So I'll never read anything by this off there again. This is bringing me to my next point. I don't recommend you read this book. Well, that got real dark real quick. I don't understand.  Today we're chatting about another miss from Book of the Month. Book of the Month is just really not been it lately. I'm very worried about next month when I knowingly ordered a Peter Pan retailing, which is again something that I know I very often do not like because I love Peter Pan. Don't get me wrong, Peter Pan obsessed. And it's very rare that I read a retailing that I feel like either does something interesting enough to where if you've like messed with Peter Pan, I'll be like, that's fine because you do something interesting or is a true enough to Peter Pan where I feel like they really get it.  Anyway, that's maybe it'll surprise me. I'm really hoping it will as I cannot resist a Peter Pan retailing. That's not something that I'm capable of but I nine times out of 10 hate them. So like I will be unsurprised. It will not really be Book of the Month clubs fault if I don't like it, it'll be mine for knowingly choosing that book. Anyway, we're here to talk about lessons in chemistry by Bonnie Garmue. Garmas, Garmue, I still don't know how to pronounce it and I will never learn. So I'll never read anything by this author again. Side note about this book, that's kind of funny to me. I guess this will become funny to you by the end of this video. If you know nothing about this book, there's in the audio book, there's an interview with the author at the end. And like one of the first questions that the interviewer asks the author is like, tell me about all the research you did in order to like make this feel so authentic. The research you did to about the time period or about the science or about whatever. And I literally burst out laughing cause I was like, she clearly did zero research. Her research is, I feel like this is what that would be anyway. So yeah, similarly to cartographers, this will be a spoiler review but I don't recommend you read this book. So I recommend you stick around and hear all the reasons why and then at the end feel that you dodged a bullet. However, if you do think that you might be interested in this or want to make your own opinion, then don't watch this video cause it will have spoilers. So lessons in chemistry. First of all is mis-marketed. It's absolutely 100% mis-marketed. I don't think that even people who like this book, which apparently there are many, I don't think even they would disagree with me that it is mis-marketed. So, or at least mis-marketed by book of the month. I don't actually know who came up with this like comparison or tagline. If it was just book of the month or if like the publishers are doing that or the author, I don't know. This is not really something I can blame the author for as far as I know cause I don't think authors control that. In the pitch for this book, it talks about it being in the 60s and feminist and that it's like hilariously laugh out loud funny. And the comp it gives, which I mean, these comps are always kind of suspect but they should at least kind of give you an idea of like a vibe or a tone or like if you like this, you might like this. Like if someone says, this is the next Harry Potter you're like, okay, so it's gonna be like magic, maybe a school setting. So like, you know, you have some idea. The comp it gives for lessons in chemistry is the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which I have not actually watched but I have seen a lot of clips of it and I know that it has a reputation for being very, very funny because I believe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is about a female standup comic in like the 50s or 60s. So it's like feminist but funny, blah, blah, blah. So like that's what it is saying this is, you know it's feminist but funny in the 50s and 60s like, you know, it's not about a standup comic. Well, like that's the vibe. So I picked this up thinking it would be a light, fun, humorous, sardonic feminist bit of reading, you know it'll be a bit serious, a bit funny, you know but that's what I would be getting out of this and trigger warnings about and I don't think that a book that comps itself I don't think that a book that calls itself like hilariously funny and a delight and the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in book form. Like I don't think that that sets you up with the expectation that there's going to be not one but two on page in this book. One of them happens very early on in the book. So again, like trigger warning if you are thinking of picking this up there are again, not one but two on page. So I was reading that and I was like well that got real dark real quick but I don't think this is an amazing book that's just like way darker than the pitch. Like I also don't think it's a very good book but it is, again I think people who do like this book would agree with me that this book is a lot darker and a lot more serious than the like the marketing for it would lead you to believe. Okay, so this book, what is it about? It takes place in the 60s. There's kind of two timelines-ish. It's kind of wibbly wobbly on the timing because we kind of start out in the present where the main, main chemist character it has a child and that child is a prodigy and we hear about like her reading, you know at a college level basically at the age of five and how she like hides her like the notes that her mom writes for her school lunches because like she's embarrassed that she has like her reading ability is not much better than the kids so she like hides it and pretends to be illiterate and then we kind of like jump back and kind of see how mom originally met dad and how they got to know each other and then how she ended up getting pregnant and having the daughter and like how her life has kind of like gone from there and then we do basically like catch up to the present but if memory serves we did jump back and forth a little bit even before we caught up to the present which was like I might not, I might not be sure about it I think I just like the flashback wasn't so clearly to me a flashback when it happened like I didn't, it didn't feel like here's the present now we're gonna catch up to it it felt a little more disjointed than that but regardless like we go back we see her early life as a young student who's sitting chemistry trying to become a chemist I didn't mean to use air quotes she was trying to be a chemist like this isn't like a cartographer situation like as far as I can tell the word chemist is being