Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

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00:00:50.980 Hey, y'all. Joe here and welcome to Sunday Nice Things.

00:00:54.380 I'm really excited to introduce you to a new show today. It's the Smart Podcast Trashy Books

00:01:01.920 Romance Novel Podcast, and it was created by my good friend Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches 0.99

00:01:07.740 Trashy Books. Sarah's been talking about romance novels in a really smart way 1.00

00:01:12.420 since before the massive romance novel renaissance. She's brilliant, she's an absolute delight,

00:01:18.140 and she's done 700 episodes of this podcast. Usually she interviews authors, readers,

00:01:24.260 reviewers, and bloggers about romance novels, which, I gotta tell you, are among the most

00:01:29.500 popular genres in fiction worldwide. Today's episode is just a little bit different.

00:01:37.900 Her guest is our mutual friend, Amanda Mata, who's best known online as a royals commentator.

00:01:43.520 But she also has a podcast called The Art of History. In this episode, she comes on the show

00:01:49.020 and does something really fun. She gives her art of history treatment to some classic old school

00:01:54.260 romance book covers. Yeah, there's some Fabio in here. It's so much fun and so are other episodes 1.00

00:02:00.980 of this podcast if, like me, you're a romance lover. Hello and welcome to episode number

00:02:13.520 700 of Smart Podcast Trashy Books. I'm Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Amanda Matta.

00:02:20.400 Amanda is a debut author. Her book is coming out in 2027. She is a media commentator,

00:02:25.560 a royal analyst, and an art historian. Now, I have mentioned Amanda before,

00:02:31.080 specifically her podcast, Art of History, which I love. In each episode, she focuses on one

00:02:37.260 particular piece of art and explains the history, the context, the symbolism,

00:02:41.660 and even gives details about how it was made i really like this show and i thought hang on

00:02:47.740 why not have amanda matta give the art of history treatment to some classic old school romance

00:02:54.040 covers it was very fun i'll spoil it right now it was terrific it's big fun i'm so excited to

00:02:59.900 share it with you we also discuss royal watching racism influencing commentating on popular culture

00:03:07.080 Henry VIII's codpiece, art history, and more. As I mentioned, this is our 700th episode. Yay!

00:03:15.200 And it will be both video and audio. Now, the audio will be available on your regular podcast

00:03:21.360 feeds. If you are listening to this episode because it arrived in your queue, hello there.

00:03:26.100 This episode will include both of us discussing and describing the covers in question.

00:03:31.000 However, on the video, you get to see both of us, and more importantly, you'll see all the covers.

00:03:36.800 There will be a link in the show notes should you wish to watch it on YouTube, and I hope that you will.

00:03:41.960 The new software I was using to edit the video was a bit exasperating and also very fun,

00:03:47.720 and I'm still working on that learning curve, so I hope you enjoy it.

00:03:51.020 And speaking of YouTube, did you know the podcast has a YouTube channel?

00:03:55.180 Totally does, it's true.

00:03:56.640 Each new episode is automatically uploaded, so if you prefer your podcasts on the tube, we have got you covered.

00:04:03.300 Also, between us, this channel is brand spanking new

00:04:06.660 because I had to recreate it

00:04:08.180 after YouTube deplatformed my last one with no explanation. 1.00

00:04:11.960 I am presuming bitches are to blame, but I can't prove it. 1.00

00:04:14.960 The, you know, the name bitches, not like actual bitches. 1.00

00:04:18.020 Like I'm not calling anyone at YouTube a bitch. 0.99

00:04:19.740 I'm just saying, you know, 1.00

00:04:20.840 the word bitches is probably the reason. 1.00

00:04:22.960 So anyway, I would appreciate it very, very much 0.89

00:04:25.700 if you would be so kind as to subscribe

00:04:27.440 to the YouTube channel.

00:04:28.600 Again, link in the show notes.

00:04:29.980 And if we hit 100 new subscribers, oh, Amanda and I will live broadcast something very fun

00:04:37.920 and extremely silly to thank all of you.

00:04:41.220 Most of all, thank you for being part of the podcast community and helping us reach 700

00:04:46.460 episodes.

00:04:47.280 The show is here because you are here and this is a massive milestone.

00:04:52.320 Thank you very, very much.

00:04:54.300 I also have a compliment this week, which is my favorite.

00:04:58.280 it? Okay. My compliment this week is for Gillian S. Gillian, if there was a trophy for the most

00:05:05.460 excellent French fries, the greatest hugs, the most infectious laughter, and unparalleled style,

00:05:12.500 you would win it every time and all your friends would be nominating you.

00:05:17.180 If you would like a compliment of your very own, have a look at patreon.com slash 1.00

00:05:22.580 smart bitches. Our Patreon community is the reason that there are no dynamic ads before 1.00

00:05:27.660 or after the show. With listener support, I was able to turn off all of the dynamic ads,

00:05:32.460 the one you hear immediately before or after, sometimes there's more than one. I turned them

00:05:37.640 off to avoid ads for ICE and other right-wing propaganda. So instead of Patreon offering ad

00:05:43.640 free episodes, our Patreon community made every episode free of dynamic ads for everyone. Thank

00:05:50.380 you. In addition, Patreon support helps me procure more issues at romantic times,

00:05:54.900 learn software that is kind of annoying but also useful keeps the show going and ensures an artisan

00:06:00.880 handcrafted transcript by garlic knitter hi garlic knitter your support means a lot and if you're

00:06:06.540 curious about subscriber benefits there is a collection at patreon of our bonus content and

00:06:12.860 i will be adding new samples soon i do love a sample if you would like to join our patreon 1.00

00:06:17.700 community it would be awesome if you did have a look at patreon.com smart bitches and if patreon 1.00

00:06:23.820 support is not in the cards, might I ask you to leave a review for the show where you listen 1.00

00:06:27.800 or just, you know, tell people, tell everyone you know. That helps too. So are you ready for

00:06:33.100 episode 700? I am very ready to share it with you. I'm so excited. On with the podcast, me and

00:06:39.220 Amanda Matta and some classic old school romance covers, which some of you helped me select.

00:06:45.500 I am Amanda Matta. I am a royal commentator, but an accidental one. I stumbled into this

00:06:53.680 space about four years ago when Harry and Meghan went on Oprah and we all had thoughts. And my

00:07:00.940 explainer for how I got into this line of work is I had no one in my real life to share these

00:07:06.460 thoughts with. So I made a TikTok and boy, did I come out of the gate running. The subject of my

00:07:13.440 first, my inaugural TikTok was who in the royal family was racist about baby Archie. Oh, wow.

00:07:20.340 Okay. That's not even just the deep end. That's like, wow, here's the middle of the ocean. That's

00:07:24.940 where I'm going to start. Yeah. I had no idea because I wasn't really in the royal watching

00:07:29.980 spaces before that. I love watching the royals, but I did it at home in the private of my own home

00:07:37.660 before that. I had no idea how crazy it could get and was going to get because that was really the

00:07:43.320 beginning, the outset of the cuckoo bananas land that royal watching has turned into in the past

00:07:48.400 five years. So I've said this before. I have always been fascinated with the language about

00:07:55.420 the British royal family because it is a microcosm representation of how we talk and manage

00:08:03.180 and negotiate with colonial pasts, racist pasts, wealth disparity. The way that the royal family

00:08:11.720 in England is so protected and they'll just make up whatever the hell they want to justify that

00:08:16.200 narrative, that is like a microcosm of exceptionally powerful propaganda. And it is

00:08:20.840 everywhere now. Yeah. And not only the royal family making up stuff, the press doing it for

00:08:27.880 them with this not so invisible contract anymore. It's right out in the open. I'm in Maryland and I

00:08:34.440 can see it from here. Yeah. I say this all the time. It is because monarchy is still a system

00:08:40.420 of government. You know, it's not just Kate Middleton in a coat dress. It's never just a

00:08:44.520 quote, people's attitudes towards the monarchy really are a reflection, like you said, of

00:08:49.520 their worldview, like conservative, traditional versus progress, change like that. It is. It's

00:08:56.740 a microcosm of what's playing out in the world on a global scale. So, yeah, when you say to me,

00:09:02.220 I don't know, not you, when someone says to me, oh, there's just something about Meghan. I can't

00:09:07.620 put my finger on it. I didn't I didn't jive with her. I liked her in the beginning. I was rooting

00:09:11.500 for her, but I'm just like, there it is. It's racism. Yeah. White supremacy. All of the isms

00:09:20.800 when people say, you know, what was, what was wrong? Like, what was the problem? Where did it

00:09:25.420 all go wrong with me? I'm like, name your ism, racism, classism, colonialism, xenophobia,

00:09:31.000 misogyny. Thanks. You owe me a soda. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's all of them. So anyway, 0.63

00:09:36.820 I dove right in with that. And now I'm in my fourth year of royal commentating. I'm

00:09:41.560 writing my own first book. I'm so excited for you. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's forthcoming

00:09:48.320 from 10 Speed Press in spring of 2027. I'm delivering the manuscript in a few months,

00:09:53.160 but they print in the UK. So there's like a little bit of a delay, but always, always. And

00:09:57.960 the world of publishing don't even get me started right now. But yeah, so that's forthcoming. I also

00:10:03.420 to do some podcasts in addition to TikTok and Instagram. I am aware. So I co-host a royal news

00:10:11.820 podcast with Meredith Constant, who is another lovely commentator. She's more into the newsy

00:10:17.000 side of things. And my jam has always been history and culture and fashion and art. So we meet up

00:10:23.860 once a week and it's a fabulous time if you want to dissect royal media narratives. And then I also

00:10:29.080 have an art history podcast, which is my baby. You're jumping up and down. It is fine. I'm

00:10:35.200 bouncing in my seat because of the show. Anyway. Thank you. Yeah, I think I was like a year into

00:10:42.240 doing royal commentary and I had built my platform up to a certain point. And I was like, what do I

00:10:47.180 want to be doing with this platform? And I have two art history degrees and it was a pandemic and

00:10:53.940 the museum industry collapsed. And I said, here, here is a way I can use my art history degree

00:10:58.980 finally so the Art of History podcast yeah also in its fourth year I love it so much I've had to

00:11:05.360 scale it back over time because like I said writing a book but I will never let it go like

00:11:11.320 ever I love that show so much that's why I like it because I can tell how much you're having a good

00:11:16.100 time yeah it's just me and a mic like I don't have a production team I have a network but they just

00:11:21.000 really put ads in the middle it's just me writing recording editing look at my production that's my

00:11:27.480 sound assistant my cat yeah I hear you it's just me too I love it it's I think the best way to

00:11:32.420 create content because not just being a control freak but you can say whatever you want you can

00:11:37.480 make whatever jokes you want I've recorded with some shows where there are producers on the call

00:11:41.780 and they go off of scripts and I'm just like I'm so deeply uncomfortable right now like I do not

00:11:46.900 that's not my style at all kudos to anyone who like has gotten to that level I really admire

00:11:52.640 you for your work ethic and getting to that point I just feel like it would be a double-edged sword

00:11:56.860 for me. I will script my intros, but it's mostly bullet points. So I know I don't think that's

00:12:01.180 something. I don't know if I could do like a scripted, narrated podcast. Mine, like you,

00:12:05.660 has always been me and a mic and maybe a guest or my frequent co-host, Amanda, other Amanda.

00:12:11.040 Yes. Lots of Amandas. And I get it. The idea of, well, I'm interested in this and I'm going to

00:12:17.940 talk about it and somebody else must be interested. That's how the internet works. So here I am with

00:12:23.880 a website and I have a blog and a podcast about romance novels. So I understand what you mean.

00:12:28.400 Yeah, definitely. Yeah. For me with art history, I was looking for art history podcasts

00:12:33.160 during the pandemic, but I'm very picky in the format that I like to listen to. I'm not a big

00:12:39.280 interview listener. I've gotten better at sitting through an interview, especially when it's women 1.00

00:12:44.080 talking to women. But I've noted that men talking to men, I cannot do. I can't sit through an 0.94

00:12:48.940 episode like that my biggest problem is that sometimes like i'm listening to you and you

00:12:55.740 were listening to me we're actively listening and responding to each other whereas there are a lot

00:13:01.100 of podcasts and it's not just by gender but this is definitely a habit with male hosts where they're

00:13:06.060 just waiting for their tone their turn to talk they're there it's like two people are having

00:13:10.320 conversations at each other but they're not actually talking to each other i can't do that

00:13:14.120 yeah i can't do that either i get they have their talking points and i don't know if it's something

00:13:17.840 with like the rise of AI,

00:13:19.240 like spitting out a script or something,

00:13:21.820 they have these one-liners they want to get in.

00:13:23.920 And I've noticed that like over the years as well.

00:13:26.700 It's just like, this is not a conversation

00:13:28.340 I would sit, I would participate in.

00:13:30.860 I do not want to sit and listen to it.

00:13:32.840 No, it's like people think out loud.

00:13:34.860 I don't want to do that either.

00:13:35.880 I don't have that problem with this show or my own.

00:13:39.180 Yay!

00:13:40.560 We're winning.

00:13:41.920 I first, before I forget,

00:13:43.760 I want to make sure you are,

00:13:45.040 you're aware of Tressie McMillan Cottom, right? 0.98

00:13:47.840 hmm no i'm not familiar with her okay tressie mcmillan cottam is a sociologist uh she's a

00:13:53.900 mcarthur fellow and she is i think currently at i want to say unc she's a chaired professor

00:14:00.340 of sociology she wrote a book about a predatory for-profit higher ed and she also talks a lot

00:14:06.400 about class now she's looking at society as they as a black woman and she wrote a really good

00:14:14.600 article about, I think it was during the period of like, where the hell did Kate go? Where she

00:14:19.620 talks about watching the royal family is like celebrity watching through mason jar glasses,

00:14:27.400 because it's all about class. And her thesis is that when things are chaotic, we cling to class

00:14:34.680 because that reassures us of our place. And since the UK, especially the English are fucking 0.99

00:14:40.460 fetishizing class, like it's their most subtle, comprehensive, nuanced societal, like, delineation. 0.99

00:14:48.200 When times are chaotic, people start grabbing onto their class structure with higher than them. Okay,

00:14:54.920 so if the people who are higher than them are still there, then they are still higher than the

00:14:58.120 people they feel superior to and they can start, you know, they can continue to punch down. It's

00:15:01.980 all very much reassuring yourself that you are where you are, because the people who you consider

00:15:06.620 above you are still above you. And that informs so many things, both. And in the U.S., class is

00:15:12.580 education. That's our message was you move up in class by getting educated, which is now why

00:15:17.880 there's all these obstacles to anybody who's not a white guy getting into college, funding,

00:15:23.080 schools, support, all of that. All of that is because our education and class systems are

00:15:28.080 connected. Her talks on this are incredible. I actually recorded one of her Instagram lives

00:15:32.480 like a fucking creeper because she's talking about this i'll send it to you it is like i've 0.97

00:15:36.520 watched it 10 times and yeah please my mind goes anyway and you did you plugged her book lower ed 0.99

00:15:41.680 it's on my reading list um it's so funny because we were just in ireland and actually one of our

00:15:46.840 taxi drivers said basically that same thing he said i love america because we said you know

00:15:52.000 we're american he asked where we were from i love america everyone's the same everyone's in a pool

00:15:56.100 together but he knows he had the right spirit yeah but he was directly comparing it to their

00:16:03.040 neighbors in the uk you know there is that class system and everyone knows their place you're

00:16:08.620 absolutely right they're and it it's comforting in a way i guess to those sorts of people who

00:16:15.440 really do care about class because but then it could also so easily be threatening which i again

00:16:20.660 I think brings us back to Megan, which as so many things do, you know, it all really can come back

00:16:26.500 to Megan. People sometimes get up my butt, you know, why are you bringing Megan into this story

00:16:32.100 about Will and Kate on vacation? It's like, well, this poor woman, she's right there because it's 0.91

00:16:36.640 right there. And if we are looking to pick apart media narratives and worldviews, I have to do it.

