [55:13 – 60:18]

Andrew and Craig discuss the book’s reception, noting its status as a bestseller in some independent bookstores. However, they also address critiques regarding the repetitive nature of the time travel rules, which some readers found monotonous:

Craig [56:52]: "A lot of them were like, I really kind of liked how this book made me feel, but I didn't need to hear about the rules 10 times across four stories."

Despite these criticisms, the hosts express their overall appreciation for the book's emotional resonance and thoughtful exploration of human connections.

Personal Reflections and Conclusion [60:18 – End]

In concluding the episode, Andrew and Craig reflect on the book's unique approach to time travel—not as a means to alter events, but as a tool for personal introspection and emotional healing. They commend Kawaguchi for crafting stories that, while adhering to strict temporal rules, offer profound insights into love, loss, and the human spirit.

Andrew [60:21]: "It would be a novel about learning more about yourself, and it just so happens to be at a magical cafe that allows you to travel through time."

They wrap up by sharing their excitement for future readings and ongoing developments in their podcast, inviting listeners to engage with the community and stay tuned for more literary explorations.

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Notable Quotes

• Andrew [03:08]: "In tumultuous times, readers turn to 'healing fiction'. Cozy, whimsical novels, often featuring magical cats that have long been popular in Japan and Korea are taking off globally."
• Craig [11:23]: "It's a funicular, Andrew. Going up Mount Vesuvius... made me really mad that Grape Escape isn't on the Wikipedia entry for Funiculi Funicula."
• Andrew [25:24]: "If, say, a murderer traveled back in time, she would have a good reason to leave it alone... the present doesn’t change."
• Andrew [30:05]: "There is a time limit. Before the coffee gets cold, you must finish your business and drink the whole thing."
• Andrew [35:41]: "Her getting this letter doesn't change anything about the present... but knowing a little bit more about his inner life changes how you interact going forward."
• Andrew [39:56]: "This is about changing the future more than it is about changing the past."
• Andrew [60:21]: "It would be a novel about learning more about yourself, and it just so happens to be at a magical cafe that allows you to travel through time."

Final Thoughts

Before the Coffee Gets Cold stands out in the realm of contemporary Japanese literature for its delicate balance between magical elements and deep emotional storytelling. Kawaguchi's novel offers readers a contemplative journey into the complexities of human relationships, regret, and the enduring quest for closure—all within the comforting confines of a quaint, timeless cafe.

For those seeking a heartfelt narrative that intertwines whimsical time travel with profound personal growth, this book is a delightful and moving choice.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a Headgum podcast.

[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew and I am.

[Craig]

Popping the top on this vacuum sealed coffee mug. I am pouring coffee into a diner mug from our favorite chicken place. Chicken or the egg. It's 10:41pm I don't plan to drink it. It's just for the bit because. What book did you read for this episode of our show where each week one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it? Andrew?

[Andrew]

I read before the Coffee Gets Cold from the before the Coffee Gets Cold series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.

[Craig]

Okay, so, so in our discord, I asked patreon.comoverdupod Sign up. Join our cool Discord community. I asked folks if they had takes on the book. You're going to talk about some of those a little bit later. It's my understanding that this is some sort of magic book that revolves around what you can accomplish while a cup of coffee is warm.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sort of, Kind of. Sort of, kind of.

[Craig]

So I'm going to take a sip of this coffee and drink no more of it.

[Andrew]

It's now 10:42pm it's hot.

[Craig]

I brewed it five minutes ago.

[Andrew]

Okay, this is a commitment. Is this gonna show up on the, on the. When I'm doing the. Doing the books. Is this gonna be a business? Business expense?

[Craig]

No, it's a donation to the show.

[Andrew]

Okay. All right, cool.

[Craig]

And we'll see if this co. You know, we'll see if this coffee's still warm by the end of the episode. We'll see if, like, we ran out of time. I'll let you know.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we need to, we need to get this done before the coffee and before our takes get too cold. But if you do, if you, you could just submit receipts and mileage to me and whatever I can make. Like if you decide to change your mind, if, like, if the bit doesn't work and you do want to be.

[Craig]

I did fly down to the Andes to get this coffee. So.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, you got to get the good beans.

[Craig]

Got to get the good beans. Andrew, I had not heard of this book before you brought it to the show. Where did you bring it from? And then we'll talk about maybe the Author and the publication.

[Andrew]

There was a piece that ran in the New York Times on November 7th.

[Craig]

I noticed that.

[Andrew]

I don't remember. November's so long ago. Who can remember what was happening?

[Craig]

I got to move this coffee away or I'm going to drink it.

[Andrew]

There's a piece in the New York Times headlined, in tumultuous times, readers turn to quote, healing fiction, unquote, Cozy, whimsical novels, often featuring magical cats that have long been popular in Japan and Korea are taking off globally. Fans say they offer comfort during a chaotic time.

[Craig]

Pieces by Alexander Alter.

[Andrew]

Yes. And listen, I know that we bag a lot on season three of Ted Lasso, but let's remember why season one of Ted Lasso was the sensation that it was. And it was because at a time when the world was cold and stupid and horrible.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

This show, one man made cookies like that much.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Came out and was very warm and fuzzy and it seemed like maybe it also had like a plot like that that would propel the, the series forward instead of just being like people kind of hanging out and being blandly pleasant. But anyway, the point is it was people being nice and maybe you realize that you needed that or not. But everybody's reaction was like, wow, I really needed to see these people be this nice to each other and like learning and learning grow together.

[Craig]

Is it the best TV show based on a commercial?

[Andrew]

Well, I mean the Geico Caveman show is right there.

[Craig]

Craig Best. I don't, I just don't know about. I'm sure I could find a list somewhere, but I'm not gonna Google it right now. I gotta keep my eye on this.

[Andrew]

Coffee commercials based on TV shows. Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's up. It's like top five. Probably.

[Craig]

Probably. Yeah. But no but yeah.

[Andrew]

So there's an article. Yes. This whole New York Times piece about this genre that we've, we've inadvertently.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

We have stumbled into before when we read like a. Many, many years ago. The Cat who Saved books by Sosuke Natsukawa.

[Craig]

I don't think that was.

[Andrew]

Which I think it was. It was long enough ago that it's been. You can measure it in years.

[Craig]

5:45. August 2022.

[Andrew]

Okay. Yeah, so we're here a couple years before the New York Times actually. But yeah, like translated books mostly from Japan and South Korea about like that are just like trying to make you feel good. And book talk.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Is a very lizard brain motivated place.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And any, any book series that can make you really horny or really like sad or really sentimental really fast without being like too complicated or literary.

[Craig]

People like to get in their feels.

[Andrew]

Yeah. People like to get in their feels.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Which is. We're academics here. We're not gonna. Actually, we're pointedly not academics.