used appropriately she's studying chemistry at UCLA and working towards getting a doctorate in chemistry she doesn't get a doctorate because of sexism from the get go every single conversation these people are having every single thing that the author is telling you is pretty on the nose and blunt and so boxy and those are like things that I hate and it doesn't matter to me if I agree with you or not like I will irritate me more if I disagree with you but even if it's like a point that I entirely agree with even if it's a political position that I entirely agree with I really don't want a book to be like you know if I wanted to read a book that's like telling me political philosophy then I would go read a book that's on political philosophy you know what I mean like to be that direct about what you're saying that to be that clear that you will have an agenda and a message as opposed to just telling a story in which like because people who say that you know books shouldn't have politics in them I again disagree books are inherently political you are taking a position no matter what you write no matter if you meant to or not the way you portray characters the way you portray what is written wrong you are taking a stand for basically like you are taking a position when you write something that is inescapable so that's why I don't feel that it's necessary to like yell at the reader or to like be like did you catch it my message in this book like literally every page it's doing that like the narrator when it's telling when the narrator is telling you the story it's soap boxing at you when the characters are having a conversation they're soap boxing at each other they're grandstanding about social issues at each other and it's just constant and it's annoying to me because again I don't like to be preached at by a book but it's also unbelievable so it makes it impossible for me to now believe that these are human characters that I'm who have lives and have thoughts and personalities that I'm following because they don't behave like people they behave like plot devices inserted for the purpose of yelling at me about a political position or a social position or whatever it may be and so it's twofold I'm irritated that you're doing this and it makes it impossible to follow a story because they don't behave like people so anyway because of sexism she is not able to pursue a doctorate because not just sexism because of sexual because she gets kicked out of the program because she does not kowtow to the advances of her like advisor professor I don't really know how it worked or works especially not in sciences so basically someone who has power over academia in this school, in this environment, in this program in this discipline she's like in the and of course the reason that she's there late at night in the lab or in the I think it's the lab because she's a genius and so she's spotted something wrong with like the I don't know what it is they're working on but some like group thing that like the advisor person professor person has also put his name to and she's identified a problem with it or like an inconsistency with it or something like that and so she's like there trying to like fix it the day before they're presenting it something like that and so then he shows up and he like makes moves on her and she's like not obviously into it but even so this scene and you can never say that nothing would that something would like that this literally would never happen like this you know you can't say that because anything's possible but it just doesn't read like a natural escalation of events you know what I mean? like it reads like and now he's gonna **** her you know what I mean? it kind of comes out of nowhere and it doesn't really like the way that they're behaving in the scene it doesn't I mean it's awful because of what it is but it doesn't feel like real and I don't mean that feels awful to say that but like it doesn't read like a scene where like this is actually how that would go down how what they would say how they would behave and again I'm not saying that like it's impossible for somebody to just like walk up and start ****ing you like I mean sure but it just you know what I mean? it reads like a scene where like the author was like and here it's gonna be this like aggressive horrible **** and it's just like stuck in there in a way that like doesn't feel it doesn't feel real it doesn't feel authentically written like how characters actually behave which is like a big problem in this book in general because this is like this is the beginning of a trend that you will observe if you read this book that every single man every single human born with a Y chromosome in this book is at best a misogynist and at worst a **** and I just like yes there is sexism in the world yes there is patriarchy in the world particularly in an earlier time period you know we've like slowly made strides so the further back you go the worse it is but I'm sorry but it's not every man every it's not every single man walking around insulting and objectifying and belittling and you know it's constant and it's on the nose and it's sexism is a lot subtler and more insidious than this if you think like this is why people go around saying well sexism is solved there's no such thing as sexism anymore because like it's illegal you know to do sexist things it's illegal to rape somebody and that's the thing I mean it's not because like sexism rarely takes the form of you are a woman and therefore you are stupid like that's just it doesn't work like that people aren't like that that's almost never what sexism was I mean I'm not saying again that no one in the history of ever has ever said you are a woman and therefore you are stupid but you know what I mean like that's not really the problem with sexism if it was that easily identifiable we wouldn't have as big a problem with it as we do well I mean okay we would have a problem with it but we wouldn't have it wouldn't be so hard to eradicate or identify or put a stop to you because it would be so obvious that like you just said you are a woman and therefore you are stupid like this is sexism you know it's not that clear cut usually so every man behaving this way again like at worst we get two that do essays and um the rest except for one there are and even him a little bit are you know sexist and misogynist so anyway you know shortly so she stabs the professor with a pencil um she grabs a pencil at the desk and like stabs him with it as he's you know as this is going on so when the police come again I'm not saying that the police