00:16:41.800 I'm so sorry. No, you can't ignore it. Ignoring it is part of the problem. Pretending like it's

00:16:46.680 not happening as part of the problem. And like I said, it's soothing to have your biases confirmed.

00:16:52.820 And then once your biases have been soothed, it's really easy to just push you into other

00:16:57.120 biases. Like, oh, yes, absolutely. And if you think about it, the clearest illustration is

00:17:02.320 how before Megan, everyone was like subtly and not so subtly picking on Kate's middle class.

00:17:07.440 Parents had a paved driveway. That's a real narrative.

00:17:11.100 How dare they not have?

00:17:12.620 It was so crass of them.

00:17:14.340 And if they had put down gravel, it would have been the wrong size.

00:17:17.800 Right.

00:17:18.100 Wouldn't have understood.

00:17:18.840 The wrong grit.

00:17:19.920 Yes.

00:17:20.500 Nicely.

00:17:21.200 Yeah. 1.00

00:17:21.880 You know, you have all of these little nipples. 1.00

00:17:23.640 She jumped her place. 1.00

00:17:25.740 And then Megan came in and was like, okay, now she really, like, we don't even have a

00:17:29.740 way to recognize this. 0.55

00:17:30.900 Too many isms.

00:17:31.800 We can't.

00:17:33.120 For me, you know, I'm coming up from, I'm really bootstrapping my way into royal commentary.

00:17:37.960 Most of the royal commentators and reporters have immense amounts of access and connections.

00:17:42.340 and it's you know i'm in an interesting transition period because i'm starting to get quoted i i'm

00:17:51.060 a contributor to us weekly that's like where you can usually find me in the royal headlines uh if

00:17:55.720 you open i'm sorry i know you're a commentator you hell yeah i know that's massive thank you i can't

00:18:04.280 believe it either um yes if you open to the cover story you'll usually find like royal expert amanda

00:18:09.340 mad i'm like i'm not an expert i just like i know the system i i've looked into it quite a bit over

00:18:15.260 the years but i get some flack sometimes because i am so vocal about megan and now i'm mostly

00:18:22.780 commenting on kate and william and the children and charles and camilla and it's like well

00:18:28.000 some people will look at that and say you turned tail now you're shilling for the palace and i find

00:18:35.640 that so fascinating because it's like no royal news is it has always been royal news and that's

00:18:41.780 where i'm interested in looking and i don't think there's anything wrong with a quote-unquote woke

00:18:48.620 person or a progressive voice kind of being inside that commentary space yeah that's the

00:18:54.700 best way to change these attitudes and combat these worldviews from inside um i actually just

00:19:00.900 saw kamala harris was on said it couldn't have been colbert because colbert's done a talk show

00:19:06.640 where she was talking about there is on the air through 2026 or did he get taken off the air

00:19:11.160 i'm not sure it might have been colbert it was very early this morning his show is allegedly

00:19:15.260 supposed to run through spring 2026 but the way he's been carrying on he might he really is just

00:19:20.800 like bucky and i dare you bro i wanted to say it was colbert it must have been so she was talking

00:19:25.520 about not wanting to run for governor again because the system is broken and she doesn't 0.99

00:19:30.080 want to participate in that system right now. And she was reflecting on, you know, going into

00:19:34.820 the field of prosecution and her family, like, really questioning being a prosecutor. And the

00:19:39.740 thing she said that stuck out to me was, like, I can't change the system if I'm on the outside.

00:19:44.900 Like, if we're on bended knee, like, just pleading, banging on the door, changing the system,

00:19:49.920 that's not helpful. That's not going to be constructive. And I think the same can be said

00:19:54.760 If we're looking at royal news, royal media as a microcosm of the global stage, like for that, you know, you got to kind of be on the outside.

00:20:04.320 You got to be the person writing these histories, illuminating what's going on in order to see progress.

00:20:11.220 Well, I have some bad news for you.

00:20:12.640 Oh, boy.

00:20:13.240 You are very likely going to be a threat to white supremacist narratives, specifically, yay, royalty.

00:20:18.400 because I mean personally I think royalty is a human rights violation and this particular one

00:20:23.460 is a white supremacist prop but also you're going to be a threat to established media in the UK and

00:20:28.360 they don't like that. Yeah Richard Eden you know Richard Eden for the Daily Mail. He has a beef

00:20:33.460 with me. Somebody pees in his Cheerios like every morning this guy is so unhappy. It's ridiculous.

00:20:39.060 You just scoop the joint and sit down. He loves to call people that do exactly that challenge 0.90

00:20:45.780 the system, Megan Cheerleaders. So in my merch store, you can get a Megan's Cheer Squad t-shirt

00:20:50.580 if you consider yourself a Megan Cheerleader. Yeah. All right. Listen, I am relentlessly

00:20:57.920 fascinated by this. I could talk to you for hours, but I did bring you here for a very nefarious

00:21:02.060 purpose. I'm ready. My body is ready. So please tell me a little bit about your degrees and how

00:21:07.340 you got into art history, because this is a really interesting, but also, as you noticed,

00:21:12.980 vulnerable field right now. Yes. To go and see the art, you have to go into a place. And sometimes

00:21:17.900 going into a place means exposure. And now those places are being underfunded or eliminating their

00:21:23.360 funding. So it's already even more precarious. Please tell me how you got into this field. Like,

00:21:28.520 what is your experience? Well, so I was an art kid growing up, but I was also, I was raised in

00:21:34.560 like a very economically conservative family. So I never even for a moment entertained the thought

00:21:41.360 of like studying studio art. I love painting. I'm an oil painter. But yeah, I never really

00:21:48.040 thought seriously about, hey, like I could actually go to art school. It had to be channeled

00:21:52.080 into a more constructive, more academic sphere. And don't get me wrong. I loved my program. I

00:21:58.460 loved the degree I got, but that's how I got into it. So yeah, I live in Pennsylvania. I was looking

00:22:04.300 at online programs, junior year of high school, as you do. And Juniata College here in Pennsylvania

00:22:09.800 It actually has one of the very few combined art history museum studies programs in the

00:22:15.260 country.

00:22:15.720 Oh, interesting.

00:22:16.640 I want to say it might be more now.

00:22:18.180 It might be less now, actually.

00:22:19.520 At the time, I think there were like 12 programs in the country that offered this.

00:22:23.640 So I got a joint degree in art history and museum studies.

00:22:26.180 So I was getting that practical gallery experience while I was doing the art history.

00:22:31.780 And I absolutely love it.

00:22:33.420 I really fell into the education side of things.

00:22:35.440 after I finished my bachelor's, I went on for a master's in, oh, it's like a dual program at

00:22:41.680 Drexel. It's art administration and museum leadership. So both museum governance and

00:22:46.900 like running an art gallery were in that program. And then COVID happened. Yeah. Art politics,

00:22:53.240 art and politics. Liaising with a board. I had a whole course on that. Yeah.

00:22:57.500 You had a course on liaising with a board? Oh my. We just did case studies on, hey,

00:23:02.760 what if your board, like, won't talk to each other? What do you do? Like, it was, it was

00:23:07.580 fantastic. Oh, that's comprehensive, because I have met many a board that was much dysfunction.

00:23:12.780 Yeah, it was great. So yeah, I took it that route, because I love going to museums. I've always loved

00:23:18.020 learning through museums. Experiential learning, I think, is a really underrated

00:23:22.020 tool for education. And like I said, then COVID happened. And I got my degree December 2019,

00:23:29.860 got my first museum like job full-time March of 2020 oh yeah yeah so I hung on there for a while

00:23:40.600 but the field really is undergoing a lot of change uh funding is being cut I mean it has

00:23:47.980 been for years and years and so museums are always restructuring uh the museum I was at

00:23:53.920 it was really more of like a science education center and I was writing curriculum there for

00:23:58.420 about two years. And then our CEO decided that we should really, what we should really be doing

00:24:05.200 was getting into esports. I'm sorry. Esports. Esports, like video gaming competitive, which

00:24:12.460 don't get me wrong. I think there's merit in that, you know, wasn't what I signed up to do.

00:24:17.920 I was writing STEM curriculum, which was already a little different from my art background, but I

00:24:22.620 had fun with it. I was making it work. And then when esports happened, I was like, I don't know

00:24:27.800 if this is the place for me anymore luckily at that point i was already kind of coming up

00:24:33.140 on tiktok with the royal commentary and i don't want to say luckily i got doxed but like

00:24:38.640 it might have been the best thing that ever happened to me oh i'm sorry you did that blows

00:24:42.740 it was really shitty at the time i will say but uh the reason i got targeted online it was

00:24:48.720 thorough harassment um up to full-on doxing they contacted my employer the science center i was

00:24:55.120 working at but it was because i wasn't racist enough about megan markle so you know again

00:25:01.180 every cloud has a silver lining right holy shit i'm really really sorry that's all right no it's 0.95

00:25:08.120 it's fine uh fucking abominable what it did though was enable me to go back to the drawing board and 0.86

00:25:13.800 take creating content very seriously and revisit my art history degree you know start the podcast 0.91

00:25:19.780 and we wouldn't be sitting here talking

00:25:22.140 if that hadn't happened.

00:25:23.420 It's true, but at the same time

00:25:25.680 as someone who's been on the internet,

00:25:27.100 like the website's 20 years old now

00:25:28.960 and I'm out here under my own name, 0.99

00:25:30.720 that fucking sucks. 1.00

00:25:32.140 And it's appalling how many people 1.00

00:25:33.760 find it their hobby to discover someone's identity

00:25:37.280 and make them miserable and personally scared.

00:25:39.280 Like why is that your hobby?

00:25:40.780 Because I think you shouldn't be racist

00:25:43.360 against a princess that neither you nor I will ever meet.

00:25:45.980 Yeah, it's wild.

00:25:47.580 Anyway, you asked me about art history.

00:25:49.220 Yes. In terms of art analysis, it sounds like, so if I understand correctly, the art history part is how did this particular style, where is this particular image or this particular work located in a larger timeline?

00:26:06.180 But also, what does it mean and what is it saying? Because things that are art that endure tend to have a lot of nuanced context. And it's almost like a puzzle or a bunch of visual clues. You have to look at this thing and then figure out what is it saying? How is it saying that? And where is it located in the larger conversation of all the other art that was happening at that time and the politics of that as well?

00:26:30.480 yeah absolutely about right yeah you've nailed it uh visual clues context clues are so important

00:26:37.140 art historians are so good at media analysis because the first year you're in school with

00:26:43.440 an art history program you're learning how to look like how to see and i i don't know if the

00:26:49.880 statistic is you know viably sound but uh one of my professors told us the first year i think we

00:26:56.400 were in survey of western art she said do you know that the one of the most successful non-science

00:27:04.800 degrees if they go on to take the mcat is art history so like if you for some reason were an

00:27:10.860 art history degree and you decided to make a massive pivot to medicine and take the mcat you

00:27:17.240 would be set up for success there because you've learned how to look and to step back and see what's

00:27:21.960 in front of you for what it is. Not see what you know. That's one of the biggest lessons too with

00:27:27.560 studying art is you have to look at what's actually there. So I've always found that

00:27:33.000 fascinating. That's one of the things I love most about looking at art. Anyone can look at art. It's

00:27:38.060 just a matter of turning off your thinking brain for a minute and then kind of reactivating it

00:27:42.840 later down the line. And then for art history, yeah, placing it in the context. I love a big

00:27:47.620 timeline uh of what's happening on the world stage what societal movements are going on and

00:27:53.360 that's with my show kind of why i chose the history lens because you can learn so much about

00:27:58.140 a period in time a place in time through the art that is being created yes like when you you did

00:28:05.700 a deep dive forgive me for not remembering the name or looking it up before but dead guy in the

00:28:09.620 bathtub stabbed marat yeah the death of marat thank you dead guy in the bathtub that's what

00:28:15.320 that's what you know we're friends that's how i call him not anymore you're not no it's true

00:28:19.600 because he's dead in the bathtub one of the things you talked about is how that image has sort of

00:28:24.840 become a shorthand image for rebellion and uprising and organizing it has a very subversive

00:28:32.020 tone because of what it means and if you don't know that it's like oh that guy

00:28:36.120 yeah yeah yeah he was he was seen as a martyr for the cause of the french revolution and

00:28:41.880 And I mean, it's been parodied so many times because of that.

00:28:44.820 I'm waiting for Stephen Colbert to put his face on it.

00:28:46.980 You know what I mean?

00:28:47.480 Like, I feel like that's coming up in the zeitgeist.

00:28:50.320 Take that into a speaker's existence.

00:28:52.260 I might have to make it myself.

00:28:53.680 We'll see.

00:28:54.460 Yeah, I don't know.

00:28:55.660 It's an often overlooked lens to learn about history, a very accessible way to learn about

00:29:01.100 history, which is why I love it so much.

00:29:03.220 And for me, it also led me to the royal commentary because I was finding that when I was studying

00:29:09.120 art, I was always drawn to the stories of royal patrons, royal portraits that maybe were a little

00:29:16.140 subversive or where there was like a hidden backstory. So then it all just meshed together

00:29:21.360 in my weird content geared before I even knew it brain. Listen, I have that same brain website and

00:29:28.380 a podcast about romance novels, but whatever the hell I want. That's interesting because it's my

00:29:32.360 brain i i also think um in terms of royals correct me if i'm wrong but when you were an artist way

00:29:39.740 back in the day you either a patron or you were your patron was either the church or a royal or

00:29:45.940 a really wealthy person who wanted to show off their wealth like that was how you made money

00:29:50.340 right so you kind of had to flatter all these people whoever was your patron you had to make

00:29:54.360 them look royal goods there's a lot of royal portraits out in the world for that reason

00:29:58.220 made by really prominent artists.

00:30:01.260 Absolutely.

00:30:01.780 And art for expression's sake,

00:30:03.580 art for art's sake came way later.

00:30:05.920 Way later.

00:30:06.800 1800s, like the very beginnings.

00:30:09.320 The Impressionists were some of the first to,

00:30:11.260 the realists, the Impressionists

00:30:12.380 were some of the first to kind of strike out on their own

00:30:15.740 because the patron system was no longer serving them.

00:30:18.440 The Academy in France and others

00:30:20.220 were barring entry to anyone they didn't see

00:30:24.100 as towing the line,

00:30:25.520 as following their very academic standards.

00:30:28.200 Wow, there's absolutely like no parallels to the current.

00:30:30.440 No, I.

00:30:31.440 Wow, what an archaic and weird thing to do

00:30:34.300 that we don't see anymore.

00:30:35.780 Yeah, we always see this like death burst,

00:30:37.740 this extinction burst with these institutions, I will say.