[Craig]

Very pointedly not. I did. There was, I. There was a bit in that article where they compared the like publishing gold rush on these books to the Scandinavian noir rush following Millennium Trilogy, the Steglars. And just that like a couple books will come along and then the English language publishers will just like greenlight a bunch of books like them and kind of like help bolster a genre that maybe is only a couple authors that are breaking through. And then all of a sudden there's like a huge audience because the publishers are like, well, find me more like, you know.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And this, I mean this happens throughout literary history, but especially thinking like during our lifetime we see all the time like, okay, Harry Potter comes out now. Every, every publisher is like, what can somebody chewing on a cigar like the, like find me pictures of asking for pictures of Spider man. Like, bring me a multi book kid to YA series where a regular boy gets magical power.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And so yeah, you got that, you got that from the, the Dragon tattoo stuff in just like who's Scandinavian, who's writing crime fiction? Bring me, bring me, bring me them. And now it is bring me these, bring me these. Kind of chill. Mostly like coffee shop and bookshop set books sometimes involving cats.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

About people who are feeling feelings like how can we. Let's translate those, get them on the shelves.

[Craig]

And this week's author is a bit of a. Is vanguard the right word or like he's spearheaded. He's a spearheader.

[Andrew]

What are you trying to say?

[Craig]

He's at the forefront of the movement.

[Andrew]

Is what I'm trying to say. That's a great way to say.

[Craig]

It's a better way to say it. Toshikazu Kawaguchi, born in 1971. Born in Osaka. His parents ran a barber shop. He moved to Tokyo to create manga, but he did not make it. I really found myself in the middle of that word that time he, a former class classmate of his, asked him to write a play and he liked writing dialogue. I was trying, I was trying and struggled to find like a list of his plays. I know he's had a successful career as a playwright, but the limited Google results in English that I could find were not helping me on that front. He did write this novel as a play first and a book editor had read the Script noticed it and convinced him to make it into a novel where it became a success. His official bio from Pan Macmillan says that he worked with the theatrical group. Sonic Snail. His works as a playwright gotta go fast or slow, I suppose.

[Andrew]

Would've been funny if he was a snail. Sonic. Actually, that would have been pretty good.

[Craig]

Imagine a snail tapping its toe at you like. Come on. His plays include Couple Sunset Song and Family Times. The original production of the original play that this was based on was an 1110 production and won the 10th Suganami Drama Festival grand prize. So a celebrated play in its own right. I will be interested to hear if there's anything about the dialogue or his like, approach to prose that feels, hey, this guy used to write or likes to write for the stage sort of thing.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like, it's tough to do that because you're always like, with books like this, it's always being kind of mediated through a. Through a translator. But yep, we can. I can definitely like. I don't know any. Any play you've ever gone to see where it all mostly takes place on one set. Look. Supposed to look like a, you know, like a room. Like any kind of room, like a bedroom or a. Like a newsroom or just some kind of room. And somebody comes in through the door and.

[Craig]

Are you complaining about the fourth wall?

[Andrew]

What is someone. Someone comes into the room and they sigh and they sit down and somebody else comes over and is like, hey, rough day, huh? And that's like how the play kind of. Yes, plays, you know, that kind of thing.

[Craig]

Honestly, that's. Most plays.

[Andrew]

It's. There is a feeling of that in this. But we can talk more about it later.

[Craig]

The what? This book was published what, 2015. Originally in Japanese, I think I saw.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Oh boy, I want to get that right now. Yes, 2015. And was a play in 2010. Began as a play anyway. And translated by Jeffrey Truselow in 2019. I can quickly tell you that Jeffrey, according to his LinkedIn, attended the university of Tasmania and the University of Sydney, lives in Japan and has credits for at least 15 English translation translations of Japanese books, including subject matters from cooking and fitness to Art history and design to biography and novels. The including later entries in this series such as Tales from the Cafe before your memory fades. And then other novels in this series include before we say Goodbye, before you forget Kindness. I think there are one or two more. It was adapted into a film called Cafe Funiculi Funicula.

[Andrew]

Listen, man, it's pretty cool that the name of the cafe in this book is Funiculi Funicula, which is a song from. It's a Neapolitan song.

[Craig]

I'm glad we both did the digging I'm glad we both did the digging.

[Andrew]

From 1880 that was written to commemorate a train system.

[Craig]

And I now that it's a train system. A funicular, Andrew. Going up Mount Vesuvius.

[Andrew]

Yes. And it's the. If you don't know it from the name, it's the song that goes. And because it's public domain, everybody, like, takes it and adapts it for kids cartoons and like the. The game Grape Escape, I think was.

[Craig]

Okay, two things. One thing that. Things that I thought were funny. So, yes, it's in public domain now, I suppose. But in the early 20th century, there's a lot of these. In 20th century, composers start taking folk songs, like tunes from folk songs and putting them into their music. You know, going off into the. Into villages and coming back with these folk, you know, tunes and then putting them into a larger piece of orchestral work or something like that. At least two different guys did this to Funicula Funicula, thinking it was a traditional folk song and not a promotional song that a Dude had written 30 years prior. And he got very mad. And I am very upset that Grape Escape is not on the Wikipedia entry for Funiculi Finicula. I may or may not take care of that, but if anybody listening would also like to take care of that, please. Wikipedia. It's the encyclopedia anybody can edit.

[Andrew]

It's the encyclopedia anyone can edit.

[Craig]

We do need. That's the way it happens when you play the Grape Escape. What is the.

[Andrew]

The thing. The thing that I. I don't remember the lyrics to the Grapescape song. You're gonna have to YouTube that next to old, like, VHS ads for Crossfire or whatever the. So as. As. As a parent, we. Henry did go through a Thomas and Friends phase that we've pretty. We've pretty much worked out. He's got affection for the characters and he remembers all their names, but we don't consume a lot of Thomas content day to day anymore. But I was deep in it for a while. And so the last three seasons of, like, the traditional Thomas run, the one that, like, originated with the old models back in, like, the 80s and came over to the US as Shining Time Station. I think it was 99% invisible or something. Did it. Oh, you went stop motion. That was so wrong.

[Craig]

Got so mad at that episode.

[Andrew]

They were so wrong about it. Made me. And they were. I can't I can't get into it. I can't get into it. We don't have time. Your coffee's getting cold.

[Craig]

It's still warm. This is a good mug.

[Andrew]

Shout out to the last. So the last three seasons of that is like, well, everyone loves Paw Patrol. Thomas is boring.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

Thomas needs to, like, go all over the world having adventures now to be more exciting. So the last three years of that program are called Thomas and Friends. Big world, Big adventures.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

And they introduce a bunch of ethnic trains that live in all the different countries that Thomas goes to. And there's an Italian train, and he's trained. There's an episode where he's transporting an opera singer, and he, like. So he. The train has a coach named Beppe who likes to sing with him all the time. And he's always like, no, Bepe, I sing. I sing alone. I'm a soloist. And then the. The lady who comes, the opera singer, is also snobby, and she's like, I'm a soloist. And she yells at the train when he tries to sing with her. But then they both get, like, she gets split up from her band and he gets split up from Bepe, and then both sad. And then they realize it's better to sing together.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But the song that they do sing is Funiculi Funicula, which is funny because it's a show about trains. And that's the story that I have.

[Craig]

I was googling about Funiculi Funicula, and this will probably. There's not anything else we can say about this book we can say after the break, I think.