get things right I'm not saying that the police treat everybody equal I am not saying that but again it feels like this cartoonish depiction of the police don't believe women yes this is a big problem the police don't believe women that's why we have kids that go untested that's why we get you know things like this that go unreported like we have a big problem with that but again it's literally this this cop shows up and he's like so you're like you want to make a statement for like you want to apologize for the fact that you have you know done this to a professor that you have violently assaulted him and she's like no no no no no like he was assaulting me and I was protecting myself and the cop literally will not write anything down will not take her statement ignores her like glares at her until she's like yes I want to make a statement he's like good I'm glad you're like one will apologize and it's like you know what I mean like I just find it very difficult to believe that the cop wouldn't be like oh is that right you said this like you know you're saying that he attacked you okay you know we'll look into it and then maybe they don't look into it you know that's a much bigger problem that they're like sure sure sure sure and then they do nothing about it so like the fact that literally in front of her they're like literally nothing happened you're the you know you're the one that attacked him you know like it just doesn't read true it doesn't read like people actually behaving in this situation would again I'm not saying that the system is great I'm not saying that the cop would believe her I'm not saying that the cop would immediately investigate and say that the professor was in there wrong and she was in there right I'm not saying any of that but the way that in this scene the cop is like you know you're an evil woman who stabbed him with a pencil are you ready to apologize and she's like no I was defending myself and they're like nope we will not listen to this or believe this because you were a woman and you are wrong like you know it's just so like people don't act like this they just don't and so then again like so we move forward so she can't get her PhD because this happened she gets kicked out of school because of this and so then she's like in this she's working in a lab and that's where we meet you know Mr. Wright who ends up being the father of her child and he's sexist the first time that she meets him she goes into his lab because she meets supplies and he tells her to get out because he assumes that she's a secretary and she doesn't correct him but she just like takes what she needs and leaves and then later he finds out that she was a chemist that she's actually a chemist and he apologizes for having made that assumption but then she gets in trouble with her department anyway because she took supplies from him and he's like a famous chemist and they're like you're causing problems for us by taking these supplies she's like look I ordered supplies and no one will or like I put in a request for supplies and no one will order them for me so I had to go get them from him and they're like you're causing problems so she like basically gets kicked out of there too so then the famous chemist guy has to step in and she'll be like I don't want help I don't want handouts I don't want you using your manpower to you know help me as a female in this field and when they're having like a conversation that's like I don't think it's a date yet but they are like having their first proper conversation and she literally their first conversation I mean technically their first conversation was him assuming she was a secretary but like their first proper conversation I'm not kidding she's literally just like grandstanding and soap boxing at him about the inherent sexism in the system about patriarchy about how he's benefited from this privilege and she has not and doesn't he see that this is a system from which he benefits and I'm just like the way that she's like fully formed the thesis of this argument and is like spewing it at him and the way he's like oh I never considered how much I guess I benefit from this and then there's like I guess it's like a cute romcom thing but it's weird and I don't like it we get both of their perspectives when they are not yet dating but they are seeing each other in the office like you know interacting and like working on stuff together and because you know she literally like gave him a speech on sexism then in his mind he's like I'm treating her the way that she wants I will not carry anything for her I will not open a door for her I will she looks like she really cannot handle this level of books like she's about to fall over but I will not offer to carry them for her because that's sexist and he's like but you know like I'm really interested in her but she does not seem interested in me at all and then we get her perspective and she's like I can't believe like he wouldn't even help me when I was carrying these books like he must really not care about me at all he won't like help me at all and then like she like makes some she like talks to him about the behavior of silkworms and something about like their chemistry and she's like are you not interested in this at all he's like no I'm not interested in this at all and she's like he hates me because like when he's responding to this he's just talking about the science and she thought this was like an overture of like like a romantic overture and she was hinting at him something about it's something to do with like mating of silkworms or something like that that was like her being like you know mating something like that it was not like super I would I mean I'm not a scientist so like I also would have been like didn't understand that so she's like he won't help carry my books and he said he's not interested in this like science thing which means he's not interested in me and like she's written kind of she's like kind of coded to be possibly on the spectrum which is also annoying to me because like this book is doing that thing of like quirky science girl who's not like other girls who might be on the spectrum and then like constantly is rude to people because she's possibly on the spectrum and like so like the rudeness takes on like two there's like two versions of the rudeness that often overlap where she just yells at people about the inherent injustice of the sexist system which like on a first conversation is like wow okay we're opening with that, awesome and then she kind of does the like if you've ever watched Bones the show with Emily Deschanel