00:30:40.680 And then things get good for a while.

00:30:42.240 So there is hope, there is hope. 0.99

00:30:43.780 Die en masse.

00:30:44.980 No question, and in totally okay if not,

00:30:46.780 but are you a romance reader?

00:30:48.680 So I am a romance reader.

00:30:50.440 I have had, I've had an up and down history

00:30:53.700 with fiction in general because, you know,

00:30:57.440 art historian royal commentator i gotta read a lot of non-fiction for that and in the past few

00:31:03.380 years i've really fallen off and i've taken a really conscious look at what i'm reading in

00:31:09.720 the past year and tried to like inject some novels and romance back into it uh it's it's slow going

00:31:16.260 i will say i have listened to audiobooks like never before because i think that counts towards

00:31:22.180 your reading goal as well there's don't let anybody tell you you're not reading you're putting

00:31:26.560 a narrative in your head like come on absolutely reading yeah but no i love a romance book when i

00:31:31.980 was younger i used to um i was a big fiction reader i used to sneak books when i had two

00:31:38.420 brothers and we had one shower at my house and we took our showers in the evening i used to sneak

00:31:42.640 my books into the bathroom and i would sit between the shower curtain and the liner and i would read

00:31:48.200 because it was peaceful and nobody was gonna bother me and i had my little book um all these

00:31:55.980 my little fantasy books yeah i wasn't a flashlight under the kit under the covers kid i was a read

00:32:02.120 between the shower curtains kid i don't know if that's anyone else can relate but i've been trying

00:32:06.300 to like rediscover that and luckily i rent my own apartment with my fiance and i can just read on

00:32:10.980 the couch and yeah he knows not to bother me always hang a shower curtain if you if it makes

00:32:15.220 you feel more at home just the yeah rain sounds on in the background yeah create it recreate your

00:32:21.800 own little nest yeah you are familiar because i also know you work at a bookstore you are familiar

00:32:26.760 with the romance genre and you're familiar with what it what it used to look like oh am i so uh

00:32:33.020 my mother god love her she's still with us but uh i will tell her i won't tell her anything about

00:32:39.300 this episode she's not allowed to listen so she had a shelf of romance novels when we were growing

00:32:44.220 up and they were just right there in the living room which kudos to her yep that was part of my

00:32:51.260 um shall we say self-discovery as a tween teenager very common sky o'malley oh boy you just jumped

00:32:58.380 right i dived right again as i do right in the middle of the ocean they were right there though

00:33:02.980 so like come on um the birch is small i think there was like a fairies series anyway so that

00:33:09.400 was my early exposure to adult romance novels um and i remember flipping through them and being

00:33:13.900 like oh because i was like looking for things to read i love to read and i had read all of my books

00:33:17.480 and i remember stumbling upon you know some of these scenes oh yeah thinking does my mom know

00:33:24.300 that these books are so smutty and that's why that's why they were there that's why she kept

00:33:33.120 them because it's guy right right right um so yeah that was my first exposure to romance and

00:33:39.880 like i said i'm getting back into it now as a 30 year old woman with my own purchasing power

00:33:44.140 um yeah it's it's been a wild ride this makes me very happy so what we are going to do today

00:33:52.460 I have sent you a file full of some old romance covers and some art and I am very excited to hear

00:33:58.760 your thoughts both as a person who understands how book marketing works and a person who understands

00:34:04.600 how art messaging and art communication works I don't think it's art marketing but the cover is

00:34:10.860 doing something some heavy lifting yeah there's some heavy lifting because i mean a book cover

00:34:15.180 has a lot of work to do it has to grab your attention it has to make you be oh what's that

00:34:19.180 has to communicate some very basic things like genre um character that kind of thing it's got a

00:34:24.540 vibiness but a totally vibe it's got to communicate all that very quickly when you glance at it and

00:34:30.620 your brain has to process all that information and as i've talked about many times the history

00:34:36.300 of romance cover art is so fascinating. Like I have this little secret idea to make a coffee

00:34:43.160 table book of the history of romance cover art up to like, you know, the 2000s. Oh, you should do it

00:34:48.840 because a lot of these cover artists are dying. They're older because they were working in the,

00:34:52.760 you know, 70s. But this was all originally was all oil paint and they would take a bunch of

00:34:58.920 photographs as sort of model images and then they would develop all of these different things for

00:35:04.420 the covers, but this is all originally oil and then became digital, which meant that it was

00:35:09.240 faster. But you would have, you know, full works of art on the cover of your book and you can find

00:35:15.000 them for sale now and they're frigging dope. Okay. So we're going to look at some old ass covers 0.95

00:35:20.260 and talk about what they're doing. I love, I love this. I'm so excited. You have no idea 0.81

00:35:26.200 how extremely excited I am.

00:35:29.040 All right, I am going to share my screen.

00:35:32.620 And I opened up.

00:35:34.520 Okay.

00:35:36.360 So you're currently seeing a heart so wild.

00:35:41.620 Sure am.

00:35:42.300 Okay, so this is the original,

00:35:44.900 like this is what I found.

00:35:46.860 The problem with a lot of these

00:35:48.060 is unless you own them and you scan them,

00:35:50.520 they're not like the greatest of resolution.

00:35:54.020 But I did find a better resolution version of this.

00:35:56.200 this one. I do think in a way, though, that lends some mystique to these covers. It's like Vaseline

00:36:01.180 on the lens, right? I love the vibe here. But okay, higher res, let's do it. You ready? Yeah.

00:36:10.840 Oh, yes. Yeah. So this is a scan. So this is actually a bit overexposed. This is a scan of

00:36:17.720 a hardcover version of this book that is for sale. But this is Joanna Lindsay's A Heart So Wild. I

00:36:24.120 asked my audience, the podcast audience, I asked everyone who would listen to me,

00:36:29.300 what are your favorite absolutely off the wall romance covers? I'm sure the ones we're looking

00:36:33.860 at starting with this one, because wow, wow. Oh, I didn't notice the fire. Yeah. Or the gun or the

00:36:42.840 how many arms are happening here? One. Okay. Yes. One on her thigh, one on her waist. We have arm

00:36:49.140 questions later. Okay. I knew that there was going to be an arm question. Okay. Perfect. It's

00:36:53.200 not this one um wow that's certainly a cover isn't it now are those two r's in the heart

00:37:03.020 the title it's a little different from the low res version do you see like oh yeah i wonder if

00:37:08.760 that's a typo instead of a t it's an r at the end of heart r that's a t you know maybe

00:37:13.360 did somebody photoshop this or is this just an error i'm gonna have to miss link did ai like

00:37:18.620 crisp it up i'm so so i hope not i really do not know but it's either a heart or a heart or a typo

00:37:25.640 it's like when they ocr scan um no those letters are totally different it's like when they ocr

00:37:30.080 scan old text and arms becomes anus it's really fun so first of all i'll leave the higher res

00:37:37.280 one on even though the title isn't correct i have always thought that this looks like barbara

00:37:42.440 streisand you know crispy jawline oh a nice profile very strong profile the blue eyeshadow

00:37:52.160 this is really this is vintage bab so babs is in a pink low-cut dress it's like a deep you you know

00:37:59.040 deep scoop neck she's got a little tie on the sleeve there she's got one leg out um nobody

00:38:05.300 forgive me for being crass the fire is very close to them neither of them should fart it would be

00:38:10.880 bad idea the fire is right right behind them and also that tree looks dead i'm there's a lot of

00:38:18.380 flowing hair and fabric yeah this helps to a fire tell me what you see when you look at this

00:38:25.500 at this cover like what is it saying other than these people are horny but i mean that's the 0.98

00:38:29.660 bottom you know i love a draped woman and we have that here she is draped over he is if she

00:38:39.680 if she like or if you let go of her she's on the floor you know she is limp which I love but a lot

00:38:45.880 of tension in the neck because you gotta have it so many emotions being communicated here

00:38:52.180 wow I'm just trying to take it in and the face is saying no don't but the body language below

00:39:01.380 the neck is saying something different yes very much so it you're right about that he's very

00:39:07.120 interested he's actually lifting her the the shoulder of her dress like he's looking over

00:39:12.720 her carotid artery to see how bigger boobs are like what's going on in here he's lifting away

00:39:17.540 the bodice of her dress and she's got one arm behind his head even though she's turned around

00:39:22.540 and this really does yes exactly does represent the tension i think of romances at this time

00:39:29.020 because these were published right after the first the first wave of feminism yes got credit 0.97

00:39:33.620 cards and had, you know, bank accounts in our own name. But don't we all just want to be ravished 0.99

00:39:38.420 by a man in blue jeans with a hip holster? Exactly. A very erect hip holster. In a lot of

00:39:44.820 these books, the heroines weren't really, it really wasn't going to be accepted by the reader 0.75

00:39:49.940 for the heroine to have horny pants and to be sexually adventurous or even sexually interested. 0.98

00:39:56.160 You know, sex had to be visited upon her. So she has to both communicate willingness, but also 0.99

00:40:00.160 not so much willingness. I mean, I have to say, given my first exposure to this type of romance

00:40:05.600 was Sky O'Malley, like I've picked up on that from the beginning. It's like baby, it's cold

00:40:10.300 outside syndrome, right? Like people love to say that that song should be canceled. It's about

00:40:15.680 non-consent. It's like, actually, the big brain take is that this was how we communicated our

00:40:20.800 desires. We played this game of no, don't, but maybe. And I'm not saying we shouldn't update

00:40:27.480 our language to reflect that. But as a time capsule, I think these stories were always

00:40:32.960 formatted this way for a reason. Yes. You're bang on. Yeah. And it's a code, right? That's

00:40:38.080 one of the things that I find so fascinating about these is this is all a code. They're trying to

00:40:44.320 communicate, yes, this book has some sex in it, but what is tension and what's happening? There's

00:40:49.020 tension. There might be some danger. We have a gun. We have fire. We have dead trees, but she's

00:40:54.660 alive. She is in bloom to use a Jane Austen, you know, term. She's, uh, she's being brought back

00:41:03.820 to life, dare I say. And she's also the brightest thing on the page. Like one of the thing I notice

00:41:09.820 with, with a lot of this, uh, these images is that, you know, you have obviously artists have

00:41:15.660 ways of directing where you're going to look and directing where your eye is ultimately going to

00:41:19.780 go. There's a journey that you take visually that has been plotted by someone. Because she is the

00:41:24.980 lightest and brightest thing on the page, she's the thing that stands out. Absolutely. And we find

00:41:31.640 this in art history a lot too, especially in like Baroque art where we have something called

00:41:35.520 tenebrism, where there's like an extreme dark and an extreme light. It was kind of inspired by stage

00:41:40.840 lighting. And that's exactly what's happening here. And then you have her bright pale skin

00:41:46.180 and the curve of her body you can move your eye with her body and it moves you around the

00:41:51.660 composition and that's something like the old masters were doing and we see it here on a

00:41:55.940 joanna lindsey cover i love it this is a mcennis and he passed away recently you want to see

00:42:02.480 something super sad oh so a lot of romance readers really myself included although i understand that

00:42:09.400 they are vintage and not applicable to the to today's marketing environment a lot of people

00:42:13.240 miss these covers myself included and because one of the reasons is this is what they look like now

00:42:18.040 oh that's a bummer right the new cover is a photograph of a blonde woman she has iphone face

00:42:25.560 100 she has she has instagram hair right she's got layers she has balayage yeah and she put

00:42:33.300 kate middleton blowout i'm sorry is that blouse cheetah print i think that would be blue cheetah

00:42:38.780 print yeah that's a bummer and it's like okay i maybe this is historical the cheetah print and

00:42:45.840 the balayage is throwing me but she's it's a clearly a photograph she's leaning up on some

00:42:50.340 wagon wheels which i don't think were originally there behind her it's all very mixed media it

00:42:56.760 doesn't it doesn't do what that's doing i'm so fascinated by taking the love interest off of the

00:43:03.320 cover too it's just her that's something that's been happening a while first of all the historical

00:43:08.120 romance genre is kind of in a coma right now. So we run out of coverage to discuss because it's

00:43:13.220 not going to be published as much, certainly not in mass market paperback. So what you're going

00:43:17.240 to see is the older authors getting new covers because they're still selling. With this, it's

00:43:22.820 like, does this communicate anything? I would not pick this up. Like you mentioned, you know,

00:43:30.680 judging by books by covers. That's how I pick up a lot of my books because I do events at an

00:43:35.260 independent bookstore and I get freebies I get the arcs I also browse we have flat lay tables for

00:43:41.300 our new releases I'm going by cover I would not think twice about this yeah as a job to do but

00:43:47.280 is this is this an old western is this it looks like frontier yeah Christian romance maybe I can

00:43:53.800 tell even though like you know I uh I quilt and sew and so I'm looking at that and going oh well

00:43:59.500 that's synthetic fabric this isn't you know because that no fabric would drape like that

00:44:03.900 It looks so thin.

00:44:05.160 Exactly.

00:44:05.720 That's a synthetic.

00:44:07.020 So, you know, I'm going to be nitpicky about the fabric until this doesn't work.

00:44:10.920 I'm sure whoever designed this was like, I needed to redo the cover in a way.

00:44:14.040 Well, we're also flipping back and forth between having the hero only.

00:44:18.700 Yeah.

00:44:18.940 A lot of contemporary romance is just the hero.

00:44:21.420 He's often very shiny and very muscular.

00:44:23.440 Single women on the cover is less and less common. 1.00

00:44:26.640 Interesting. 1.00

00:44:27.440 So shall we move on to the next cover in our collection, which is...

00:44:31.000 Please.

00:44:31.580 One of my...

00:44:31.980 Are you ready?

00:44:33.340 No, but yes.

00:44:34.860 Are you old enough to remember Lisa Frank?

00:44:37.700 Was Lisa Frank relevant to you?

00:44:39.460 Oh, yes.

00:44:39.840 Okay.

00:44:40.360 I do not mean to be condescending.

00:44:41.740 It was elementary school for me, but I had some folders.

00:44:45.940 Yeah.

00:44:46.220 All right.

00:44:46.560 So here you go.

00:44:47.620 If Lisa Frank threw up on a cover, could you just describe what's going on here?

00:44:52.720 This is A Certain Magic by Kathleen Morgan, best author of Fire Queen.

00:44:58.320 Best-selling award-winning author.

00:45:00.140 Excuse you.

00:45:00.980 Excuse me.