[Andrew]

And I found it's relevant because it's the name of the coffee shop in the book before the coffee gets cold.

[Craig]

And in an interview with Sesay Arts, Kawaguchi said the title came to me first. It is the name of a song that Japanese people are quite familiar with. So when you hear it, you feel.

[Andrew]

A little nostalgic, I think unique to Japanese.

[Craig]

There was a citation on one of the pages I read that some, like, big, you know, name in Japanese pop music in, like, the mid 20th century did a version of it. So that's probably part of it. But on Quora.com, everyone's favorite website, Quora, someone asked the question yahoo, Yahoo.

[Andrew]

Answers for academics, for Frasiers, for all the Frasier cranes out there.

[Craig]

Do Italians in general feel themselves represented with the music Funiculi Funicula, as it's frequently done overseas? Most of the responses are, no, it's because that's because it's a Neapolitan song. Don't you understand Italy as a. As a state of nation states, it's like just a bunch of princes barely getting along. As a country, like, if you. It's not even in Italian, you rube, it's in Neapolitan. So I just thought that. I thought that question was so expertly written and all of the answers are in agreement that they're all. At least I found like a couple related questions that are like, why is this other Italian song more famous in Brazil among Italians who live in Brazil? Like, it is just kind of expat or, you know, emigre pride. I think in other countries outside of Italy. In Italy, they know it is a tourist song, basically.

[Andrew]

Okay, well, I mean, apparently the people doing Thomas and Friends, Big world, big adventures, were satisfied that it was Italian enough. And there is. If you're doubt. If you want to learn more, there is a page on the Thomas the Tank Engine wiki about funiculi funicula that refers to the episode where the song is sung.

[Craig]

How I love a happy ending. Hey, don't you bepe, don't you bepe, don't you bepe. Yeah, I love it. Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Well, let's take a quick Coffee is. Let me check. It's not room temperature yet.

[Andrew]

Every time you drink it, you reduce its volume and you make it cool off fast. Oh, I'm just.

[Craig]

Dang it.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So let's go.

[Craig]

Okay. Take a break.

[Andrew]

Calling all over Dewey Decimal Systems, we are.

[Craig]

That's on brand.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's the people. That's. That's our audience calling all of you who are listening to this. We are conducting an audience survey at GUM FM Overdue, and we want to hear from you so we can keep making content that you love. You know this. We know this. There are ads on our podcast. It's just the way it is. It's 2025. We want to improve that ad experience. But in order to do this, we need to know a little bit more about you, our aud. The survey is a quick, easy, and free way to support this podcast. It'll take you two minutes, and you'll be helping us out so much by doing it. Two minutes you could drink. That's not even the amount of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

[Craig]

Not usually. Not if you're me.

[Andrew]

If you think about it, go to gum.com, wait, gum fm. There we go. Gum fm overdue to fill out our audience survey. That's G U m F M O.

[Craig]

V E R D U E Andrew. This episode is brought to us by Real Quick Reviews. Thank you. I was waiting for it could have been quicker, but there it is.

[Andrew]

Sorry, I had the safety on.

[Craig]

This is @rqreviews on Instagram. Thanks to Tom for supporting the show. Real Quick Reviews doesn't waste your time. You see the pros and cons of a video game as well as scores in a single picture. Individual scores on how good the good parts are and how bad the bad parts are. I've never seen this before and I kind of love it. There's a pro score and a con score. Andrew. He recently reviewed Baldur's Gate, a game of Baldur's Gate 3, a game that you and I enjoy a lot.

[Andrew]

We do enjoy the pro score, but I would be curious to see what the cons.

[Craig]

The pro score is great game.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

The con score is like 6.5 because there are plenty of bugs and there's crashing and some other auto saving and no tutorial.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Again, these reviews are pretty good. They get right to the point. I don't know.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that game is so like, we usually play on mouse and keyboard and I plugged in a controller and I was like, I was playing a entirely different game and it was bewildering. Nobody told. Nobody told me it would be this way. So, yeah, I agree with that Con score. Like, teach me how to play a game. Maybe just a little.

[Craig]

Teach me how to Balder. Teach me. Teach me how to Balder. Our RQ reviews rewards you. Tom does a free Steam game giveaway on every review. Most recently, he's been giving away Sable. It's a really interesting open world exploration game that I definitely downloaded and played like an hour of because I really like the art style. I think you would like it if you looked at a video of it. And then we're like, I would like to play that. So you could go to RQ Reviews and get that giveaway. Maybe other game reviews that he's done recently. Dredge Cyberpunk. You can just go check it out again. For game reviews that don't overstay their welcome, head to RQ Reviews on Instagram. Don't. Don't do it slowly. Do it real quick.

[Andrew]

Go.

[Craig]

Andrew. I want to know more about this magical cafe because I went to panmcmillan.com's like, page for this series. This was a publisher and they have like a guide to the series and then they recommend some other books like the Lantern of Lost Memories where there's a magic photo studio, where you can relive one day of your life. Or the restaurant of lost recipes, where they serve nostalgia, where meals revive not only your favorite flavors, but your emotions. Which reminded me of a video game called Dave the Diver, which was pretty cool.

[Andrew]

All of these. All of. All of these book titles are like. And then. And then you can go to the boulevard of broken dreams, where you. Where you listen to a song and it brings you back to the time in high school where you discovered it.

[Craig]

Where Billy Joe Armstrong details to you a time that you got broken up with. Yes. So tell me about the Cafe Funicula. Funicula.

[Andrew]

Funiculi. Funicula. Grape Escape.

[Craig]

Yep. Mm.

[Andrew]

Okay, so it is a. It is a small cafe. It is. You walk into it, and it's kind of a timeless place, which makes sense because this will play into how the time travel kind of works. But it has just kind of been the way that it is forever. It's got, like, three clocks on the wall, and only one of them is right. And it's got a. Like a lazy spin and ceiling fan and no air conditioning. But it's always kind of, you know, cool and temperate in there, no matter how hot it is outside. And it's just a strange. It's a strange little hole in the wall place that is not super busy. It is famous because it made it out into the press at some point that this. In this cafe, there's a seat where you can time travel.

[Craig]

Oh, so people know about this. This is not like a book about a secret.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's not a book about a secret. It's a book where you can definitely go to this cafe and you can sit down and you can time travel. Oh, but, you know, you and me, when we read a time travel book, what do we. What do we like to talk about?

[Craig]

The rules.

[Andrew]

The rules. And there are so many rules and there are so many rules for this time travel cafe that everybody's like, this sucks. I'm not coming in here.

[Craig]

Oh, that's interesting. So it's not like, you know, that kind of negates, like, why wouldn't a government run in here and, like, take charge or something?

[Andrew]

Yes. Right.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And it's. And okay, so let me talk about the rules of.

[Craig]

Please.

[Andrew]

Time travel coffee shop. This is from a. The book is a little bit repetitive. This is something that people brought up in our. In our discord. And I think you do get over it a little. But it does repeat itself a lot to kind of establish what the rules are. So in this first.