where she plays Dr. Temperance Brennan who's a forensic anthropologist and like in that show it's kind of like played for laughs that she answers everything like you know it's kind of like or I guess people do this with like there's like spock or things like that where you just like literally like the angel in supernatural where they just like literally answer a question and like don't get social cues so like if someone's like making you know a double entendre or someone is like using slang she'll just like answer as if she's taking meaning taking it literally because you know science brain possibly on the spectrum so like the main character like it doesn't make sense to me I mean yeah I'm not an expert on how any of this works I'm not a psychology expert but the way that she like understands the nuances and subtleties of how she is being mistreated by the system as a female but then doesn't understand nuances and subtleties of human interaction because she's like quirky science girl who answers literally like I don't think you can like have your cake and eat it too like it can't be both and the going to her awareness of the world perception of the world as I mentioned literally every man in this alternate universe is at best a misogynist and at worst a f*** so the fact that every single time she encounters and makes the acquaintance of a new male person that she is surprised that they are treating her differently because she's a woman and she answers them as if it doesn't enter her mind that they would think of her differently like when they say something about her wearing pants it's not played as if she's like I'll pretend like I don't understand what they mean because like why shouldn't I wear pants she's like literally like yes I think pants are very comfortable thank you for noticing or something like that and you're like you can't she's constantly yelling about how women are treated differently and talked to differently and she's in her experience in this book every single man is like this so when she cannot possibly be surprised when she does realize she's being mistreated as a woman I'm like I don't know why you're acting like this has never happened to you before when it happens on every page like in this world you should have expected it because every single man in this world is a monster so I don't know why you're surprised and two you can't both be hyper aware of how you're being mistreated and also completely unaware of it because you're like quirky science girl like you can't be both and this is why she doesn't read like a character she reads like an author insert or a you know not even author insert because like that would be acting like the author and only the author acts like this she's just like a device that in this scene we need to play for laughs that she doesn't understand what's happening because she's quirky science girl so that's how I'm writing her in this scene but in the next scene I want to make a point about sexism so here she's hyper aware that sexism is happening so she's gonna like comment on it and yell about it because in this instance she gets it because I need her to but over here she doesn't because it's funny that she doesn't so like that's not a human person like the way you're writing her she's just like whatever you need her to be in a scene that doesn't work for me and then again like how every single instance so what happens in this book right is so like she gets kicked out of science programs and then when she gets pregnant because you know Mr. Wright who is like a little bit sexist but like you know is the good kind of sexist like they have this whole conversation about like her not wanting to change that they had agreed that if she they were together she didn't want to get married and didn't want to change her name because you know professional whatever it is and like I shouldn't have to take a husband's name would you take my name blah blah blah blah and so then the thing of him agreeing to this but then later being like well I just kind of thought you change your mind so it's like written as if he's kind of it was so confusing to me like emotionally as a reader because we have this whole like multiple instances of him like really not getting it of like her being like I thought we agreed that like you know as an independent female I don't want to have to do this or I don't want to you know it's not fair to me and that he's agreed to these things and then later been like well but I just thought you know that like in the end you would agree to this and in the end you would marry me and in the end you would take my name and you would have my children and like all of that it seems to me it seemed to me as the reader that like because we know in the present day she is a single mom we know that she has this prodigy child and that he's not in the picture so I was like okay this is building up to like why it really ultimately didn't work out between them why ultimately they broke up because it turns out like he seemed like he maybe was like the one man out of literally every single man in this world who gets it and then it turns out even he doesn't get it so then like they're gonna break up except no he tragically dies again I told you spoilers he tragically dies and then after he dies is when she finds out that she's pregnant and the way she thinks of him is that like he was her one true love and they were totally compatible and perfect together and there will never ever be anyone else for her because he was like her one and only like they just connected on a soul level he was perfect and I was like he but he wasn't though like you and it wasn't painted as one of those like interesting character studies where like sometimes we romanticize relationships that end early like you know we have actors that died young like James Dean and they'll forever be this like person who died young and that there's a certain like aura about that it's not written like that where she's like romanticizing him because she's thinking of everything that never could be and that probably wouldn't be as good as she's imagining it because it never came to be kind of thing no it's just like he was perfect and it's so sad that he's dead because he was literally perfect and I was like but he wasn't like I don't I don't understand I don't understand and then her daughter who is like you know even more of a prodigy than either of her parents I have a huge problem with how this is depicted because again the kid is just like her mom like she doesn't she gets the social cues of like it's awkward at school because I'm smarter