00:45:01.580 so okay golden pegasus being oh no i don't know if anyone's actually holding the reins

00:45:09.380 um flying us through a pink and purple sky and on said pegasus we have heroine with 0.97

00:45:16.020 heaving bosoms again getting a crick out of her neck leaning back onto a hero um

00:45:22.760 sitting behind her on pegasus i'm i've just noticed the sword 0.99

00:45:27.820 uh directly behind her buttock that would not be comfortable where's the rest of the sword please

00:45:35.760 don't tell me it's in the pegasus no wonder he looks pissed off like buddy like ah buddy buddy

00:45:40.780 the thing's poking me a little alarmed yeah wow wow that's certainly that's certainly a certain

00:45:47.200 magic is all i can say wow i am fascinated by the clothing here because they're really the artist

00:45:55.440 is really trying to communicate a time period i could not i don't know what time tell you what

00:45:59.600 time he has a deep square neckline it's almost be a toga ish yeah it could be a double it could be a

00:46:06.720 toga she's got off the shoulder bar wench yeah kind of style it's it's snow white but make it

00:46:13.120 sexy and take away the blue colorway and that is the most decorated horse he's yeah he's pimped

00:46:21.540 out he i love playing so there always seems to be it's an outdated term but like some sort of

00:46:28.600 orientalism with these fantasy books and i'm wondering if that's what we're going on that

00:46:33.360 we're going for here very much so yes there's a lot of uh orientalism and is exoticizing of

00:46:39.880 especially middle eastern cultures during this time and still still to this day at this point

00:46:44.360 yeah they are of course flying over a castle yes another phallic image perhaps

00:46:51.800 should i just assume for the rest of this episode if something looks like a phallus it is a phallus

00:46:57.320 i mean i think that's a safe assumption save myself some mental energy yes but like every

00:47:03.080 single one has something right yeah there's always something like if we go back to a heart so wild

00:47:08.920 we have a gun we have this tree we have like her body in a long pink line like okay yeah and if we

00:47:17.400 go back to a certain magic we've got a sword and we've got a castle even the horse has a little um

00:47:24.340 little gem on the middle of it oh or i i don't what's the front of the horse between its eyes

00:47:30.220 to its nose whatever that part is i only know bridal i don't know so whatever the horse people

00:47:34.540 like sorry forgive me but whatever that is it's like a little pointy thing just like a it's like

00:47:39.960 um adding on a unicorn horn yeah and even if it's not even if we don't have phalluses explicitly

00:47:46.260 there's always a lot of like triangular imagery yes too which i think oh you're right whether

00:47:52.460 it's subconscious or not is a more ancient symbol for like male virility you know the triangle

00:47:59.960 upright and then the triangle down or like an open v is female typically um i see a lot as i

00:48:09.360 was flipping through the ones you sent me i saw a lot of that triangle orientation which again

00:48:13.020 in our history it's a very commonly used format because it's the most structurally sound shape

00:48:19.260 it lends stability to your image but i'm just thinking here the people the man and the woman

00:48:23.660 are making a little triangle shape the horse is making a little triangle shape with his ear

00:48:27.880 there and then you have the castle at the bottom i don't know triangles and this and the um the

00:48:33.900 metal medallion bridal decoration is a triangle pointed downward just below the horse's chin

00:48:41.160 neck those little gold circles are in a open uh bottom pointing triangle i'm just saying

00:48:47.260 you're just saying i mean it's there you can believe us or not for all they would have eyes

00:48:53.040 to see okay the triangle part just blew my mind like i'm my brain is like jiffy pop right now

00:48:58.100 even the decoration on the chest strap of the horse has downward pointed triangles on it holy

00:49:04.820 cow okay so speaking of phallic here we have

00:49:10.120 when love awaits oh yeah lindsey now i thought that this was reminiscent of uh klimt

00:49:21.180 oh do you think so yeah absolutely klimped or i mean it even goes back farther than that obviously

00:49:28.820 all art is derivative greek sculpture hellenistic sculpture which is greek sculpture with like a

00:49:34.820 little bit more expression mixed in it's greek sculpture with feelings once they realized like

00:49:41.280 we didn't have to be so rigid they got a little bit experimental i love it um i i thought that

00:49:47.000 too i don't know if it was this one specifically but maybe it's coming up yeah there's definitely

00:49:52.060 a clear throwback to these images of love and romance i thought of sleeping beauty when i

00:49:59.560 looked at this one because growing up i had these paper dolls by an artist i think who worked in

00:50:05.440 this era i cannot remember the name for the life of me um but his sleeping beauty was very very akin

00:50:10.800 to this cover model. And again, she's the lightest thing on the page. She's very, very pale. She's

00:50:19.040 very blonde and decked out in pink and purple, which I don't know if, again, synthetic fabric 0.78

00:50:25.200 wise, we could have obtained in the medieval era. I love the pink and purple covers though. That's

00:50:31.160 like, give it to me. It's so good. Oh, if it's not fuchsia, it's romance. Is it even romance?

00:50:38.680 why are we even here if you're not including fuchsia there's no fuchsia well i'm just leaving

00:50:43.380 but again with the with the phallic symbols we have a big old sword oh a castle with the tower

00:50:49.960 he's got a little helmet over is that a helmet maybe it's yeah no i think it's a helmet with a

00:50:55.400 plume i was just at the tower of london recently and walking through the um the arms and armor

00:51:01.020 you can see henry the eighth's helmet and also his codpiece i know he was a top of mind for me

00:51:08.020 really compensating for something like that how many people buy tickets to that be like all right

00:51:13.100 let's go see this guy's groin and it's eye level if you have children because they put the suits

00:51:17.360 of armor up on little platforms so it's like right there yep um i had i overheard many uh an

00:51:22.560 uncomfortable conversation oh see i bought my ticket specifically to be like i gotta see this

00:51:28.360 cod piece from a shout or are we talking about here and i love it because some of the arms and

00:51:33.800 armor in that exhibition you know we recognize they were kind of like recreated they were

00:51:38.860 cobbled together but like the henry the eighth ones were like no no no this is him like this is

00:51:43.320 he decided to do this it was he was worried about the ample accommodation of certain parts of his

00:51:48.780 body he's also very smooth very shiny on the cover not henry the eighth and i think he might

00:51:54.740 be naked i think he's naked too and i love that there's like a tan difference as you get down to

00:52:00.520 his like hip area it gets a little paler yep so i think that is telling us he is naked it's not

00:52:06.940 farmer tan it's like joanna lindsey hero fabio tan fabio tan just from the waist up yeah very tan

00:52:14.120 so i have two of the next one i have a lower can i call out once again though you have the phallic

00:52:20.700 sword going down and then on her little waistline you have a open v belt you do thank you for 0.91

00:52:27.920 noticing that oh damn once you see it you can't unsee it so we have the v at her belt i know

00:52:35.040 that's very pixelated now we've got these on the shoulder and there's kind of a v at her bosom too 0.98

00:52:40.400 and it's receiving you know yes it's it's all pointed up to his downward thrusting sword oh my

00:52:47.760 it's there you you totally nailed that one no pun intended you're right oh it's interesting

00:52:54.560 all right so let's take a look at the hawk and the dove so this is a cover flat they don't make

00:53:01.260 these anymore which is used to be able to just get the cardboard of the cover in a big flat and

00:53:06.160 then you could do stuff like i have one for my first book in 2009 it's the coolest thing

00:53:10.440 so this is like the full cover this is sort of like the complete what you would see if you held

00:53:15.900 all the way open the jacket yeah there's a thank you that there's a lot going on here

00:53:20.700 a lot are any of these authors sorry to interrupt you are are any of these authors using pen names

00:53:26.880 virginia henley like is that her real name you know what i don't know if virginia henley was

00:53:32.120 her real name a lot of them were let me see here virginia henley it's the first google of the

00:53:40.500 episode everyone are you excited virginia henley i believe okay first of all bless her she is still

00:53:51.760 alive and kicking at age 89 miss virginia virginia god bless virginia henley's maiden name was

00:53:57.860 virginia sadal s-y-d-d-a-l i'm going with side sadal um and she married arthur henley in 1956

00:54:05.200 all right and he passed away in 2013 so that is her name wow see looking at romance covers

00:54:10.540 I always question am I the one with a dirty mind or is it just being laid on too thick

00:54:17.660 uh and that was one of those moments poor canola's dose so with the hawk and the dove

00:54:24.320 um I one number one I don't know what they're lying down on a bed of roses perhaps and half

00:54:31.900 it's a waterbed a waterbed of roses water because there's a water behind them

00:54:36.700 it's the dove's nest yes they're floating around it also he looks like he's wearing jeans

00:54:43.300 yeah there's a couple of things i want to ask you about what jumps out at you let me see if i can

00:54:49.160 make this a little bit bigger yeah yeah what jumps out at you i have to say woman on top we love to

00:54:56.080 see it yes that's the first time i've noticed it um and i'm looking at the tagline he married her

00:55:01.700 for money. So she is the one with power in this relationship. And I love to see that communicated

00:55:06.820 in a cover image. Look at all the jewels and the fabric and the amount of fabric, like the amount

00:55:12.520 of fabric as a signal of wealth always grabs my attention. It's coming back in fashion right now.

00:55:18.740 Oh, yes, it really is. Which I think is telling as for the era that we are in, that excess of

00:55:24.640 fabric and materials is on the runways. Yes, especially because as someone who buys fabric,

00:55:30.300 A lot of this fabric is printed overseas and has become very expensive because of tariffs.

00:55:34.480 We don't have a lot of fabric.

00:55:36.220 The next status symbol.

00:55:38.160 The next status symbol, fabric and food. 1.00

00:55:40.260 So she's got a lot of fabric. 1.00

00:55:41.420 She's got a lot of lace. 1.00

00:55:42.180 She's got some pearls hanging off both of her boobs. 1.00

00:55:44.580 Love. 1.00

00:55:45.120 Love it.

00:55:46.260 But unbound hair, because is it even a romance cover if your hair isn't loose and flowing?

00:55:51.160 Yes, 100%.

00:55:53.060 We have a little castle.

00:55:55.480 But we also have some ship masts.

00:55:57.140 now here's something that i would love to ask you about please if you look at his finger

00:56:04.500 the one that is not grabbing her thigh there is a tiny bird on his finger yeah why to show that

00:56:14.180 he's gentle he's so delicate and has soft hands that's the female gaze right there

00:56:21.540 little birds come down to land on his finger because he's such a tender-hearted soul is what

00:56:26.940 I'm assuming. With nipples like dinner plates. Rippling muscles. Rippling muscles. This is, 0.99

00:56:33.100 by the way, the fabs. I'm pretty sure that's the Fabios. That's mysterious. It looks like him.

00:56:37.780 Yeah. It's usually you can tell by the jaw square and then it's the fabs. Yeah. The hair color is

00:56:43.700 completely irrelevant. You also, now that you've pointed that out to me, this is the only thing I

00:56:48.860 can see. We have the V of her necklace. We have the open V's of the pearls. I mean, why wear pearls

00:56:53.660 around your neck when you can attach them to your bodice and drape them under your boobs like what

00:56:57.520 why why even go with the old way it's so good she's giving queen elizabeth the first

00:57:02.460 yes in a way although qe2 could i mean she loved the she had like a brooch it was the two of the

00:57:11.580 cullen and diamonds yeah um and she called them granny's chips because granny why not granny used

00:57:17.020 to wear them um she loved a jewel yeah her taste was a little tacky uh but lizzie lizzie too could

00:57:24.040 have done a lot by wearing a lot more of this whatever all of the stomach going on here yeah

00:57:28.900 all of this this is by sharon spiak who is still with us and is a i've interviewed her before she's

00:57:35.540 a fascinating fascinating uh you need to write this book you have to exactly my so my publisher

00:57:42.860 My publisher specializes in gift book, coffee table books.

00:57:45.900 If you ever want to submit a proposal, I will give you their names.

00:57:49.320 Thank you.

00:57:50.020 I will be like, hey, my agent who I've made $9 for, I can have her nine whole dollars.

00:57:56.680 So this is one of the covers that a lot of readers from my site and a lot of listeners

00:58:02.040 suggested because this is the one they think of when they think just over the top.

00:58:06.140 It's, yeah.

00:58:07.200 Like there's a Yiddish word I love, ongi pachki, which means over decorated, overdone,

00:58:12.400 just like we hosed the wall down with everything this is an ongi patchki cover yeah 80s excess i'm

00:58:18.800 assuming this is from the 80s just by looking at it i'm gonna verify but i think you're right it's

00:58:23.520 got to be right the opulence the extravagance originally published in 1988 hell yeah yep

00:58:31.200 and this is very 80s colors too the mauve yeah i my godparents still have like a mauve living room

00:58:37.760 color coordinated with their sofa. And I'm like, where am I? It's 1982, whenever I step into their

00:58:43.860 house. It's like when you go to a condo and it hasn't been updated since the 90s. It's like,

00:58:48.560 wow, burgundy and dark green. And they just embrace it. I love it. Yeah, it's like, okay.

00:58:53.600 I love this cover because it is just so much. It's not even pretending to be anything other than...

00:59:00.700 No, this is a romance novel and it's going to be horny.

00:59:03.640 It is. Yeah. And I mean, again, this is sort of coming back in a way. We're obsessed with

00:59:07.580 the pre-raphaelites right now she's giving a little bit of a pre-raphaelite vibe with her

00:59:11.520 long red tresses they're kind of curly on the top of her head the roses i'm into this i like

00:59:18.460 this might be my favorite one so far oh you're very right this is very uh pre-raphaelite i just

00:59:24.280 all of these staffs and arms and masks masks i'm thinking of waves like the energy like

00:59:31.860 pulling you forward and then back a little bit and then forward again and it's very sensual

00:59:36.780 yep ships are all about schtupin everybody so this was suggested by one of my uh listeners

00:59:43.900 and readers heart of the falcon this is again the fabs um i could not find a higher res one of this

00:59:50.020 i apologize but that's okay this one is wild tell me what do we got going on here i mean is this

00:59:56.700 anthony and cleopatra like what's going on uh i love a pyramid again upright triangle

01:00:03.940 triangles and big upright phallic palm trees. We're reaching towards a full moon. Just the

01:00:12.020 upright, the top right corner of this is already sexual. Wait, okay. I was going to comment on the

01:00:17.400 purple, pink, the fuchsia in ancient Egypt, I'm assuming. Then I realized he's holding a sword.

01:00:23.540 It's in his hand. Oh, yeah. What's he going to do with that sword? Suzanne. Suzanne.