[Craig]

Is it a couple different stories? Is that the structure?

[Andrew]

I think it is four. Yes. Four different. Yeah, four different, like, chapters.

[Craig]

Okay, okay.

[Andrew]

And one of. One of them is kind of the meat of the thing, and then the other ones are just kind of establishing tone and, you know, the kinds of things that you can do when you time travel in this cafe. So we've been given all the rules individually. And then now this. This woman who's in this cafe thinking about time traveling is kind of going over them again in her head.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Have them all in a row.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

The first rule, the only people one may meet while back in the past are those who have visited the cafe. The second rule, no matter how hard one tries while back in the past, one cannot change the present. In other words, even so, this is a woman named Fumiko who came to this cafe with her boyfriend, whose name is Goro. He's taking a job in America, and he's gonna go to America. And she doesn't tell him not to go. And then she regrets that, like, they kind of, like, break up, but she's sad about it.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And so she wants to go, like, her thing. I want to go back time. I want to talk to Gora. I want to make things different than they are. But no matter how hard one tries while back in the past, one cannot change the present.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

So you could go back and you could talk to, like. There's a really illustrative example of this later on where you're talking about. They're talking about just how, like, the universe will rearrange itself to, like, make the second rule be true.

[Craig]

Oh, neat. Okay.

[Andrew]

Even if, say, a murderer traveled back in time, she would have a good reason to leave it alone. The rule was that the present doesn't change. No matter how much one tries to rearrange things in the past. This rule could never be broken. A series of random events would always somehow unfold to prevent the present from changing. If, for example, a gunman came from the future and fatally shot a customer, as long as the customer was living in the future, he could not die even if he had been shot in the heart. That was the rule. Kazu or whoever that was there would call the ambulance and the police. The ambulance would leave for the cafe. This ambulance would not get caught in traffic. The ambulance would travel from the emergency center to the cafe and carry the patient from the cafe to the hospital using the shortest distance and in the fastest time. On looking at the patient, the hospital staff might say, we probably can't save him. Even if that happened, then a world leading surgeon would happen to be visiting the hospital and would operate on the patient. Even if the victim's blood was a rare type that only one in several 10,000 possessed, there would be a stock of such blood at the hospital. The surgery staff would be excellent and the operation would be successful. The surgeon might say later that if the ambulance had been one minute later or if the bullet had been located one millimeter to the left, the patient would not have survived. All the staff would say that it was miracle the patient survived. But it wouldn't be a miracle. It would be because of the rule which dictated that the man who was shot in the past must survive.

[Craig]

That's funny and witchful and you know.

[Andrew]

And you are kind of glossing over like, well, surely being in a near death experience would be traumatic. Change your life in some way. But I bet the rule is like you go to a really good therapist and she talks you out of feeling in any way or like traumatized by.

[Craig]

The thing that leads you to help people, which makes you a healthy person. It reminds me of a years ago I read that Stephen King book about the Kennedy assassination where he goes back in time.

[Andrew]

Cujo.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's what they called JFK. That was one of his nicknames. No, 1122 63. And there's a sentence in that book or a phrase that has always stuck with me, which is like the past is obdurate is the first time I ever heard that word. It means like persistent in wrongdoing or resistant to persuasion. And it, the, the way that that book works is there's this kind of like almost malignant feeling that you can't change the past. You're like, any attempt to significantly change events and change the future will like kind of like a. A supernatural force will like kind of stop you or something like that. This feels like the whimsical version of it where like, I don't know, man, the universe is just gonna keep doing what it's doing. You don't, you don't get to change things. Sorry.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I feel like when we've read a lot of time travel stuff for the show. Yeah, we have like, we've definitely read one where it's doing more of a butterfly effect.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Where you can like drink a glass of orange juice and change the entire course of world because you can. I feel like we've also read stuff where either I've read stuff or I've seen stuff where the past like really wants to be a Certain way.

[Craig]

Well, and then the point is you discovering that you can't and shouldn't change it for one reason or another.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right. Or just, like, weird stuff happening around, like, nature abhorring a vacuum and, like, the timeline trying to reassert itself. Like, this is all. I may or may not be getting this mixed up with any number of Star Trek episodes, but this is. It's all. It's like table stakes for time travel. For sure. You got to come up with a rule. I enjoyed that. This one is. Is hard and fast, and even if you try as hard as you possibly can to make it not true, it will assert itself.

[Craig]

Can you expand upon the first rule a little bit? Because I was a little confused. It's the. You can only talk to people who've been in the cafe. Like, how does that manifest?

[Andrew]

You are stationed. There is one seat in the cafe that time travels. There's the time travel seat. And we'll talk a little bit more about who is normally sitting in the time trial seat in a sec. But if you get up from the seat, it's not like you're trapped in the past or whatever. It just, like, breaks the magic that is making this happen and you snap back to the present.

[Craig]

So you have to stay in the chair.

[Andrew]

You have to stay in the seat.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

Is the, like, physical manifestation of this rule. So then it follows the only one you can. The only people you can meet are people in the physical space of the cafe.

[Craig]

Wow.

[Andrew]

Because you can't exactly. Like, like, there's a. There's one later where somebody gets, like, a phone call. Like, it's. It's not like you can't get a phone call, but it, like, you can't. You can't move is basically what the first rule amounts to. It's like, you're in this chair. You can't move. And so it follows that this rule exists.

[Craig]

Okay. Okay.

[Andrew]

And that actually. So the. Okay. The third rule, in order to return to the past, you have to sit in that seat and that seat alone. The fourth rule, while back in the past, you must stay in the sea and never move from it. The fifth rule, there is a time limit. And the time limit is a person at the cafe will come over to you and they report. They will pour coffee in your cup and steam will rise from the cup and it'll be like a doodly doodly doodle effect, and you get transported back to the past. And before that cup of coffee gets cold, you have to finish your business and drink the whole Thing because, okay, normally the occupant of the time travel seat is like a ghost.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

There's a whole. There's a whole. There's a whole different layer of it.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

She's like. She's like a ghost. We don't. Don't ask me anything about the ghost. We don't know what her deal is. She just sits there. She sits there all day. She's reading a book. If you try to take her seat while she's sitting there, you get cursed.

[Craig]

Oh.

[Andrew]

And that just means that you feel really bad and you get, like, pulled down to the ground like those gravity panels and Sonic the Hedgehog.

[Craig]

Exactly. Like the. Go to patreon.com overduepod we talk about Sonic Sonic 3 for 90 minutes.

[Andrew]

And it's not. It's not like a lasting curse or anything. You just make her really mad.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But Craig, she gets up to go to the bathroom once a day, and.

[Craig]

That'S when you got to slide into her.

[Andrew]

And that's. And that's when she goes to the bathroom. The ghost gets up to go pee, and you got to slide onto her chair, and that's when you can time travel.

[Craig]

How many times, how many days are there, like, eight people who are all trying to slide in at once?