than everybody else I'm gonna pretend to be dumb I'm gonna pretend that I can't read as well as they can because it's awkward that I can read novels and they're learning the alphabet but she doesn't get social cues other times where she's like talking with adults and she like doesn't understand like like she act you know she kind of like her mom where she like doesn't answer questions like in a way that she would think and like it's just it doesn't she doesn't act like a character and also also also they they keep it's like a comedic beat where like every so often like the little kid pops up and she's like entering a room and she's like reading the sound and the theory or Dostoevsky or something like that and she's like five or six or something like that and I'm like I will buy that she can read like complicated words and complicated sentences and has achieved that level of like technical skill at such a young age but the reason that you don't give the reason we have middle grade books that are different from adult books is I mean it's partly to do with the difficulty level of the the prose itself but it's more to do with the subject matter being something that a young person can relate to can understand has experienced is like in that sense on their level even like high schoolers like I a lot of the books that we make high schoolers read they're not really something that a high school age kid can most of the time identify with which is why it's kind of a bad idea to make people at that age read it because we're not talking about reading comprehension like you can read the sentence and understand it and if you're telling me this five-year-old can read the sentence and understand what these words mean I mean sure she's a prodigy she can do that but she's not emotionally mature enough to handle these themes she's not emotionally developed enough to understand what's going on and she's not even cognitively developed enough to understand this and even if she can understand it she can't relate to it like what does this mean to her like if it's a a book written by and for you know 40-year-olds who have lived and loved and lost and experienced you know midlife crises and experienced financial hardship and have et cetera et cetera et cetera you know have been married have had kids understand what it's like to experience and feel those things like even if this five-year-old can't understand these sentences she would not be able to relate on any level to what's going on or to the experience being depicted so I guess it's funny that she walks in the room reading these books and it's like because she's so smart but like it doesn't make sense like she wouldn't be interested in this for those reasons not because she doesn't understand that the words but because the you know what I'm saying and it's stuff like this that's constantly like this is just like not how people behave like people are not like this I can't buy this story and like it's not like a if it was like a straight-up comedy book where like we're not really taking anything seriously and it's like you know it's kind of like something from like the big bang theory which is a show that I hate like if a kid walks on you know like if you have like five-year-old Sheldon reading Dostoyevsky you'd be like ha ha because he's a genius but like this isn't a serious thing we're doing here these aren't going to be characters that we like are really serious about so that annoyed the piss out of me so anyway I was trying to say so where this goes is she gets fired because she's pregnant um so and you can't have a pregnant woman in the workplace and again this is where she doesn't behave like somebody in the time period because she's shocked that she's pregnant but then when she learns that she's pregnant and like she's being ousted from the office for this reason then she like yells at her boss and is like well would you fire you know because he's dead now you know her Mr. Right so she's like if he was here would you fire him and they're like well no of course we wouldn't and she's like but he helped make the baby it's not fair like we are we're both you know we both participated in the making of this baby why am I getting fired and not him which like is of course like an argument that has been made many a time like why are women punished for this when men participated in as well this is the 1950s and 60s and she's like working in a like every single man that she's encountered in this world has been a horrible misogynist so the fact that she's acting genuinely surprised like if she would later like if she had said these exact same things it would have been a little bit on the nose but if she had been you know like hanging out with her friend or her mom or whoever later and was like it's just so unfair because you know like they would never do it to him but they're doing it to me and you'd be like yeah that's how the world is and it's it's really shit then I'd be like yeah like okay that's a conversation you might have but the fact that she's like genuinely surprised that this is happening to her when like I don't know how I mean even today it happens and this is the 60s and then the fact that she like literally talks back at her boss like that and is like but you wouldn't do that to him would you well then why are you doing it to me it's just like I just don't believe that this conversation would happen I don't believe that she'd be surprised and I don't believe that she would say these things like and if she is that unaware of how things work then she wouldn't have the awareness to form these ideas about how sexist things are because she seems to be unaware of it for that scene and it's the prize that it's happening to her you know what I mean so anyway she like builds a chem lab in her own kitchen and she ends up like basically freelancing for the same place that she worked for before because like she's so good at science so they really cannot do their work without her like they literally cannot so then even though she just worked there anymore the like other scientists that worked there they still come to see here and she still works with them like on a freelance basis and then because of like a school lunch situation she ends up meeting the father of a little girl that goes to school with her daughter and he's like a tv producer and I did not mention that quirky science girl who doesn't understand things is also like drop dead gorgeous like everyone is like damn beautiful but she like doesn't know that she's pretty because she's like quirky science girl that doesn't understand social cues so