01:00:30.280 but maybe maybe they're like on a on a boat and he's just paddling with his oh maybe maybe it's

01:00:35.480 not a sword maybe it's i don't know it looks like he's about to like haul up and stab her

01:00:39.080 like he's like getting ready to to impair thorda not with his manly no so much like potential

01:00:45.000 energy here like with that in his hand and his rippling back muscles like it's very evocative

01:00:49.880 of like they're in the moment kind of swelling is the word i want to use i don't know if that's

01:00:55.560 a perfectly acceptable way to use in this context absolutely wow also irises are some very vaginal

01:01:05.120 flowers yep there's a lot of george o'keefe look at the number of open irises just folding around

01:01:14.220 them it's incredible it's encouragement from nature it's it's divinely ordained that they shall

01:01:21.820 they shall visit bone town wow i i she's made up to the gods though and i love her little

01:01:30.660 earring sparkle just so you know that this is a wealthy woman yeah and it's very costumey like

01:01:37.380 you know that is costumey but at the same time it's like okay i know the era i know what's

01:01:41.620 happening i there's a lot of tension what's going on we didn't try to make it naturalistic we just

01:01:47.020 went full send to like this is our interpretation and you're gonna you're gonna read it like you're

01:01:53.800 gonna read it yep 100 now this one i have a special affinity for just because this is the

01:01:59.780 art that i have on my wall okay um the larger version i don't know if you can see over my

01:02:05.080 shoulder there's a garden behind them and there's a very phallic gazebo yeah it's kind of hidden in

01:02:12.740 the glare i'll have to find a better picture of it when it's not like the sun isn't coming in this

01:02:16.360 window. I wonder how many of these images like were originally expanded. And we've just we don't

01:02:22.840 know because they're on a book cover and we can't get the originals anymore. Yeah, you have to really

01:02:27.040 go to an old bookstore, like a used bookstore that has bunches and bunches of the big fat paperbacks

01:02:32.060 and then open them up because usually the art goes all the way across the back. Yeah, it's like one

01:02:37.020 piece. And if you see some of the original art, there was an exhibit. I want to say it was in

01:02:41.540 yardly okay it was it was last winter um so i drove up from dc because i was like i'm not missing

01:02:47.940 this it was it was all one artist's cover art wow and then paired with the books that it ended up on

01:02:53.260 but a lot of them were these huge landscape oriented pictures you know two couples going

01:02:58.300 to bone town maybe a little miniature vignette of them for the spine the rest of the setting had

01:03:04.200 this big empty space for the cover copy like they're just yeah i love that that's how they

01:03:08.700 were all designed this one that's john de salvo i have a special soft spot for him because when i 0.86

01:03:14.400 was writing my first book uh the smart bitches guide to romance novels i reached out to fabio 0.82

01:03:19.340 i reached out to some other cover models john de salvo was the only one who emailed me back and 0.94

01:03:23.300 answered my questions bless his heart super chill and into it one question and we haven't seen a lot

01:03:28.780 of that on on these covers but one question that has always made me confused is there are so many

01:03:33.500 romance heroes who have their shirts open but still tucked in like who watches a shirt without

01:03:39.100 pulling it out of your trousers first like i don't understand it's the heat of the moment i don't

01:03:42.520 know he's like it's like you know it's it's it's the tension now that you've said that it's a v

01:03:47.760 of course that's why leading the eye and leading the eye down to the that's what we have here as

01:03:54.040 well can i just say well well yes the the what is this a i want to say shoulder belt i know there's

01:04:01.300 word for it is it a quiver are there arrows involved on the back i don't know um it is a hot

01:04:07.540 pink gladiator toga though it's nice i i'm into it and i like the the one arm brace for protection

01:04:13.540 presumably just in case you're you know punching somebody they're not going to grab your wrist 0.99

01:04:18.980 she's okay first of all um ye olde bra is doing the work here her her breasts are extremely lifted 0.99

01:04:26.580 in a way sky high yes she's hoisted and look at how many v's there are her necklace her neckline 1.00

01:04:34.340 and his his pants or his pants his skirt and the top and the wow and even her pulling up her skirt 0.98

01:04:41.300 kind of creates this upward triangle yep leading you to the groin area i'm just saying you're not 0.79

01:04:48.820 wrong um with this one what else i mean other than horny and v's do you notice anything else about

01:04:55.220 this particular cover i'm trying to look here i'm counting arms because i know that's coming

01:05:00.820 but i don't think this is the one um where i mean his hair might be better than hers on this cover

01:05:08.820 do you know i've talked about this i used to think when i was a kid because i was i was born

01:05:14.660 in the mid-70s so like the big like purple fuchsia giant bosom romance novels well those

01:05:19.140 are the ones that i first started reading in like the early 90s i really thought that when i grew

01:05:24.660 up when you reached adulthood your hair just did that like everything that's happening on a romance

01:05:29.300 novel cover with a long flowing never frizzy never tangled even though they're on a ship

01:05:34.820 hair that's what your hair was going to look like when you were an adult that's not what happened

01:05:39.460 very sad no even with the best of dry shampoo and styling creams i cannot achieve 0.98

01:05:45.860 a level of perfection you notice we have a lot of redheads in this collection i didn't do 1.00

01:05:49.780 Oh, always, always. 1.00

01:05:51.040 There's not a lot of redheads. 1.00

01:05:52.300 Yeah. 1.00

01:05:53.460 That's very interesting. 1.00

01:05:54.280 Because they're not like other girls. 0.92

01:05:56.500 You know? 0.71

01:05:58.380 They got to be, our heroines must not be like other girls. 0.55

01:06:02.780 No, they can't be like other girls.

01:06:03.960 That's cool.

01:06:05.100 All right.

01:06:05.540 So the next one is one of the most legendary covers in romance.

01:06:11.580 This is the one.

01:06:12.940 This is the one.

01:06:13.900 Castles in the Air by Christina God.

01:06:16.000 this woman this woman is my avatar on a lot of plays you remember like back in the day on the

01:06:21.760 internet you could set an avatar and it would kind of follow you through all the different

01:06:24.540 comment sections yeah this was my avatar this woman because if i had three arms do you have

01:06:30.760 any idea how much i would get how powerful you would be i would have so many things going on i

01:06:36.100 would be the queen of multitasking but yes this is the woman with three there they are wow okay so i

01:06:42.940 love there's tension in that too in the fact that she has three arms you have the one that's down 0.97

01:06:47.420 by her side yep hold her then the alternate was holding the man's hand so it's a question of do

01:06:52.740 we want her to be being ravished or an active participant yeah i i think there's something

01:06:58.340 there there's a duality in these three hands and then the one of course she's just trying not to

01:07:03.660 fall over yeah on the other side i always wonder if the if the people on these covers are like

01:07:09.040 rocks really really rock really doing it on rocks again do we have to like what if they didn't

01:07:16.540 and i wonder like with the models were they brought into a studio to do these do these

01:07:21.300 poses or are we actually referencing something like greek sculpture because there are plenty

01:07:25.200 of greek i'm thinking cupid and psyche as a reference yeah bring it forward to rodan he has

01:07:31.280 a couple of making out couples are we just referencing for poses and then the faces are

01:07:36.820 the models. I would love to be like a fly on the wall for one of these sessions. From what I

01:07:41.220 remember from my interview with Sharon Spiak, the models are hired, but it's very specific models

01:07:49.620 because much like doing an interview with someone very well, but you're having a pretty like, you

01:07:54.180 know, intimate conversation. You have to like get past the initial small talk and have a deep

01:07:59.080 conversation with someone you don't know. These models have to act like they're super into someone 1.00

01:08:03.320 they don't know right they were telling me that they they started having favorite models just

01:08:07.440 because they understood how to make this work they are and also they had good chemistry chemistry

01:08:12.700 yeah that's what they were working with so there was one period when a famous soap opera actress

01:08:17.340 named ewa de cruz was on all of them because she was just so good at cover modeling but they take

01:08:23.020 a whole bunch of photos and then the artist will paint based on those photos i wonder if it's this

01:08:30.660 is the pose or it's also, you know, this is the pose and this is the piece of classical art. I

01:08:34.460 have one that I really wonder is like, okay, were you really leaning into classical art here?

01:08:38.900 Right, right, right. Yeah. That's so interesting about like, and I wonder if there were certain

01:08:42.680 pairings of models that would work together, like kind of like a Dave Franco and an Alison Brie,

01:08:47.420 like they just know they worked well together. They have good chemistry and they look good on

01:08:51.360 a cover, damn it. The McAdams and Gosling of romance covers? Yeah, absolutely. There were. 0.97

01:08:55.980 anyway back to the three uh hands do we know why this happened i think it was an artist's mistake

01:09:02.920 that no one noticed the author christina dot has a whole page on her website like you've

01:09:07.780 followed that the book your book cover has three arms what do you do you tell everyone

01:09:11.860 yeah it's brilliant you tell everybody yes one it's so good and even without the third arm

01:09:19.680 this is this is clearly like a knight's templar plot era like he's got chain mail he's got a big

01:09:27.340 red cross on his chest there's a lot of v action and all of that she's got half off the shoulder

01:09:33.080 and half square neckline yeah he must be really pulling for that type of dress with that embroidery

01:09:38.160 around the shoulders to be slipping off like some real tension there he's really yanking down her

01:09:44.400 girl she's belted but i love when we look at these models there's often like a transition

01:09:50.360 from they're very like structured and rigid on the top like the bodice and then the flowing skirt

01:09:57.140 like a little bit more free a little more loose oh you're right i love that there is a lot of type

01:10:04.480 boning and tailoring that the bodices are always tight but then we're we're hiking up the skirt

01:10:10.520 or the skirt is kind of coming undone

01:10:12.980 and flowing in the wind.

01:10:14.220 Yeah, like two yards of fabric for the top

01:10:18.200 and 50 for the bottom.

01:10:19.680 Right.

01:10:20.880 So I added this one just real quick

01:10:22.780 because this is my favorite. 0.97

01:10:24.140 Why are you having sex here? 1.00

01:10:26.720 This is Edith Layton's For the Love of a Pirate. 0.99

01:10:28.820 I didn't see.

01:10:29.200 Oh my gosh.

01:10:31.800 That would be so painful for everyone involved.

01:10:36.620 They're on spiky rocks.

01:10:38.080 He is kneeling.

01:10:39.000 i she's also kneeling and putting her leg up over him but there are these massive waves behind them

01:10:44.720 that are about to drown them both so why here the only permissible explanation is that this

01:10:52.800 is elizabeth swan and i don't know his character name off the top of my head orlando bloom at the

01:10:57.780 end of that one pirates movie where he has to go back out to sea for seven years or whatever

01:11:02.000 this is the this is the moment they cannot move they do not have time it's true you know what

01:11:08.020 you might be right there and he's at that point i think he's davy jones so he kind of controls right

01:11:12.980 maybe he gets like a little bubble like the water will part around him magically

01:11:16.740 that would be nice i would i would read that scene i will forever love this cover this is just

01:11:23.300 okay sure right there i understand why not sure that that can't be comfortable i love the wide

01:11:28.180 angle because we had to get the waves in just like raise the stakes waves cresting there's a

01:11:33.860 a lot of waves cresting language when you have an orgasm too clearly they are about to go to bone

01:11:38.740 town the next one i sent you is oh the rose and the flame by patricia phillips this was suggested

01:11:47.460 by a reader and listener um this is very opulent it's a little against type i will say i got it

01:11:55.380 i got a lot of questions here starting with what is this outfit he's wearing it's 14th century

01:12:02.660 realness is all i can say uh very baggy in the chest area but velvet very sumptuous oh yes not

01:12:10.660 synthetic beautiful i really like this um so she's a little bit more buttoned up than the other ones

01:12:18.400 we've seen particularly because her hair is done and like you know if you watch period pieces you 0.98

01:12:23.620 know if a woman has her hair up she's married and off the market and if it's down it's flowing

01:12:28.440 it's loose she's either single a child or just like rebellious and doesn't care or or Kate 1.00

01:12:33.540 Middleton or Kate Middleton the queen of the bouncy blowout but I think that's why you always 0.96

01:12:38.760 see the the loose flowing tresses on these covers yes women cannot be contained and I love that this 0.99

01:12:44.680 one is just going the opposite direction and I assume you know shortly it will be unbound given 1.00

01:12:51.040 context clues in this image she also has incredibly rich dark black hair it is gathered 0.99

01:12:58.260 up into like okay so there's a cowl net at the back you can see netting but then the top is kind 1.00

01:13:04.520 of like if you had a french twist but it stuck up a lot and went all the way to your forehead

01:13:10.560 like a big sausage mohawk but also like nancy reagan poof yes a lot of poofy in the front there 0.69

01:13:17.320 too he's he's also got floofy puffy mullet look at all of the pearls in her hair very very suggestive 0.96

01:13:25.880 pearl everywhere yes uh oh it's so fascinating the netting kind of containing it and her bodice

01:13:34.120 is not slipping it's low cut and she's heaving but it's not it's she's fully clothed oh yeah

01:13:39.400 you can't always say he hasn't made much progress here you do have the transition though in the

01:13:44.040 image from very structured up top to okay the rose of flame the rose and the flame i'm sorry

01:13:50.200 it flows outwards and it becomes very loose her dress turns into roses yeah question mark

01:13:58.200 wow a different take on the genre i love it and his his outfit i'm guessing that's a doublet

01:14:04.840 or something with a doublet gotta be there's layers here yeah it's like early tudor if i'm

01:14:11.000 placing it in royal history but i don't know much about like the fashion history of that it almost

01:14:17.160 looks like because it is so wrinkled and lumpy in the front it almost looks like his bodice in the

01:14:22.600 back like the back of his doublet is open and it's loose in the front because she blows off

01:14:27.720 the velcro on the back is yeah yeah we're mixing eras too because she's dressed for versailles

01:14:34.760 in like yes and he's 1450 easy wait maybe this is a time travel usually do you remember those

01:14:44.800 they used to be like all over the place you get time travel forward time travel backwards

01:14:50.380 everybody's time the only ones i've really read are the outlander books honestly oh which

01:14:56.600 okay so according to okay this is a very interesting cover copy the rose in the flame

01:15:03.840 by Patricia Phillips. If you're curious, 3.63 stars with 16 ratings on Goodreads. If you like

01:15:08.640 this book, it needs some help. About to be 17. She was a rose ripe for the plucking. He was a

01:15:14.940 flame burning hot with desire. Sultry and exquisitely beautiful Elena was sought after

01:15:20.380 by every man in Mary Tudor's court. Mary Tudor. Mary Tudor. Yeah, here we go. But golden as the

01:15:27.700 son, Luis de los Santos had given her a taste of ecstasy in his strong arms. They're driven apart

01:15:33.520 by pride they reunited by destiny and the sun drenched plains of a spanish rancho okay i love

01:15:40.840 this because historically speaking that's very compelling the intersection between mary tudor

01:15:46.380 if we're talking about mary like bloody mary who married the king of spain and the meeting of those

01:15:51.140 worlds i would read that book if it wasn't a romance novel this is so interesting it's about

01:15:58.520 to be 17 reviews on goodreads i'm gonna pick this up hell yeah now louise belonged to another but

01:16:03.920 his forbidden love for like no bounds they would battle the dangers of their turbulent era and

01:16:10.540 forge a new life together i could put this under a box with a little stick and you would be like

01:16:15.580 it would be like amanda babe yeah you would capture me i would just like boom this this is what we 0.69

01:16:22.320 would call fucking through history all of this stuff is gonna go down but you're also gonna get 0.62

01:16:28.820 a lot of history lessons like that's the other thing about reading a lot of romance yeah you 0.93

01:16:32.980 learn a lot of history do like you get you learn approximate knowledge you gotta fact check a

01:16:38.160 little bit but approximate knowledge about a lot of different eras oh yeah we're globetrotting

01:16:43.340 like i don't know i'm thinking of sky o'malley didn't she get captured by a muslim warlord or

01:16:49.300 a sultan at one point at least like that could have been twice probably multiple times because

01:16:54.920 we never learn it wasn't it was a series so their kidnapping may needed to have happened

01:17:00.340 to drive the plot yeah of course because once they have kids and they settle down we got to

01:17:04.640 bring them back into the plot yeah gotta get the band back together wow this is incredible this is

01:17:12.640 this is the one that grabs you yeah it really does especially because of like we got we were

01:17:17.860 so meticulous about his outfit, even though it is like a Party City costume version.

01:17:21.520 And hers is just 300 years later. I'm so impressed with that.

01:17:26.960 I kind of wonder, like, if you're staging these, you know, do you have just costumes?

01:17:32.360 Yeah, just what you have in the back.