[Andrew]

There are not. There are not that many people, Craig, because these rules are so onerous and it makes it all seem so pointless that nobody comes in and does it. So it's like a. It's a known fact that people who come to this cafe can time travel, but it's such a sucky kind of time travel, and there are so many conditions on it that everybody ends up being like, this is more trouble than it's worth. I am. I don't care about this.

[Craig]

Does the ghost know it's the time travel seat?

[Andrew]

The ghost doesn't really seem to interact with anyone except when being bothered.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Though somebody does. In, like, the. And I think, like, the third of the four chapters, one of the cafe people hacks the. Hacks the ghost. She just keep. She just keeps pouring her coffee over and over, and the ghost keeps drinking it and drinking it until she really has to go pee. And she gets up and she goes to pee.

[Craig]

Very funny. I like it.

[Andrew]

So, yeah, those are. What. What else do you. What else do you got? Those are the. Those are the rules.

[Craig]

Those are the rules.

[Andrew]

What do we know about now?

[Craig]

I mean, I guess, like, maybe use the FICO story as an example. Do it. Do we get to see her go back in time? How does that work for her? Like, can you paint me a portrait of how, like, her past going to her past or someone's doesn't change the future, but does, like, what does it mean? Why would I read a story about this if it doesn't change anything?

[Andrew]

Well, so I think the more illustrative story for what the book is getting has actually the second one, so my.

[Craig]

Request is rescinded, but.

[Andrew]

Well, no. You want me to use a story to tell you about. I don't know why people would bother to time travel.

[Craig]

Yeah, I do. That is exactly.

[Andrew]

Using this chair. There is a nurse named Kotake who comes in to the cafe. Her husband has Alzheimer's, and he's been, like. He's been steadily. He's been forgetting more and more. Like, kind of going back chronologically to the point where he's, like, he has stopped remembering that, like, she is his wife and, like, doesn't always remember who she is even anymore. And he would, like, come into the cafe with a letter, but she didn't want to. Like, she didn't want to read it or something. And so she. Now that he's, like, more fully forgetting stuff, she comes in and she wants to go back to when he would come into this cafe with a letter and grab the letter and see what it says.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

So she. So she does this. She talks to. She talks to him, and he, like, she realized that he had Alzheimer's before he told her, and, like, telling her was a hard thing for him to do. He's kind of a, you know, kind of a quiet guy who keeps to himself.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But he, like, he sees her and he gives her this letter, and the letter is kind of just telling. Telling her that he has Alzheimer's and telling. Telling her how much he loves her and wants her to, like, not. He. He wants her to feel, like, free of obligation to him. Sure. He doesn't want her to, like, feel like she has to stick around and take care of him if she doesn't want to. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And so her getting this letter doesn't change anything about the present. Like, it doesn't change her, like, her job. It doesn't change that he has Alzheimer's. It doesn't change any. Anything that, like, may or may not have been, like, said or unsaid between them. But knowing a little bit more about his, like, inner. Inner life, knowing more about him change. I mean, of course, learning that new information would change how you would interact or how you would act going forward.

[Craig]

Yes. So it does kind of bend the rule A little bit, I suppose.

[Andrew]

It's not. It's not that it bends. It doesn't change the present. The present is as you. Is as you left it. But.

[Craig]

But you. Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

How you choose. How you choose to go through the world going forward, that. That is what be altered, I suppose.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And so she, like, starts using his name again and decides, listen, I'm gonna. I'm gonna hang out with this guy and I am gonna take care of him because that's what I. What I want to do. Because, you know, I love this. I love this guy. And I don't know, they're just like little scenes through the rest of the book where they both come to the cafe and he sits down and she sits down and she says, I'm your wife. And sometimes he's like, I don't know who you are. And sometimes he's like, oh, really? And they just have, like, a nice little conversation and they are like. They are still getting to enjoy each other in a way, because she knows more about. Sure. Cause she went back in time and she found out more about them.

[Craig]

So this. Okay, so that feels like a. What you would gain from it. It sounded like what that first story was maybe building towards was a like. And then you learn you can't change things or something. Is that any. Is he interested in that trope?

[Andrew]

That's not. That's not what the book is.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I think that. And I think that dovetails with, like, the feel. The feel good nature.

[Craig]

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[Andrew]

So, yeah, it's never. The book is never interested in that kind of, like, nothing. Not that not nothing matters, but, like, it's not trying to make people face how, like, immutable the present is and kind of, like snap them into some revelation about. About something. Does that make sense?

[Craig]

No, it does. Yeah.

[Andrew]

It's snapping them into revelations, but it's not. It's never framed as, like, you. Well, you just gotta tough up and get over it.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Kind of thing, you know. Right. So the. The third story is a woman named Hirai who runs like a. It's kind of a restaurant across the street. She. She is. She's far from home. Back home, her parents run this, like, inn. And her little sister has been running this in because she. Herai, the older sister, left home and doesn't want to talk to the parents and avoids talking to the sister because the sister just keeps asking her to come home. And Hirai thinks, oh, my little sister wants me to come home to run this in because she feels like Trapped by this. And she has her own dreams. I've gone out to achieve my dreams because I didn't think I wanted to run this and I didn't want to do the family business business thing. So I assume that my little sister is trying to find me to make me come back so she can be free.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And so her sister dies in a car accident, like driving back to. Driving back home from trying to find herai to like talk to her. And so Hrai goes back and she does. She does the time travel and she talks to her sister and she says, you know, knowing that she knows the present doesn't change because of things you do in the past actually frees her up a little bit to like try and tell her sister what her eye thinks her sister wants to hear. So she says, yeah, I'll come back home. I'll run the inn. And her eyes sister is like, wow, this is. This is all I've ever wanted is for you to come back home and run this in with me and for us to do it together. And this, yeah, this changes her eyes perceptions of everything. And she decides, you know, to like, if my sister could. If my sister has to be like a dad, why don't I take that and try and honor her memory and make my parents happy and make some kind of happiness come from this sad thing. Sure, sure, sure, sure. And that's that story more than. And there's a fourth story that we'll talk about. But that story definitely drives home what the. What the. What the vibe of it is is like. Even when sad stuff happens and the present can't change like you get. She wants the whole time to yell at her sister, like don't go. You're going to die in a car accident. But she knows that. She knows it's not going to do anything.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

So this is a. This is a bit from the end of the book where it's really like, you know, driving home what it's like what the thrust of it is. The present doesn't change nothing about Fusagi change. But Kotake came to enjoy her conversations with him. That's the. The nurse and her Alzheimer's hus. Sure, Hirai had still lost her sister, but the photo she sent to the cafe showed her her looking happy with her parents. The present hadn't changed, but those two people had. Both Kotake and Herai returned to the present with a changed heart. And so it's about. It's about changing the future more than it is about like changing the past. Which is. Which is a weird. It's an interesting way to do it, I think.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Like, you can't. You can't go back and make things not happen, but you having more information about things that happened in the past can change how you act going forward.

[Craig]

This is basically the plot of all the Assassin's Creed games, I think, where, like, you're sending people back into their DNA past to learn where the. The sacred apple is so that they can, you know, change.

[Andrew]

I mean, my memory of the Assassin's Creed games is that you kill a lot of people.