he sees her and he's like I want to put you on television and he happens to have this like afternoon slot that he needs to fill and he wants to do a cooking show for that and you know because the whole lunch school lunch situation is to do with like these basically like gourmet lunches that she was packing for her daughter that like his daughter was then eating and so he's like you know clearly you can cook and you're like gorgeous like I want to put you on my show but then she ends up when she's on the show and again the way she behaves this makes me so this book may be so angry they just like would never put her on TV she's such a problem from the very beginning she doesn't have a show yet it is popular but she's making demands about how the show's gonna go she won't follow the script she won't say what they want her to say she won't wear what they want her to wear she hates everything about it is like it has to be her way or no way and the guy who wanted to hire her is like okay like I mean I get it but like you kind of have to just do stuff because like that's how the studio wants it and you just kind of have to do it and she's like no I refuse and somehow she ends up with a show that is really successful because like on the show instead of like just being personable and chatting or whatever she like gives the science behind cooking which like in theory like that's like a cool little concept for a show and I think it'd be more popular now than it would be in the 60s but like the whole idea is that she's not talking down to housewives that like her entire show is an opportunity to soapbox at the audience where she's like you know like the women who like come to the tapings you know they're like I'm just a silly housewife I don't know what you're talking about and she's like you're not a silly housewife you're a smart intelligent woman who basically has your own job because you have to cook and you have to clean and you have to blah blah blah blah and like that's really difficult and like tell me what you studied and like oh you wanted to be a surgeon well you still could be this isn't just because it's you know it shouldn't be a man's world you can do whatever you want to do and it's just like oh wow like she's not talking down to us and then like her entire show is like instead of saying you know you add the vinegar to the mustard and you put it on the salad she's like here's the chemical composition of this and this is why you know on a chemical level this is how these two things interact and that's why it produces this effect in your food and that's what we're looking for and that's why we combine these ingredients but she like explains it in like a science professor kind of way and the book is trying to convince us that this is relatable and this makes the housewives feel like they're being talked to like intelligent human beings and that that's why they love this show and that they're learning so much science from it and I'm like no that would be extremely alienating because like they talk about how they get phone calls from housewives into the studio who are wanting to know because she doesn't refer to anything by its common name like she won't say vinegar she'll say whatever like the chemical name is for like what that is and so instead of being like a show that everyone's like the fuck is this I'm not watching it they call the studio to be like we're buying ingredients for the recipe and we don't know what that is because she uses a science name for it and so they all have to tell every housewife the calls and I'm like that I find it very difficult to believe that the show would be successful for that very reason and then she like announces on television that she's an atheist which is bringing me to my next point is that this book about a quirky science girl is virulently anti-religion and I don't just mean like this character happens to be an atheist and that's a part of her character which like that's fine if your character is an atheist you can tell me that they're an atheist and they can be atheist but as much as its soapbox is about feminism and about how wrong that is it's constantly talking about how religion is awful and how you know every priest is a pedophile and how religion is like the way that stupid people explain the world to themselves because they don't know science and I just it's so rude I don't understand what this book had to go so hard at religion and again it feels like it has an agenda like again if this main character she personally was like I don't get religion like I have science brain and I can only function in terms of like you show me the thing I see the proof of it faith does not come into it like that's how I function like if that's what she was I'd be like that makes sense but there's multiple so her Mr. Wright before he died makes an extremely anti-religion like little soap boxing moment for him as well and she on television in her show when someone asks her it's like you know we love your show we were wondering you know like what grace you say like before you have your delicious meals we would like to know or something like that which already feels a little bit like would they ask that like I guess maybe and then she's like oh yeah I'm an atheist trauma and like the studio goes crazy because she's just said that on television and she's like what's the problem but of course this doesn't really hurt her popularity it results in some like slandering of her in a newspaper but just like even nowadays people are kind of like iffy around like talking about that kind of thing on TV in the 60s a show for housewives that's for cooking and the the host of the show is like yeah I'm an atheist like I just and this does not hurt her popularity with those housewives I'm just like I don't I don't believe it I don't believe it and I also don't understand why this has to be such a big deal for this book that like this character is like extremely anti-religious it's so annoying to me so anyway there's like this this b-plot about like the orphanage where Mr. Wright grew up and how he's actually the child of this other person and how like they were lied to and there was money involved and then like because he's dead now then like those people end up finding her and like the daughter that he didn't know he was gonna have after he died and they all like reconnect and everything and all isn't that nice and it's yet another opportunity for her to bond with his mother because his mother you know had to hide behind the name of a man to make arrangements and she basically runs a company uh de facto wins a company but