01:17:34.340 The oldie costume? Because, I mean, you could also make these different colors and make it

01:17:37.620 like a Mississippi Riverboat Madam. And I don't really understand it either, because it's not like

01:17:42.580 tits weren't out in the Tudor era like they kind of were my friend Anna Foster that's one of her 0.93

01:17:48.880 slogans on her podcast vulgar history tits out because there are so many examples of badass 1.00

01:17:54.020 women from history in portraiture and in real life just loving having their boobs on display 0.56

01:17:59.600 and it goes back to the Tudor times so I don't know why necessarily we had to fast forward 0.53

01:18:04.120 300 years to France um for this costume other than yeah maybe it was just what they had on

01:18:10.780 the rack in the studio that day yeah it does not look this is a 1990 no 1989 novel does not look

01:18:18.560 like the digital rights were ever sold so if you want you can only get it in a paperback all right

01:18:23.140 i'll start scrubbing the bookstore for it all right so the next one i think draws this is a

01:18:30.120 very old cover i think this draws a lot from classic art and i want to know what you think

01:18:35.120 are you ready all right oh yeah there it is cupid and psyche yep right away so we have the woman

01:18:43.420 underneath arching her body up i'm like trying to do it arching her body up towards the man who is

01:18:49.480 floating question mark down towards her he's he is almost horizontal he really is and so she's

01:18:58.340 flying yeah that's yeah antonio canova cupid and psyche metropolitan museum of art look it up

01:19:05.040 that's what this is antonio canova c-a-n-o-v-a cupid on the psyche oh look at them there they

01:19:17.080 are yeah there's probably one that's a bang on match oh yeah there are so many examples so you

01:19:25.060 can also look at theodore friedel cupid and psyche 1890 let's see i'm just like doing a

01:19:31.240 google search and then yes psyche revived by cupid's kiss oh it's the arm it's outstretched

01:19:36.700 rounded arm it's the yes the arm reaching up yep in a big curve and the way that he's looking that

01:19:44.340 he is looking down at her and she's looking slightly away yep yeah this is very cupid and

01:19:51.720 psyche i and a little uh a little michelangelo with all the drapey yeah and i was thinking like

01:19:57.840 um even something like the creation of man oh yes god touching adam's finger almost but like

01:20:05.060 not quite we're almost there but we're not touching like her hand is hovering um wow

01:20:11.360 what can you say it's very highbrow this really gets the job done doesn't it yeah i'm i'm intrigued

01:20:18.480 the other the other thing that jumps out about this is the light this is a very

01:20:23.140 it's gorgeous it's gorgeous but this is a dark cover yeah if they're being lit from behind though

01:20:29.760 she's way too bright way too illuminated because we need to have her be the focal point yes but

01:20:36.380 i love it i love the colors of the background that like watercolor moody sky i'm assuming it's a sky

01:20:45.080 Yeah, I think it is.

01:20:46.720 But if you're talking about the creation of Adam.

01:20:50.900 Yes.

01:20:51.340 Yeah.

01:20:51.660 Also, there's scraping and flowing and almost touching.

01:20:55.560 The limp hands, like almost.

01:20:58.100 Yeah.

01:20:58.820 And he's, he's, well, he's got a blue bed sheet is what he's got.

01:21:03.720 He looks like Jesus.

01:21:06.160 Look at that jawline.

01:21:08.000 Look at that face.

01:21:09.520 Clenched.

01:21:10.280 That's like this.

01:21:11.180 That's like when you see a mountain and the edge of the mountain look like

01:21:14.340 old man's face in new hampshire the the craggy like that guy's face craggy it's a cliff like

01:21:20.260 it is old yes chiseled it is very very wow that's a jawline i would dive into the ocean off of that

01:21:26.980 chin i mean you could take shelter under his nose look at how gorgeous this is though like i would

01:21:32.500 hang this on a wall this yeah i really this is to this this is really leaning into the it's very

01:21:38.340 Very Renaissance. Very Renaissance. I'm trying to think what else. It's a little expressionistic

01:21:44.600 because we do, I don't know if it's just the resolution of the image, but like that background

01:21:48.180 being so moody and like a, almost like a Turner painting the sky. Yes, absolutely. Gorgeous. I'm

01:21:56.640 a fan. There are very few high res versions of this one and there are some low res ones that

01:22:02.800 have more that have like turned the brightness up but i like how dark like this is yes i like

01:22:08.320 the vibe of that i think it lends to the charm all right we've got three more are you ready

01:22:13.000 i'm so ready this is one of the classic most memorable covers savage thunder by joanna

01:22:22.000 lindsey oh my gosh i was at goodwill the other day and i picked up because i knew we were going

01:22:26.680 to record this i was looking at the shelves i don't think it was this exactly but i saw a book

01:22:31.520 cover 99 of the way there this is classic there are people who have staged photo shoots of themselves

01:22:40.060 you have to people have photoshopped their faces onto this one i mean and that is the fobs i was

01:22:46.360 just gonna say that's the fobs you can tell oh yeah it's it's always in the jaw and the nose you

01:22:51.260 can just like oh yeah there's there he is there he is i love it okay so we have moccasin boots

01:22:56.020 a fringed leather vest on him so did he take his shirt off and then put the vest back on

01:23:01.900 oh he's so manly he doesn't need a shirt these are romance heroes for whom shirts are irrelevant

01:23:07.680 unbridled stallion in the background a very phallic cliff amp hill i don't know

01:23:14.640 amanda you are gonna die when i read you the cover copy of this one oh my god i'm so excited

01:23:20.700 okay so before we get to the cover copy not only do we have lots and lots of v's but we have a lot

01:23:25.360 of straight lines we've got the fringe we've got the the um rock formation in the background

01:23:31.040 rearing horse there's always an animal freaking the hell out in the background cacti yep cactuses

01:23:38.320 spiky environment yep yeah i i i'm very suggestive of something oh and he's got a gun 0.98

01:23:43.640 oh he's got a gun it is and her the back of her shirt is of course that deep v

01:23:49.560 all right are you are you you're not ready for the cover copy here

01:23:54.980 au contraire i am more than ready

01:23:57.200 newly widowed after a shockingly brief marriage to an elderly british lord

01:24:04.640 okay jocelyn fleming still aches with the jocelyn fleming jocelyn fleming who aches with the pain

01:24:14.100 of unexplored desire now her restless heart is leading her far from the protective bosom of

01:24:18.980 polite london society to the perilous beauty of the american west and to cult thunder cult

01:24:26.940 thunder that's his name did his mom give him that name i bet she did she knew what was going to

01:24:33.500 happen this baby looks like fabio he's going to grow up to be a romance novel cover hero he has

01:24:38.080 rectangular pecs like they're just they're squank like loaves of bread he's a lego he's made a lego

01:24:44.380 this guy. Wrathlessly exciting, but dangerously unpredictable. Colt is a loner. Oh God, whose

01:24:51.260 Cheyenne blood burns hotter than the blistering Arizona sun. Oh boy, it's a quote unquote Indian 1.00

01:24:57.140 romance. Jocelyn's wealth and title mean nothing to this stranger whose passion rules his actions

01:25:04.620 and his heart. Side note, that's not a great choice for a partner, someone who's unable to

01:25:08.340 control their emotions and have regulation. You kind of need that. I need to know why she

01:25:13.340 needs to go to the american west if she has a title and is widowed by a wealthy english lord 0.99

01:25:19.420 like i want the setup to quote a novelist alicia rye in that setting dick is plentiful and of low 0.92

01:25:26.280 value that's true this is true but neither the wired wild desert stallion nor the untouched 0.83

01:25:33.740 english rose can deny their irresistible attraction oh my gosh the english rose trope

01:25:40.000 there it is yep there it is although she's a ginger how how well would she have been accepted 0.98

01:25:45.020 because they got all these hang-ups about gingers being low class she looks like a box dye ginger 0.97

01:25:49.420 like i i i don't know if it's just the res of the image like the color is bleeding out of her hair

01:25:54.780 as i'm looking at it yeah it's definitely flaring into the sunset her hair is the color of a sunset

01:26:00.600 for sure there's another book that i have read a whole bunch of times and i can't remember if it's 0.96

01:26:07.340 the lion's lady or the black lion i think it's the lion's lady where the heroine is a blonde woman

01:26:12.960 who's adopted into a tribe and i want it might have been comanche i'd have to look it up but

01:26:18.960 it turns out that she's secretly she's a secret princess story she's secretly the heir to a great

01:26:23.660 fortune and is brought over to england to be part of society and to have her come out and it's like

01:26:29.840 wow this is so problematic so many different directions yes it's layers of yikes and yeah

01:26:36.820 As a lost princess story, it's a very popular older romance.

01:26:40.080 How do you feel about like the tropification of novels, especially like now where we're

01:26:45.120 marketing books just based on tropes? Like lost princess, we have Indian romance here.

01:26:50.000 Like, I don't know.

01:26:52.820 I think I have to correct myself because people are going to start screaming at me.

01:26:57.660 I don't, to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with these tropes, but I like

01:27:00.820 to figure them out for myself. I don't love to be sold a book based on, oh, it's enemies to

01:27:05.920 lovers, you'll love it. Yes. I have a lot of thoughts on that. So the book I'm talking about

01:27:08.760 is The Lion's Lady by Julie Garwood. I just had to make sure I had that right. Cause someone was

01:27:11.720 going to be like, so I can't believe it. Remember that? Cause I love, love Julie Garwood. I think

01:27:16.260 that what is happening right now is that we have a number of things converging in terms of book

01:27:19.820 marketing right now. It's very heavily marketed with the tropes upfront. Like a lot of the promo

01:27:24.660 is, you know, there's only one bed enemies to lovers and chance, like they're marketing books

01:27:28.860 very heavily on the tropes, especially online. That is because the audience that has, I think

01:27:34.500 in part, the audience that has read fanfic and has tagged all their fics is now looking at pubbed.

01:27:40.660 That's such a good point.

01:27:41.800 Traditionally published things and like, oh, well, what are the tags on this?

01:27:45.040 Just as we have the more common usage of content warning and trigger warnings,

01:27:50.120 we also have an increased use of tags indicating what kind of story this is.

01:27:54.240 And it's useful because BISAC codes are not very specific.

01:27:58.820 Like I can talk about contemporary romance and you could be talking about contemporary romance,

01:28:02.160 but when you...

01:28:02.580 It's two different things.

01:28:03.520 Right. You could be meaning like a like a like a dark mafia romance, sex trafficking. And I'm talking about something really very, you know, wholesome and on the coast with some roses and some geraniums on the cover, maybe a rocking chair or an Adirondack chair. There was a period when they all had Adirondack chairs.

01:28:17.840 yes that's so okay very evocative right because those two terms are the same thing but mean

01:28:24.020 different things readers have developed a lot more specific language and part of that is tags

01:28:28.860 and part of that is nicknames and you know we call this old school romance because it's very

01:28:32.860 different from what's being published now like you could go back and read these and i can give

01:28:36.700 you all of the warnings but you just have to be prepared that this is going to be holistically

01:28:41.260 different from the read right now because the genre has changed. So like the trope forwardness

01:28:49.400 is useful in terms of readers communicating with each other because you know what you're going to

01:28:54.000 get. And readers now are very, I think, discerning in terms of the very specific things that they

01:28:59.060 want, which awesome. The downside is that I think that books are being created based on the tags,

01:29:05.620 like starting with the marketing and then working backwards. In a lot of ways, that creates what we

01:29:10.540 call No Plot, Just Vibes. No Plot, Just Vibes. Sure. Because there's no stakes. Yeah. That's

01:29:16.140 so smart, though. I'm really glad you explained the fanfic angle. Yeah. That is my theory.

01:29:24.680 Because I was ready to chalk it up to like a decline in, I mean, media literacy,

01:29:30.400 regular literacy, you take your pick. But that gives me hope. It's just like people's tastes

01:29:35.480 and how we approach these stories is changing. But yeah, I will say like, there are some books

01:29:40.180 recently that i've read i can tell like i'm not going to say no plot just vibes but we included

01:29:47.240 certain plot points just to hit a check mark yes i trope i liken it you will understand this

01:29:53.740 analogy very well thank you i liken it to driving on the pennsylvania turnpike you drive from rest

01:30:00.160 stop to rest stop to rest stop right like yeah are you are you are you at breezewood or are you at

01:30:07.580 carlisle like there's a mountain plot there if you've been on the pennsylvania turnpike there's

01:30:11.220 not a lot there um you're driving from stop to stop and so no plot no plot just vibes and

01:30:17.460 sometimes and then well there is a plot to the turnpike is the plot is it's bad um is it's never

01:30:24.220 finished is they're always going to fix a part of it right but like you you start with the tropes so

01:30:29.040 you move the characters from trope to trope with a lot and sometimes without the underlying tension

01:30:35.020 that creates the reason for that trope.

01:30:36.900 Like if you just met and there's only one bed,

01:30:38.880 okay, well then sleep head to foot,

01:30:40.520 you'll live, be comfortable in your night's sleep. 1.00

01:30:42.620 But if you're like secretly carrying massive horny pants 0.97

01:30:45.520 and suppressing all of your unresolved sexual tension, 0.99

01:30:47.900 well then there's only one bed

01:30:48.840 as a whole other thing.

01:30:50.440 I also think that the fanfic influence on romance,

01:30:53.860 especially the marketing,

01:30:55.280 indicates a very specific kind of,

01:30:58.240 it's a very specific kind of literacy

01:31:01.440 that comes with a taxonomy.

01:31:04.120 So the tropes and the elements

01:31:06.700 and the things that are labeled

01:31:07.780 that this book has,

01:31:08.880 including the content warnings

01:31:09.980 and the trigger warnings,

01:31:11.580 that's all a taxonomy

01:31:13.420 mixed with literacy.

01:31:15.020 It's a completely different way

01:31:16.380 of talking about books.

01:31:17.240 It's fascinating.

01:31:18.380 Yeah, dare I say it's the best genre

01:31:20.080 for that reason.

01:31:21.600 It's a rich text in and of itself.

01:31:23.860 Absolutely.

01:31:24.740 Especially if you're looking at

01:31:25.880 a particular slash pairing

01:31:27.560 that isn't in the original

01:31:28.540 and it's nothing but tags

01:31:30.140 of all the different ways

01:31:31.060 these characters' tension

01:31:31.940 can be recast.

01:31:33.120 we're all just recycling the same tension you know well thank you that actually gives me so

01:31:40.180 much to chew on wow that's my theory that's my theory anyway so i've got two more and we'll end

01:31:45.440 with my my favorite um this is another joanna lindsey joanna lindsey had the greatest covers

01:31:50.540 i think the covers this is i think this is the same guy as a rose in winter maybe they increased

01:32:00.900 his chin i got a haircut yeah i have to tilt my head all the way to the side to check out that

01:32:05.780 guy's face but he's very he's very craggy it was all the same model i can find his name this is 0.94

01:32:11.860 the one where he is butt naked and he is basically thrusting his naked man parts betwixt her bosoms 0.95

01:32:20.360 like he is straight up humping her sternum as you do as you do so what do you see if what do i see 1.00

01:32:28.400 tan lines once again um she's a little bit tied up uh in her flowing garments i will say which

01:32:38.680 i don't know if that's a plot point um her hand almost like looks like it's

01:32:42.620 found behind her back oh my tender is the storm okay

01:32:47.240 i see 80s blue eyeshadow oh very yes and drawn on brows which i'm a big fan of here 1.00

01:32:56.340 I can't get over the thrusting of the groin into the chest.

01:32:59.580 I'm sorry.

01:33:00.260 I mean, haven't you always wanted to have your sternum addressed in such a manner?