[Craig]

Well, but I don't. But. But that's you living out your ancestors. Your ancestor already did that, Andrew.

[Andrew]

I think my. My read of that is more that it's a Quantum Leap style. You have to. You have to go back to the past because somebody is changing it, and you have to keep it from changing. You know? I mean, you know, I'm talking about.

[Craig]

I do know what Quantum Leap is. I.

[Andrew]

You know the kind of story.

[Craig]

Yes. No, I do. I. But I'm fairly. I think Assassin's Creed is.

[Andrew]

You're.

[Craig]

You're playing the. The MP4s of your DNA's history and learning information for the Stergo company.

[Andrew]

Enough about the Assassin's Creed games. But anyway, except for that one time that Italian guy shows up and says, it's a me, Mario, which is very.

[Craig]

Well, the one at the end where you fight Space Pope is pretty good, too. Yeah, I think it's the same one. Anyway, this is not a back to the future situation.

[Andrew]

No.

[Craig]

Where he. Where people come back, their coffee's gotten cold. My coffee is.

[Andrew]

Is.

[Craig]

Getting cold. We're running out of getting cold.

[Andrew]

All right. You probably heard a little alarm sound that's telling you that you need to drink it so you don't get trapped in the past.

[Craig]

But they are actually.

[Andrew]

Yeah. The thing that happens to you if you don't finish your coffee in time is you become coffee ghost.

[Craig]

No. Really?

[Andrew]

Yeah. And that's. We don't explore that or, like, who the current coffee ghost was before she became Coffee Ghost. But, like, that's the. That's. That's why you can't. That's why you can't do it, is you'll become coffee ghosts.

[Craig]

Oh, my God.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I know.

[Craig]

There's, like, this book sounds like it's really charming and winsome and makes you feel good. And then it's like, if you don't drink your coffee in time, you become coffee ghosts.

[Andrew]

There's a bunch of implications kind of lurking below the surface that the book is explicitly not interested in explaining. And it's not that sad stuff.

[Craig]

It would work if it did.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's not that sad stuff can't happen. It's just like any sad thing that happens is like the sadness that needs to happen so that happiness and joy can then spring from it.

[Craig]

That gets to, I think that like that healing fiction thesis of that article, which is like people who, if you're gonna read something that makes you feel kind of sad or wistful, you want it to be a. You want it to be kind of on purpose and you wanted to make you ultimately feel good that you felt that way a little bit. You know, I've ever engaged with a lot of works of art that on purpose in like emotional self flagellation way where it's like, yeah, I would like. I like that. This makes me cry. That is a. That is a thing I like about XYZ movie. You know, some movies that make me cry do not like that. I have not. Andrew the Mercumba time in the next few months where you and I watch the movie Deep Impact. It's on a list of movies that we would like to watch with some friends. And I saw that at a friend's birthday in like sixth or seventh grade and bawled my eyes out in the movie theater as a middle schooler at my friend's birthday party.

[Andrew]

Deep Impact.

[Craig]

Deep Impact. And I don't. I don't know what my response. I've never seen it since. I don't know what my response would be to the film.

[Andrew]

I mean, I'm scared as a possibly junior high schooler on the little TV in the band room, watch Armageddon on VHS and watched a scene where that guy is like putting animal crackers down Liv Tyler's underwear. And I'm like, well, I don't understand why people would do this. I don't get it.

[Craig]

Two paths diverge.

[Andrew]

I think these are both kind of explain a lot about the differences between us.

[Craig]

Can you tell me a little bit before you tell me about the fourth story which will probably bring us to a close? Tell me, is there anything interesting about the people who work at the cafe that's worth knowing that you haven't already said, like, it? I feel like in a. I'm, you know, thinking about this as a play as it started. Like, they would obviously be ever present characters, but certainly the way that these stories are structured, it seems like they are not the main characters. So, like, anything interesting about the people who work there that strikes you or they just kind of like in the background.

[Andrew]

I mean they are, they are kind of in the background. And then the people from like previous stories keep showing up in subsequent stories. Yeah, Famuku comes back a couple times. Kotakai is in there all the time. But yeah, the guy who owns the cafe is named Nagare. And his. And he is married to someone who also works at the cafe. Her name is Kei. And so you get to, you get to know them kind of ambiently a little bit through the first three chapters. Like there's a sequence that talks all about like the different ways that they choose to prepare coffee. Like some. Somebody you know, one of them is like a. You gotta, you gotta steam it up through the funnel of beans to like make the coffee. And that's how you do it. And some of them's like, yeah, you just gotta do the pour over of the grounds of the hot water. And that's how you make it. But the fourth story is about them. And I'll leave.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So K is pregnant, but she has always had kind of a weak heart. And her dad also had a weak heart and died when she was like 9 years old or something. And so she is like, doctors have told her if you have this baby, it is going to either kill you and the baby or like only the baby will live or like your lifespan will be significantly shortened because of the stress that this whole thing is going to put on your body. And so she says, okay, we live in the Time Travel Cafe. Is there a rule that says you can't go to the future? And there is no rule that says you can't go to the future.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Andrew]

It is just time travel. Like you can pick whatever time you want to go.

[Craig]

Huh?

[Andrew]

And so she would like to go to the future to meet her child and find out if stuff like worked out okay. And so yeah, that's like. It is I think the longest of the. Of the four chapters. It's. It's interesting because like they, they kind of get the time wrong. And so everybody that you've met in the whole rest of the book, like Fumiko is. Is there like 10 or 15 years older, like trying to, trying to make stuff happen. The people who own the cafe who've, like Nagare and Kazu, the other barista, like, they realize that the, the timing has been gotten wrong. So they're trying to call and like trying to make it so that this meeting can still happen. And then. Yeah, and then she meets her daughter and her daughter is like thank you so much for, like, giving me life. And I. You know, there are all these other people in this cafe who are. Who are raising me and who I love and who. And who I rely on. And K comes to, like, puts that together with some stuff that her, like, mother said and is like, when her dad died, her mom went around smiling all the time, and she was like, how could you. How could it. How could you be happy that. That dad is dead? And her mom's like, well, he wouldn't want to be like, would you want him to see us being, like, sad? Would you. Would. Would you want him to, you know, see that we were enjoying life and, like, you know, still able to be happy, you know?

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It's just kind of a.

[Craig]

How do you honor them? Is it by mourning them, like, exactly. In a really, you know, classically sad way? Or is it by finding a way to live the life that you would like to live with them even though they're gone?

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so this, like, helps to, like, this. And the. The act of going forward in time and talking to her daughter and also remembering, like, stuff about her own mom and dad, like, makes her feel more secure in this decision to, like, have this child, which also, like, takes stress off her body, which makes her feel better. It's like, the book doesn't, I don't think, really get into whether this changes the future and, like, whether she survives as a result of, like, having, like.

[Craig]

A. Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

[Andrew]

Clearer sense. Yeah, it doesn't really get into it, but there are a bunch of sequels. I don't know.

[Craig]

Okay, so it's not that she likes childbirth or something. It is that she just, like, she could.

[Andrew]

It just doesn't get into it.