like there's technically a man in charge because like you know woman can't run this company but she basically runs everything in his name and so we have another conversation about you know men suck and the world is awful to women and I'm like I gift you no I got it that was your message it's just very very clear don't worry and yeah it's just the whole book is like that and it's awful and I hate it I really really really hate it because it's not a story it's not a story I just oh and then as to like inaccuracies the other stuff you could be like well how do you know maybe people did talk like this in the 60s I mean I don't think so but okay maybe she did maybe she did but there's a part where literally like in order to make a feminist point and this is when she I don't think she said this out loud I think she just thinks it to herself about how like well in Sweden they have like best in such built in you know government funded childcare like maternity and childcare and um based on when this is supposed to be taking place that would not be true in Sweden for another like 20 years I think 15 or 20 years so basically like it's unlikely even if Sweden did have like such a policy it seems very unlikely to me that like mischemistry science brain in America in the 60s would be that aware of like Swedish government programs and policies but let's say that she is let's say she really truly is that wasn't the thing in Sweden so even if she is that aware of like the governments of other countries and their social policies that wasn't a thing in Sweden so it's only put in this book because the modern day author thought that the modern day audience like would be like oh yeah that's right those great socialist Scandinavian countries that have all of those amazing government benefits we should be like that this isn't fair but in the 60s that was not true even in Sweden so this is why I mean in addition to the other things that I feel like I cannot so easily fact check but the other stuff where I'm like this I don't think this is how things were ever but okay but that one you can fact check and you're like that's that wasn't a thing you only put that in because you wanted to make that point which is why again the author interview at the end of the audio book when she's like tell me about all the research you did to make this feel so real and authentic and about the time period and I was like well she didn't research when Sweden decided to institute that policy so that wasn't part of it and the last thing I want to mention just because it's bizarre is that one of the perspectives in this book is her dog and it does not work it does not work it's it's in theory something that's like kind of quirky and fun and could be used to great effect but it doesn't it doesn't work just the same as she doesn't know how to write people she doesn't know how to write a dog and like I truly cannot tell you how the mind of a dog works but like when I read Robin Hobb and she's telling me the thoughts of a dog that you know is wit bonded with a main character I'm like yeah that checks out that seems like what a dog would think that seems like dog logic to me there's a thriller horror book that I read last year that has a cat perspective the I think the last house on needless street um I think is what it was called and the cat perspective absolutely worked but the dog perspective here it feels like this bizarre quirky choice that even the name of the dog is quirky because it's a a dog that like follows them home one day and they name it 630 and it's like an ex-military dog that like the dog didn't like the all the bomb because he was supposed to be like a bomb sniffing dog and he like didn't like all the explosions he like gives him anxiety so then he ended up being like kicked out of that program because it's like his own little like social justice narrative about how like his you know his anxiety issues you know are not being addressed by the system so he uh is extreme he's about he's a dog prodigy basically she's like teaching him words and like you know dogs you're supposed to only know be able to know like a hundred words and he knows like four thousand or something ridiculous and there's like multiple comedic beats where like the fact that his name is 630 is one of those like who's on first type moments and it's just like huh okay that's great and it just like I don't understand why this was in here like it doesn't really add anything to the story there's a there's a couple times where like I mean I have to say like of the of the things we got in this book the parts that I maybe related to the most or found the most compelling were actually the dog parts but like I don't think it was good like I don't think this like worked I don't think it was a good choice I don't think this is actually like a well done dog perspective but like I liked it better than everything else which that should tell you all you need to know about this book and in case um you were wondering where the section where the second occurs it's in the tv studio like the big exec who's like been hating on her show because she doesn't do what he wants her to do he he has to see her and it happened it's like a Harvey Weinstein basically like me too type thing where like she gets almost in his office and then he gets fired and they find out that actually even though he keeps saying that the show is terrible and they need to do what he says the show has been getting amazing ratings and amazing reviews and every sponsor in the world wants to work with it which is again why it just like beggars believe that an exec who's make who's like has an extremely successful show would be like but I hate this woman who won't do exactly what I say therefore I'm gonna tank this really successful show because I'm an evil man that hates women like I'm not saying that that's impossible I'm not saying that that would never happen but it seems extremely unlikely that like this the profit motive wouldn't outweigh the like I want to control every woman in my life because I'm an evil man motive so again I was just like like I just saw it coming like I was like there's he keeps saying the show's not doing well but like like we keep getting calls in the studio but like all these women wanted to make these recipes but he's saying the show's not doing well and then as soon as they like find his files they're like actually the show's been doing great I'm just like I'm so surprised so any who sees I do not recommend lessons in chemistry um absolutely not this is like almost everything that I hate in a book there's you know there's a few things that I hate in books it's not in here mainly to do with the fact that this is not speculative well I would argue that it is speculative fiction because this is an entirely alternate universe because none of this is actually how the world is you know it's not fantasy it's not sci-fi so I can't do things that I hate when it comes to those kinds of things but otherwise kind of everything that I hate including using the word non-flust incorrectly when I did that I was like of course of course you don't know the correct usage of non-flust why would I expect better so yeah zero out of ten to not recommend if you have read it let me know your thoughts if you have not read it uh let me know your thoughts whatever you let me know I post videos on saturdays other random times well definitely saturdays so like and subscribe join my patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you