01:33:04.400 Above a canyon?

01:33:06.240 Yeah, right on the edge of the canyon.

01:33:08.560 And it looks pretty breezy.

01:33:10.980 I'd be worried about toppling over.

01:33:13.100 But it's interesting because his hair doesn't seem to be moving much except for the top.

01:33:17.460 But her hair and her dress and the bush behind her and the skirt,

01:33:22.020 they are all blowing off the side.

01:33:24.400 like his thrusting is disturbing the wind velocity in the air oh he's an immovable force

01:33:32.260 when a man's passion explodes into violence oh god only a woman's desire can turn it to love

01:33:39.260 see another thing you could never write and publish today or you could if you're calling

01:33:44.160 hoover you just have to like package it in a floral dust jacket yep but um wow i love her 1.00

01:33:51.640 little hair ornaments that are still in place so you know she's got got like a little crown or

01:33:57.760 something it's like three little medallions right yeah in her hair um so this is the original 0.96

01:34:03.500 cover okay and it was very controversial because well you know that's a sex act like 0.99

01:34:11.660 that's what's happening here yes exactly the problem was actually his ass the problem was his 0.96

01:34:19.200 but no there are more cover versions which i'm about to show you of this cover we did a um we 0.93

01:34:28.180 had a guest post from steve amedown who's a romance historian and former librarian at the

01:34:33.080 brown popular culture library and this was painted by robert mcginnis who passed away earlier this

01:34:39.600 year and he was the he was the one who painted this one and many other of the original lindsey

01:34:46.940 covers he also did a lot of pulp movie uh posters like live and let die the original breakfast at

01:34:53.120 tiffany's poster with the colored border on audrey heppard on one side that was also him

01:34:57.980 i'm gonna pull that up isn't that incredible then barbarella the original uh movie art was also

01:35:03.440 um his artist he had a very very long and it's very campy i'm into it extremely campy yeah so 0.98

01:35:11.460 So first, I will show you that we had, we had some controversy here because of the naked man ass. 0.99

01:35:21.640 Yes. 1.00

01:35:22.040 So the first option that was explored was to cover his ass with a coast to coast bestseller. 1.00

01:35:30.000 Oh, fantastic. 1.00

01:35:31.820 Right? 0.99

01:35:32.240 The naked man butt was like, it's like a peen on primetime. 0.98

01:35:35.760 We can't do that. 0.79

01:35:36.580 Well, and it's not even on the original.

01:35:37.940 i'm assuming this is the original the first one you showed me where he's like he's slightly in

01:35:41.960 the bush it's he's not even a little bit of a side but sage is just cupping his buttock but that edit

01:35:48.920 reminds me i mentioned bachelor in paradise earlier i think we were off mic um there was a

01:35:54.560 couple a couple seasons ago on the main season of the bachelor abc now owned by disney or their 0.96

01:36:00.320 conglomerate i don't know abc parent company disney decided that women in bikini bottoms was

01:36:05.040 too risque so they painted on like additions to the women's bikini bottoms on as it aired so

01:36:12.840 there's a whole season of the bachelor where you can find like women with painted on like diaper 0.70

01:36:18.180 butts unfortunately wow yeah that's what that's reminding me of is this like but the heaving 1.00

01:36:24.720 bosoms is okay oh yeah the bosoms are fine the bosoms the open mouth all of like you know all

01:36:30.080 of it having three arms fine naked man but no no is that is the is the bachelor with the original

01:36:35.320 cut is that like the butthole cut of cats where a legend almost yeah i can send it it's it's

01:36:41.300 really just like ms paint level oh look i'll send you some images yeah why why why even bother

01:36:48.700 i think there are so many parallels to now and the in the heyday of the haze code and the way

01:36:54.520 that our media is being restricted and our culture is being limited in what we see similar to

01:36:59.400 regressing yeah we're regressing we're going to just be like you know i have this great idea this

01:37:03.180 is code it's a haze code we should bring it back like that's next the worst version of this cover

01:37:08.760 as sent to me by steve amadown is this one they gave him a speedo they painted on a speedo yes

01:37:16.180 it's bachelor treatment they did they gave him the bachelor edit oh wow incredible right that's

01:37:22.720 really good um very period accurate i will say yes ye olde banana hammock

01:37:27.760 very prevalent in the 80s in the 1880s in the west yes oh that and if you look they oh they

01:37:35.980 went along the shadow yeah they just went with the shadow of his hip and painted it isn't that

01:37:41.460 incredible so now it's okay yeah now it's fine but the idea of naked man buttocks was just like

01:37:47.160 startling well listen i went to school in elizabethtown pennsylvania and i remember

01:37:53.080 We read Romeo and Juliet and we watched the 1968 movie, which...

01:37:58.600 Boobies in that. 0.95

01:37:59.480 Boobies. 1.00

01:38:00.160 The problem that parents had with it was not the boobies. 0.95

01:38:03.540 It was the actor who looked like Zac Efron showing butt was the reason they wanted us

01:38:08.400 to not watch that movie. 0.85

01:38:09.540 The boobies were fine, even though the actress was underage, I believe.

01:38:13.760 I will remember when it was scandalous on NYPD Blue for Jimmy Smith or David Caruso. 0.98

01:38:23.080 to show their butt like oh my god there was butt on primetime and i'm like what okay and now like 0.99

01:38:27.980 look how far we've come we have jason isaac's full frontal on hbo max right we got dick for days 0.99

01:38:33.120 but um mcinnis painted a lot of these uh painted this one and you can see the similarity in style 0.96

01:38:39.720 to um where is it when love awaits yeah this one's very yeah that's also him okay i believe

01:38:47.780 this is also him could be the same model too yeah i mean it's it's the one guy like i said i love a

01:38:54.260 draped woman she's just draping we got drapey woman over here got a drapey woman over here

01:38:59.600 this guy's wearing a drapery all right we're gonna end with my favorite cover the co-founder 1.00

01:39:05.880 of smart bitches is a candy tan she and i co-founded the site in 2005 and had no idea it was 0.99

01:39:11.440 gonna come like a big deal we were like oh no one's gonna read this it's like you jumping into 0.99

01:39:16.220 royals commentary yeah like oh no one's gonna see this this is candy's all-time favorite okay

01:39:23.240 ever okay danelle harman's the beloved one oh okay and then you ask about art historian she's

01:39:33.520 like oh she better be the beloved one if she's on her knees in a rose garden no it's it's him

01:39:40.680 i'm pretty sure it's him because there's a he's the wild one but i will i will check i think it

01:39:45.840 I think this is one of those, you know, brotherly series.

01:39:50.900 Yes, it's the de Montfort brothers.

01:39:54.100 Okay.

01:39:54.720 The beloved one.

01:39:56.660 That's Englishmen wounded in battle.

01:39:59.420 Englishman Charles de Montfort.

01:40:02.680 This takes place in the 1770s, 1780s?

01:40:08.160 Sure.

01:40:08.860 Why not?

01:40:09.720 Yep.

01:40:11.220 Yep. 1.00

01:40:11.480 She's, I think this is a revolutionary maybe, either way.

01:40:15.040 oh yeah not with that color dress no definitely not and those pleats on that sleeve okay sorry

01:40:22.280 i got to get past the fashion history um you know what you can bring in the fashion history

01:40:26.100 because i've got questions about the pleated sleeve on her dress there like what i like it

01:40:30.140 i'm into it but um i have questions on placement in the world if this is 1770s well we had that

01:40:38.240 one where he was in the 1400s and she was in the 1700s i mean we can make this work you're right

01:40:42.800 we've got people having sex with blue aliens we can make a little time travel work now

01:40:47.040 i don't know these aren't really her colors either she's very you know raven hair she's 1.00

01:40:52.840 got the red lips her she needs to get her colors done she definitely needs to have her scarves 0.90

01:40:57.060 laid absolutely i'm thinking a fuchsia might be there's only a tiny little bit of fuchsia on this

01:41:03.300 i think we need more fuchsia he needs more fuchsia i do love that color but i think fuchsia would 0.50

01:41:07.940 have made her features pop more. Wow. And he does not look thrilled to be here. He looks so annoyed. 0.83

01:41:15.680 Look at look at the look at the tension grip on his hand. Yeah. Like look at look at the tension

01:41:22.920 grip where he's gripping her arm. He looks annoyed. Girl, get up. He's about to throw her off of him

01:41:27.740 like get off me. Girl, stand up. You're better than this. So that's Amy Layton. She is a desperate 1.00

01:41:35.100 plight and he's his heart is profoundly moved by this plight but the noble british lord is already

01:41:40.180 taken lures him away from past loyalties to the crown and fiance with the golden rapturous promise

01:41:45.800 of love and happily ever after okay toxic yeah amy's long prayed for someone to enter her life

01:41:52.200 who would take her away from the drudgery imposed upon her by her cruel unloving step family so she's

01:41:57.740 dark-haired cinderella and she needs him to enter her life that is among the other things

01:42:05.260 yeah should be entered here um i i i guess the the the columns are

01:42:11.420 yes that's what i was going to say next um right through the middle of her skull that one 1.00

01:42:17.680 she's got dick on the brain literally literally and figuratively yes and look at his shirt 1.00

01:42:26.680 unbuttoned tucked in tucked in deep v uh-huh drapey towards her mouth this is a draped hero 1.00

01:42:33.080 this is both a draped heroine and a draped hero oh my goodness and a blonde hero have we seen a

01:42:39.560 blonde hero yet today no i think they've all been dark haired all we got a lot of redheads but i

01:42:45.240 don't think we got any blonde dudes that's very rare isn't it yeah usually got a lot of dark and

01:42:50.280 handsome is the one that's going to get the girl in the end typically yep a hundred percent that 0.93

01:42:55.240 That was definitely the case.

01:42:56.520 Breaking all the tropes.

01:42:57.840 Breaking all the tropes.

01:42:58.660 And she's in a submissive position.

01:43:01.000 Very much so.

01:43:02.300 He is literally looking down his nose at her.

01:43:05.980 Sneering, I would say.

01:43:07.180 Sneering.

01:43:07.780 And it's a little suggestive.

01:43:11.560 It's, I mean, quite.

01:43:13.760 She's like leaning on him as she's like kneeling as well.

01:43:17.560 It's not a powerful, I'm going to take the reins and show you the time of your life kneel.

01:43:22.520 It's a, didn't you say she's desperate? 0.99

01:43:25.240 Yeah, she's got drudgery, man. 1.00

01:43:28.160 She's got drudgery from her stepfamily.

01:43:29.660 I'm trying to zoom in. 1.00

01:43:31.320 Look at the size of that belt buckle. 1.00

01:43:34.000 That's as long as her hand. 0.99

01:43:37.300 You know what they say about a man with a big belt buckle.

01:43:40.520 Man with a big belt buckle.

01:43:41.840 He's got a weightlifting belt on,

01:43:43.740 one of those belts that keeps your kidneys from popping out your back.

01:43:46.280 And look at the amount of fabric in this sleeve.

01:43:48.800 Yeah, it's sumptuous.

01:43:50.120 He's wearing a circus tent.

01:43:51.380 he's probably related to the guy um he's related to the guy for rose winter whose guy is you know

01:44:00.960 how like the secret to the universe is you got to have your towel these guys got to have their

01:44:06.120 drapery yeah these people just need these guys they just need their drapery i'm i'm upset it's 0.75

01:44:11.600 not giving mr darcy like straight out of the pond drapery i need to see some nipple through that 0.97

01:44:17.100 white shirt there's hardly any nipple hardly any nipple shadow and if he was wet it would

01:44:22.300 definitely improve things wow compositionally not the strongest that we've looked at today but

01:44:27.000 there's a story being told here yes it's this is a cover where there's almost as much background as

01:44:33.520 there is person like in most of these and it's in focus too which you don't always see everything is

01:44:39.880 relevant apparently and they are less than half the couple is less than half of the total real

01:44:44.580 estate. But he's very erect. He is erect. The poems are erect. Everything. The pillars. Yeah. I wonder

01:44:51.580 what that means. Do you wonder what that means? Erect, but not happy about it. No, not happy about

01:44:59.240 it. So those are the covers. Thank you so much for taking this journey with me. I hope that was a

01:45:05.120 journey. Much like on The Bachelor. Can you tell I love The Bachelor? We can't describe the process

01:45:11.600 as a process we have to call it a journey it's a journey unless you're on love is blind then it's

01:45:16.240 an experiment i have not ventured over to love is blind purely for the time commitment isn't it on

01:45:22.720 six days a week five days a week i had to watch the entire second season for a pub podcast that

01:45:27.600 i was on i had a podcast with alicia reich called love struck daily it was like 10 minute like happy

01:45:32.160 love story hit an episode of um about love is blind and she made me watch it i am not a reality

01:45:39.600 show person myself and embarrassment is way too strong sure but uh it was really something yeah

01:45:47.220 and that's why I love bachelor because it's like the og and bachelor in paradise again they're

01:45:52.780 microcosms of what's happening on a larger scale with dating and gender politics that's why I love

01:45:58.260 them oh yeah for sure and if the bachelor keeps going on hiatus I might transition to a different

01:46:03.700 show eventually but for now they are keeping me fed I mean there's enough seasons I did send you

01:46:09.260 bachelor painted on the butts oh thank you i appreciate that i've had that to the show notes

01:46:15.740 so uh what were your impressions of all of these covers did it make the art history part of your

01:46:20.140 brain go it scratched an itch for sure um the color compositions i'm really into because the

01:46:27.740 fuchsia of course but i love the color combos we come up with when we're diverting from the fuchsia

01:46:33.180 i like a yellow dress i've learned on these covers that really pops um and yeah my

01:46:39.260 my penchant for a drapey woman stands listen if you like drapey women old school romance will

01:46:45.680 keep you fed yep a lot of i need to i need to start buying these paperback romances again so

01:46:51.580 i i do the events for the midtown scholar bookstore in harrisburg do you know we do not

01:46:56.620 have a romance section because the book buyers and managers are all men yeah and they don't see the

01:47:03.460 need. So since I've come on, I think I've been there for about four years, going on four years

01:47:09.720 now, we've started participating in Bookstore Romance Day and doing pop-ups of romance tables

01:47:15.820 and tropified a little bit of our sections for some of those. But next on my list is a dedicated

01:47:22.900 romance section because right now it's just, they go into fiction. Well, if money is what speaks to

01:47:27.960 them, you might, you can tell them that in the past few years, more than a hundred romance only

01:47:33.920 bookstores have opened. Yes. And, and we've talked about it and we, we had Julia Quinn a couple of

01:47:39.320 years ago. I got to interview her. That was a highlight of my life. Um, and we talked about,

01:47:44.760 you know, it's the biggest like seller of the publishing industry. It's what's keeping

01:47:49.540 more academic pursuits afloat because romance readers will always buy books. So I, that's my

01:47:55.560 next crusade is well it's a dedicated section if you mean me to file like an amicus brief about this

01:48:00.680 things to say yeah but like it's money it's money and also the other thing about bookstores that's

01:48:06.340 so interesting to me is that they are becoming destinations that have their own aesthetic

01:48:09.960 where you want to take pictures of it and of yourself in it it is itself a set like we all

01:48:16.280 have a set in our houses that's what we do best i don't know if you've ever been to the scholar

01:48:19.760 i have not it's so gorgeous it's in an old department store movie theater that we've

01:48:25.200 converted. Well, not we, 20 years ago, they converted it. It is a destination. We were

01:48:29.940 Publishers Weekly's Bookstore of the Year in 2023. That's so cool. I purely think because of the

01:48:35.580 vibes. And we host the Harrisburg Book Festival every year. So we just announced our 2025 lineup.