[Craig]

It just doesn't tell us. Us. Oh, boy.

[Andrew]

It doesn't. And. And, you know, it's. It's strongly implied that she's not around by the time her daughter is, like, 15.

[Craig]

By that. Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But it's not, you know, it is left sort of ambiguous whether the future can change because of stuff that you went forward.

[Craig]

Sure. Okay.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, it's. It's, again, supposed to be kind of uplifting and freeing and just.

[Craig]

No, it sounds like this is a novel about learning more about yourself, and it just so happens to be at a magical cafe that allows you to travel through time, like.

[Andrew]

Yes. With a bunch of really strict rules. And also the fact that you might become a.

[Craig]

Well, that's kind of. Yes. I wasn't prepared for that. Rule the. The one interview I found with Kawaguchi with Sasaya Arts, where he talks about, like. Like, this is a book about the innate kindness in our humanity. You know, what can you do in this short period of time? What's interesting? What would you do if you had to do it, like, right now? And then he's asked if he would like to travel in time, and he says, yes, he would like to visit his father, who passed away when Kawaguchi was a child. He says, right now, I'm in my 50s, so I'm older than he was when he died. That's a very real thing. And I'm a novelist, and I'm in a situation that he probably never imagined me being in. So I'd like to go back and just kind of report to him and show him where I am. I think he'd be really happy, actually. I think he'd be. Before he would be happy. He would be super surprised. And like, that right there feels like if he hasn't turned that exact thing into one of the stories in these books. Like, that is the. That is a log line for one of these stories in these books.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like, that's. I think that's. That's the big thing. I think that might be one of the things people find comforting about it. It's just, like, you don't. You don't have to wonder over and over again. Even if it doesn't. Even if it doesn't change how things have played out, it makes it so that you can. Instead of running over a question in your head over and over and over again, like, did I ruin my sister's life by, like, trapping her in this inn? Or, you know, or am I gonna. Is my. Is my unborn child going to hate me because I died having them?

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like, you can. You. You can go and you can get the peace of mind that comes from. From knowing.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And, like, if I could time travel 10, 15 years in the future and just. Just, like, on the chance that I could see that, like, I don't know that I was gonna be fine or Henry's gonna be fine, like, I would probably. I would probably have a hard time not doing that, no matter how, like, dumb the rules were.

[Craig]

That's the thing is, I feel like there's probably, like, a web ring or, like, a group of these. I don't know what service they use in this book, but, like, a web.

[Andrew]

Ring is just a bunch of different independent websites that I'll put links to. Dude.

[Craig]

Yeah. They could all have Their own geocities pages where they all recount their experiences sitting in the ghost chair.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Of like.

[Andrew]

I think you're talking more about like a Facebook group. But like back in the.

[Craig]

But that's what I'm saying is like maybe in. Maybe we don't use Facebook groups.

[Andrew]

Yeah, no, I don't. I'm just saying I'm like a Facebook group in like 2007. Sure. Facebook group now where you can say that trans people have a mental illness.

[Craig]

Yeah, I don't want those Facebook groups. But no, maybe you just like find people. I do feel like there's a. And maybe that's why there are more books. I do feel like word would get out that this is actually like kind of interesting and useful.

[Andrew]

The people who make it through the rules and then have these like highly personalized little moments like they don't go to the news and like start blabbing about. It's kind of a. Yeah, maybe it's just like a self selecting group of people who are just like happy to have found some inner peace. And then like sometimes they hang out with each other for a little bit after like. I don't know. Here's the thing about subsequent stories.

[Craig]

Oh sure, there are more of them.

[Andrew]

This whole. Do you have the names of the other of the other books?

[Craig]

I have some of them. Tales from the cafe. Before your memory fades. Before we say goodbye, before we forget Kindness. Let me see. I think there are a few more.

[Andrew]

But as you look for that like the whole. The whole book is building toward the psych. Knowing coming back to the present with more information does change things, even though you can't, you know, no matter how many butterflies you step on, you can't change anything about what happens in the present.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

And so like subsequent books. Yes. I could see individual stories having like fun characters or some pathos or maybe you get to explore a bit more about like Coffee Ghost or whatever. Like maybe maybe some of the questions that you're asking get answered in subsequent stories.

[Craig]

Maybe.

[Andrew]

Also it feels a little bit like he kind of made the point that he had to make. And then you just keep like making like, like to. To a certain extent. And this is. Somebody in our Discord said they expected.

[Craig]

You to not like this book.

[Andrew]

Well, there a couple different. There are a couple different Discord comments, but somebody says my contribution is that the Coffee Book is one of my bookstore's bestsellers. Across the 2.5 years, we've been open to the tune of almost 500 copies sold. Follow up books are significantly less popular.

[Craig]

That was from Meg. Thank you, Meg.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I didn't know if we wanted to, like, talk to Meg.

[Craig]

I can just say. Just say that it's Meg. That's fine.

[Andrew]

But yeah, it's. It's a. It would be a balance between answering questions that this leaves unanswered or, like, picking it. Like, are there more rules that come along at some point or do we learn more about coffee ghosts? But also, you know, you made. You kind of. He kind of made the point that he had to make. And even already, like, some of these stories are a little bit, like, internally repetitive. Like, usually you have to go over the rules again, that was. There's, like a section where you have to, like, build up to the coffee thing and you go through the. The every. And like, you were just doing kind of the same, like, oh, I'm going to run out of time. Like, there is a very formulaic, like, structure to these. If you read, like, 20 of them, that maybe you would be like, well, maybe we don't need to do this every time.

[Craig]

Yeah, that was a common refrain among the Goodreads reviews that I read. I don't need to single any of them out. We've been talking about our Discord folks as well.

[Andrew]

My guitar is on the wall.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's vibes, but, like, a lot of them were, like, I really kind of liked how this book made me feel, but I didn't need to hear about the rules 10 times across four stories. And, like, that's. That's fair. I. To me, that actually doesn't. That speaks a little bit to the. He wanted to do, like, manga as, like, a storyteller, not like, we've talked a little bit about the. It's all set in one place. There are characters that come in and out. It feels very cozy. That, like, that makes it feel very like a play. But the, like, it has a structure that repeats every time. And we're going to, you know, go over each. Like, we got to reiterate the rules every time. Like, that feels like this is happening in issues a little bit or in episodes, you know, and not. Not to knock it. Obviously, it's. It's successful. But that, like, that might be a thing that doesn't work for people if they're like, I'm going to read a book of four of these. And then you. Maybe you need to read one at a time and, like, take breaks. But Nicole was the one who said yes.

[Andrew]

Nicole says, I'm secretly hoping Andrew hates it because he made Me so mad. My favorite thing is when Andrew and I hate the same book. I am glad that is a service I am glad to provide when I do hit a book that I don't like very much. I did. I. I enjoyed this one while being fully aware of why it might not be some people's cup of coffee, so to speak. Nicole, when you listen to this episode, I would like to. Maybe I'll just go in and ask you more about what you didn't like. But I would like to know if there. If the stuff you didn't like is what we've already talked about or if it's like different dimensions to the book that we hadn't really considered bookish in.