01:48:43.680 And we put out, we do a poster every year. We commission a poster from an artist. And

01:48:47.680 this is the first year, like, I think we've really nailed the vibe because people are asking

01:48:51.340 for t-shirts and they're asking to take home the poster and i'm like oh i'll have to see if we can

01:48:55.800 license this merch merch yeah get on the merch train so but yeah i i love a bookstore as a

01:49:01.120 destination my favorite thing to do when i'm in the bookstore is sit and listen to all of the

01:49:07.120 first dates that i can tell are happening and it's usually a man showing a woman around and the

01:49:12.860 the cringiest part of it for me is always if they know our store if they've been in before

01:49:17.620 we have a an early edition of Mein Kampf by Hitler oh this is no this is not your no it was

01:49:24.740 published here in Pennsylvania and Hitler actually sued the publishing house for copyright

01:49:28.860 so there's not very many of them left and we have it in like a glass case but like

01:49:33.200 men come down to show their dates this book and they don't know that story and they're just like

01:49:37.960 look Hitler so if you do make the bookstore your destination maybe read up on on the history of

01:49:47.440 that book before you show it to your date i am entirely made of cringe at this fall oh sorry you

01:49:54.400 did say you have secondhand embarrassment i'm so sorry oh like guys what are you trying to say here

01:50:00.320 what's the point yeah do they get a second date is it a litmus test i don't know yeah because

01:50:04.760 it's really fun because our little area i'm only in there like one day a week at this point um our

01:50:10.780 area where we have our office space set up it's just behind some very tall bookshelves so people

01:50:15.900 don't know that we're there, but we can hear everything that's going on. And the dates are

01:50:20.260 my favorite part to listen in on. Honestly, like there are dates, there are Facebook groups and

01:50:25.320 private chat threads of people just like, I want to date on this guy. Here's what happened. Like

01:50:28.900 this is what was it during 2020? Like West Elm Jeff or somebody went West Elm Lance. I forget

01:50:37.140 his name. But he like he was the guy from West Elm and all these women were like, oh my God, 0.98

01:50:41.940 we're all dating the same bro. Do you think that there's like a group chat or a Facebook group

01:50:45.880 Like, did you go on a guy that showed you a first edition of Mein Kampf?

01:50:49.960 And they're like, oh my God, yes.

01:50:52.920 There's got to be.

01:50:54.040 There has to be.

01:50:54.960 I think there's an, are we dating the same guy, like Central PA?

01:50:58.420 So, yeah.

01:50:59.740 Just go to that group and search Mein Kampf.

01:51:01.760 I'll search you up.

01:51:03.860 Because I wouldn't give somebody a second date

01:51:06.080 if they were all excited to show me like a first edition of that.

01:51:11.220 Just, I would get the egg immediately.

01:51:12.940 uh if you were bringing me to show me the speedo painted on backside of that sign me up i will i

01:51:20.860 will go on a second date yeah i mean i'm married i'm not dating anybody but like seriously i would

01:51:25.260 be in take notes fellas that's right i always ask this question please what books are you reading

01:51:30.560 that you might want to tell people about hmm so gosh what am i reading i'm trying to get through

01:51:38.720 the second of the new nora roberts series the inheritance i think was the first one yeah um

01:51:45.960 and the second book came out i think last year the third one i need to get to the third one it's

01:51:49.900 coming out this fall the second book has bad middle book syndrome uh oh you know what that

01:51:56.120 happens a lot though yeah and it could have been a duology but i think her publishers probably made

01:52:00.780 it into a trilogy for it's a trilogy kind of girl purchase right so but the plot is great and the 0.89

01:52:06.920 the it's have you read this one i read the inheritance yeah bride ghost bride creepy ass

01:52:13.020 big manner that she inherits from a long-lost relative i'm very into it but the middle book

01:52:18.560 they're kind of just planning a party for most of it to open the house to the community and

01:52:25.580 piss off the ghost um it's off ghost i'm slogging through it i want to get to the third one which

01:52:31.980 is my motivation so the plot's great in the first one the middle one i think you can skim um but i

01:52:37.960 will also say i'm also rereading the emily wilds oh the emily wilds encyclopedia of berries and the

01:52:46.500 third one of that also just came out they're my like comfort books i love those books um

01:52:52.160 yeah compendium lost tales that's the last one so i'm rereading the new one they're so delightful

01:52:57.980 and they're so good in audio yes that's how i am listening to them right now so good in audio the

01:53:04.040 voice actress is very very good the thing about norah's trilogy is there have been a few where i

01:53:09.480 have loved book two and could take or leave book one and and there are books where i had nothing

01:53:15.240 to say about book two and i was jonesing for book three that's me right now i like i i know where

01:53:20.600 this is going i know book two is just going to be more exposition give me book three right now i

01:53:26.220 will go feral for it as soon as i finish book two yep and you get arcs right like you get neck

01:53:31.480 galley links and stuff sometimes yeah i haven't gotten any nora ones yet um is there an arc for

01:53:36.080 the third one right now i do not know they're very selective they have to be with arcs i once

01:53:43.000 ages ago when she was writing the bridal quartet do you remember that i do yes okay my mom had

01:53:48.840 those i loved those so much but i um got an arc and it was numbered it was hand numbered yeah

01:53:59.640 that's that's coming back too it was a paper arc and i'm like what do you think that i'm

01:54:03.900 gonna do they don't want you to sell it you're gonna sell it and i'm like yeah because they

01:54:08.480 can trace it back to you then exactly not a thing that i've ever done um yeah so i'm i'm that's my

01:54:14.820 like comfort cozy reading right now what am i reading oh i do have an arc i just got um by

01:54:20.420 gareth russell who's like a british royal historian i want to say he wrote a book called

01:54:25.180 the palace about hampton court and his new one is the six loves of james the first first and sixth

01:54:33.280 so it explores his homosexuality oh shocking so i'm gonna pick that one up this week i have two

01:54:40.860 recommendations for you. Okay. One, if you're looking for cozy, the second book in this sort 0.53

01:54:46.960 of world came out, but the first one is outstanding. It is Sangu Mandana's The Very

01:54:52.260 Secret Society of Irregular Witches. I've been looking at the cover of this one.

01:54:57.520 And the second one is A Witch's Guide to Maginical Inkeeping, and they are fabulous.

01:55:04.180 They are quirky and cozy and loving. And this is something I've been thinking a lot about. There's

01:55:09.960 a podcast going on right now with Rob Morrow and Janine Turner, where they're recapping

01:55:14.360 Northern Exposure, which just got to Amazon Prime. It's called Northern Disclosure. And in one of the

01:55:19.320 first episodes the producer was on, it was talking about how you can get away with some absolutely 0.98

01:55:24.180 banana crackers behavior in the world of Northern Exposure, as long as there's no malice behind it. 0.99

01:55:29.360 Even if you are being a rank asshole, the minute there's malice, then there's a problem. And this 0.99

01:55:35.020 is like a small society in a small town, allegedly in Alaska. It was actually shot in the Pacific

01:55:39.300 Northwest. There's a, there's sort of a vibe to places where the land can kill you if you're

01:55:43.500 stupid. And that's like permeates this. The Sangu Mandana books have that same fundamental, 1.00

01:55:53.080 we are going to keep trying even though it's hard because we care about each other. Things are hard,

01:55:57.600 but we care about each other and we're going to look after each other. And that, that sort of vibe

01:56:01.760 is so enjoyable. And then it's quirky and there's stakes. It's on the New York Times list, I think,

01:56:06.740 for like two weeks now it's okay great just came out yeah okay i'll see if we got it i'm gonna go

01:56:12.800 to the bookstore tonight we have um oh i'm so bad at names that's okay me too which is really bad

01:56:21.560 during my job is to recommend books i'm like okay so it's a girl and she's kind of draped yeah

01:56:26.380 okay we have katie ye tonight maggie or a man and a woman walk into a bar she's coming into

01:56:31.180 the bookstore so i will look out for the sandhu mandana books while i'm there okay documentary

01:56:37.880 series called windsor a royal year it is four seasons at windsor castle okay if you find it

01:56:44.760 on youtube the resolution and the fashions are going to be but they show you what's going on

01:56:50.080 at windsor castle spring summer fall and winter what are the people who work there doing there's

01:56:55.600 one where they get ready for a state banquet and you watch them measure where utensils go

01:57:00.140 my favorite is the royal clock watcher or the clock keeper he has to go through the whole 0.94

01:57:06.580 goddamn place and change the clocks back manually at daylight savings and daylight standard and at 0.92

01:57:12.480 one point he's on camera with the cam how many clocks and he gets lost i don't i don't i don't 0.99

01:57:17.760 know where i am oh my god i mean we'll find a door eventually and you can hear the camera people 0.95

01:57:22.660 being like we're fucking lost in this castle it's very old and it is like total pissing 0.70

01:57:28.440 yeah but it's about the people who run Windsor Castle and you would find a lot to enjoy in it 0.96

01:57:35.040 incredible yeah I'll watch that for research purposes I'll purchase it as a tax write-off if I

01:57:39.380 hell yeah because uh for the book I'm writing it's kind of a guidebook or like a field guide

01:57:46.220 to royal world so the stuff like that is so valuable hearing from people who work for the

01:57:52.080 royals because it is a international institution. It takes a lot of people to keep that ship afloat.

01:57:59.280 Oh, yeah. Fascinating. Thank you so much for the recs. This is the best podcast to be on. You get

01:58:03.700 tailored recommendations. Thank you. You have been so generous with your time. Thank you for that.

01:58:10.080 Happy to do it. Where can people find you if you wish to be found? Oh, so many places. So Instagram

01:58:14.800 and TikTok. I am at Mata, M-A-T-T-A of fact. So underscore of, underscore fact. I also have my

01:58:22.120 Substack newsletter, which is called The Fascinator. That's bi-weekly meaning two times a week. So

01:58:28.240 royal news, royal history, deep dives, just anything that strikes my fancy. Same thing goes

01:58:35.100 for the Art of History podcast. Anything that strikes my fancy in art history is fair game on

01:58:39.880 there i very rarely theme out a season it's kind of just vibes um but like rigorously researched

01:58:46.440 vibes and then off with their headlines podcast is the last thing i have to plug that's my show

01:58:51.840 with meredith constant that's every week on thursdays wherever you get your podcasts if you

01:58:56.020 like royal news and pulling threads in the media so the last art of history that you did i have to

01:59:06.220 say i loved the witchcraft in art episode that was one of my favorites it's really fun i love

01:59:10.680 so like i'll theme out halloween episodes usually i like to pick a theme for that um as like an

01:59:16.080 extravaganza yeah um but it's not like there's not enough pictures of creepy shit no i have so 0.81

01:59:21.860 many i think this year i might either do clowns or like skeletons in art yeah so oh dig it thank 0.94

01:59:32.540 you so much I've had the greatest time I could talk to you for like another hour thank you so

01:59:36.420 so much for being so generous with me I am very grateful I know I loved it I'll come back anytime

01:59:41.800 if there's new batshit covers or yeah happy to do it we could do a whole another hour on the

01:59:48.480 cartoon covers and what they're doing and not doing the rom-com covers yeah that's a whole

01:59:53.500 lot to explore there in terms of messaging and flat lay and also iconography my theory is that

02:00:00.140 those are designed for icon size they're designed to look good in little tiny size you're right they

02:00:07.420 don't quite look they do look too like stretched when they're on book cover yeah they're much like

02:00:13.680 books are being written to trope the covers are being designed to how the the most common way

02:00:18.900 you're going to see it if you're especially if you're reading digital which is weird because

02:00:21.820 people younger than me they don't want digital they want print right and yeah trade not pick

02:00:26.680 not mass mac, not mass market. We don't want any of that anymore. No, thank you.

02:00:31.840 Thank you. No, thank you for all the hot takes. I'm going to be doling these out when I'm in the

02:00:37.040 bookstore this week. And that brings us to the end of this week's episode. Thank you tremendously

02:00:43.380 to Amanda Mata for her time. She was so, so generous and all of her analysis and how much

02:00:49.040 fun this was. I could not have asked for a more entertaining 700th episode, and I hope you think

02:00:54.400 so too i will have links to all of the books that we discussed including all of the covers do not

02:00:59.540 worry and i will have links to the various sources that we referred to and of course all of the

02:01:04.980 podcasts that we mentioned because what's more podcasts except a very good thing right as always

02:01:11.140 i end with a terrible joke now this joke comes from stock initial four four six zero and then

02:01:17.220 the follow-up is from compu with a one uh and i'm deeply grateful to both of these people because

02:01:22.540 this is so bad i know you're going to tell literally actually factually everyone i can

02:01:29.980 see the future i know it's true all right did you hear about the baker who has red hair

02:01:39.020 yeah baker who has red hair he was a gingerbread man

02:01:44.700 and listen it is really hard to buy bread from him because no one can catch him

02:01:52.540 it's so bad i love it so much like literally this is what it looks like when i tell jokes

02:01:58.320 into the microphone i am deeply deeply amused and having a very good time he's a gingerbread man

02:02:04.100 on behalf of everyone here i think i think i'm alone actually so no no no cats not even a cat

02:02:12.360 under my chair no none cats so on my behalf it's just me on behalf of me i wish you the very best

02:02:19.260 of reading. Have a wonderful weekend and we will see you back here next week. And in the words of

02:02:24.000 my favorite retired podcast, Friendshipping, thank you for listening. You're welcome for talking.

02:02:49.260 I don't think I can be your friend, Isabella said.

02:03:04.600 Rebecca's stomach flipped.

02:03:06.880 This is the love story of real hinge couple Isabella and Rebecca,

02:03:10.440 written and read by me, Temi Denton-Hurst.

02:03:12.900 Listen to the free audiobook now.

02:03:17.500 Expedia. Hey you.

02:03:19.380 What you doing?

02:03:20.940 Scrolling?

02:03:22.420 Doom scrolling?

02:03:23.800 Looking at other people's vacations?

02:03:25.960 Miami? San Diego? Cancun?

02:03:28.600 Okay, what about you?

02:03:30.340 What places will you go?

02:03:31.900 Expedia is the one place you go to go places.

02:03:34.540 Your trip can earn rewards which you can use

02:03:36.480 towards your next eligible stay.

02:03:38.380 Soon people will be doom scrolling you.

02:03:40.560 You'll be that friend's friend, but with rewards.

02:03:43.240 What are you waiting for?

02:03:44.500 Expedia, the one place you go to go places.

02:03:46.940 Terms apply.

02:03:47.360 Before you knew what a stock was, you traded snacks, cards, turns.

02:03:52.700 That instinct to trade didn't disappear.

02:03:55.040 It just grew up.

02:03:56.120 With no minimums, no monthly fees, and 100 free trades,

02:03:59.540 TD Easy Trade taps into that instinct.

02:04:01.880 Because you are made to trade.

02:04:03.960 And TD Easy Trade is made to help.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - January 18, 2026

Sunday Nice Things： Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

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