[Craig]

The Discord said some very nice novels coming out of Japan lately that really make you think about humans connections to each other, how we impact each other's lives and the nature of regret.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean, they're gonna be localizing a manga version of story about the first three Dragon Quest games that I'm really looking forward to having in English finally after many years. So, you know, this really make you think about humans connections to each other.

[Craig]

This coffee is pretty cold, Andrew.

[Andrew]

I think you drank your coffee and it's cold. Oh, no. You're the coffee ghost sight.

[Craig]

Oh, no. Well, thanks for coming back.

[Andrew]

I enjoy. I enjoyed it. I don't. I like. I think I liked this more than Cat who's Eight books. I think I found cat books a little like. It's been a while since I'd read it. Obviously.

[Craig]

I thought it was eight years ago.

[Andrew]

Yes. My. My memory of it is that it was, you know, it was like blandly pleasant and a little meandering and it was fine. I don't know that I need to read more of these. I wouldn't be upset to read more of them, but I don't like. I'm not gonna go out, I don't think and buy the second one.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Sometimes have when I've read the first in a series for the show. But yeah, I enjoyed it. I had a fun time with my, you know, my. With. With the time I spent with it.

[Craig]

Cool.

[Andrew]

Well, yeah.

[Craig]

I'm glad you dug it. I'm glad that you. Oh, there's no cat in it. Right. Is there a cat?

[Andrew]

There's no cat in it.

[Craig]

No. So there. Someone on Goodreads was very upset that there's a cat on the COVID because somebody added a cat to the COVID because of the prevalence of magical cats in this genre.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And apparently it makes people Mad because there's no.

[Andrew]

It's possible that there are cats in subsequent books, but. Yeah. No, no cats in this.

[Craig]

Yep. Just a ghost that I didn't know.

[Andrew]

It really seems like such a sleepy cafe, like, would really demand to have just like a cat who.

[Craig]

Come on.

[Andrew]

Wandered in and out. Come on. Disregarding, you know, any, like, health codes about having animals in food preparation spaces.

[Craig]

I love cafe cats.

[Andrew]

Cafe cats are cool. Yeah, bar cats are better.

[Craig]

Well, that's what I meant. Sorry, that's kind of what I meant, but okay. I was being European. Excuse me.

[Andrew]

Typical.

[Craig]

Yeah, this coffee is definitely cold. We gotta get out of here. Andrew, thanks for telling me all about this book. I would travel in time with you if we were both allowed to sit in the chair. I don't know if any of these stories explore two people traveling in the street.

[Andrew]

If you try, like sit in the lap or something.

[Craig]

Just squeeze next to each other. If you, the listener, want to tell us about your favorite coffee shop and whether or not it allows you to travel through time, send us an email. Overdue podmail.com hit us up on social media at overdue pod. We're mostly on Blue sky and Instagram these days. Thanks to Linda, Emily, Rabia, Grace, Rebecca, Pat, Claire and more for reaching out in the past week. Our theme song is composed by Nick Laurens. Andrew, if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue Pod Podcast.com is our Internet website where we keep the books that we are going to read and the ones that we have read. You can read along with us or just kind of get a sense, get a, get a look at where things are going next week. Craig, what are you reading?

[Craig]

I'm gonna be slurping up some Chicken Soup for the Soul.

[Andrew]

Gross.

[Craig]

I.

[Andrew]

We also.

[Craig]

I don't. I don't know that I'm going to like it. I've read a little bit of it so far. That's.

[Andrew]

That, that's what I have at least two but. Well, if you think about the jungle and like meat, we're talking a lot this month about things that are in, best enjoyed, hot. And I just don't. I don't know if we intended to do like a hot month, but in January, a hot month in a hot month and a cold month is what this is. Patreon.com overduepod we just rolled out a whole scad of changes.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Including Dusty Bookshelves, our new monthly newsletter, a kind of an experimental one off episode where we went to see sonic the Hedgehog 3 in theaters and we talked about it for 90 minutes. Sit me baby one more time. Our ongoing long read project about the babysitters club. We're going to read dawn and the Impossible 3, which sounds like a Marvel.

[Craig]

Film, to be perfectly honest.

[Andrew]

Sounds like a Marvel. I mean, they've tried to do the Impossible 3 a bunch of times. It keeps not working.

[Craig]

It kind of recast the one guy because he's capable. No. And you also, you can get ad free episodes.

[Andrew]

Ad free episodes. Access to our Discord server.

[Craig]

We're going to start doing monthly Q and A streams. So if you want to talk to us about coffee, you got to come to the Q and A stream.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And I think. I think, you know, we've done Q and A episodes in the past that have been more general. I think doing them more frequently will. Will lend itself to people asking questions about books that we've read recently while we still remember the things that we. We read and thought about the books.

[Craig]

I'm very excited about that, actually. Like, because usually after an episode is over, there's like two or three things. I was like, oh, I just, like, didn't remember to say that. Or I didn't like because of the nature of the show where we are, like, sharing books the other person hasn't read. Like, if somebody who has read it has a question that didn't come up, then I just don't get to talk about it. So, like, that's. That's something I'm excited about in the Q&As.

[Andrew]

For me, there are books that I remember for years and years, and there are books where we hit stop on the. On audacity.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And then I go into my brain, I'm like, all right, time to flush the old brain toilet and forget that I ever read this book.

[Craig]

You got. You run away like that ghost. You got to go to the bathroom.

[Andrew]

I made. I made my content. Now this can leave. Let's shoot it out into space.

[Craig]

Yeah. I'm excited to find out how good my soul is. Next week, check out Chicken Soup for the Soul. We'll see how I'm feeling. If I'm feeling well, if I'm feeling burned full of noodles. We'll see.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I mean, little stars.

[Craig]

Yeah. Chicken. New chicken noodles can be anything.

[Andrew]

One time when I was a little kid, I ate a bunch of chicken noodle soup that was shaped like the stars, and I threw up. And I threw up so quick after I had eaten the soup that it was all still shaped like little stars.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

That's an unpleasant throw up. Is when it still looks like what it looked like when you ate it.

[Craig]

I'm not gonna describe what anything was. I just have a very vivid memory in fifth grade of a kid named Grand. Greg could not keep.

[Andrew]

Not you.

[Craig]

Nope. Not Greg with a G. Could not.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but this is not like. Oh, yeah, his name was Greg. No betting.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

Yeah, okay.

[Craig]

He could not keep his lunch down while we were collectively as a class. Popcorn. Reading. 100. What's 101? Balloons.

[Andrew]

What?

[Craig]

That's a book. And I can still see the floor of the classroom in my brain. Brain is what I'm saying. Shout out to Greg. I don't. I don't know how you're doing these days. If you're a cool person.

[Andrew]

Better than that. Yeah.

[Craig]

I hope your stomach's okay. I guess maybe that's it. Andrew, get us out of here.

[Andrew]

All right, everybody, thanks for listening to this. And until we pour you a hot cup of podcast next week, please try to be happy. I. That was a headgum podcast.