Thank you very much. This aspect of being a continuation of yesterday's lecture is new to me too. I had no idea, I didn't know that Piotr would be speaking about Ajivikism yesterday. So if there is any overlap or continuity or disagreement that it's pure chance, I didn't plan it that way. So let me begin. BK and yes, let me specify that unlike what Piotr did yesterday who gave a broad overview, I will rather concentrate on one minor point. BK Matilal, already in the title of his book that came out in 1981, called Anikantavada, the Central Philosophy of Jainism. Others, and perhaps most notably or most recently, Jayendra Soni, who is among us have protested describing Anikantavada as a small, albeit basic, part of Jain thought. Anikantavada, I may not need to remind you, is I quote, the theory of the many-sided nature of reality. Matilal has drawn attention to the fact that Anikantavada was, or came to be, a solution to what he calls the paradox of causality. Matilal maintained that Mahavira himself played a crucial role in the formulation of the Anikantavada. Whatever the truth in this matter, the paradox of causality is the fact that the paradox of causality came to occupy the mind of Indian thinkers long after Mahavira, so that the Anikantavada as solution to this paradox is much more recent than Mahavira, too. We will return to this question in a minute. Let me remind you what the paradox of causality is all about. The problem with which it is confronted can be illustrated with a simple example. How can a pot, or anything else for that matter, be produced? If there is no pot as yet, what is produced? And if the pot is already there, it need no longer be produced. I have argued elsewhere that the problem is the result of the acceptance of a hidden, silent presupposition which I call the correspondence principle. People implicitly believed that the words in a statement correspond to entities in the situation described or depicted by that statement. In other words, there had to be a pot in the situation depicted by the statement the potter makes a pot. For that to make sense in view of the presupposition, this describes a situation in which there is a pot which leads to the paradox if there is already a pot, why should the potter bother to make one? This implicit belief, it is but rarely given an explicit formulation, inevitably led to the paradox of causality, which all Indian philosophers from the early centuries of the common era had to face and which they all proposed to solve, be it in different ways. Now, a good illustration of how the Jainas dealt with the paradox of causality is provided by a passage which I read in translation from Jain Bhadras Vishay Shavasika Bhashya. So here we read, in this world there are things that are being produced, having been produced already, others are being produced, not having been produced already, others are being produced, having been produced and not having been produced, others again are being produced while being produced and some are not being produced at all according to what one wishes to express. Now this perhaps sounds at first side like gobbledygook, but if you see the specific problem to which it is proposed as an answer, it gives some sense. For example, and this is how Jain Bhadra continues, a pot is being produced, having been produced in the form of clay, et cetera, because it is made of that, it's made of clay. That same pot is being produced, not having been produced, concerning its particular shape because that was not there before, so far Jain Bhadra. Confronted with the question how a pot can be produced given that there is no pot at that moment, Jain Bhadra would answer that there is already a pot at that time, at least in one sense, in the form of clay. In another sense, it is not yet there because its particular shape is not yet there. In this way, the paradox of causality disappears or is believed to disappear like snow in the sun. I have argued elsewhere that this particular solution appears for the first time in the story of the heretic Jamali in the Viyaha Panati as for the Bhagavati Sutras, you know. As a matter of fact, the story of Jamali brought together two kinds of statements that had been separately attributed to Mahavira by earlier tradition. The specific combination we find here, along with Jamali's literal interpretation of one of these statements provided a solution to the problem of production or the problem of causality that had come to occupy the minds of virtually all Indian thinkers. The statement to the effect that what is being made has been made because that is repeated in that text over and over again in various variants, but what is being made has been made. What is being this would answer one combination of present participle and past participle. And so the statement to the effect that what is being made has been made was here in this passage of the Viyaha Panati, perhaps for the first time taken literally and provided a solution to the problem of production. However, the undesired consequence that this way a completely static picture of the world would arise in which nothing would ever change could be avoided by recalling Mahavira's habit to approach questions from various sides. Let us now leave the Jainism on one side and turn to a remark about the Ajivikas that occurs in a Sankhya text. The Matara Vritti, which is a commentary supposedly by Matara on the Sankhya Kharika on Sankhya Kharika nine. The Sankhya Kharika introduces here the doctrine known as Sat Karya Vada, the doctrine that according to which the effect, the Karya exists, Sat, already in its course before it is produced. In concrete terms, if the effect to be produced is a pot, this doctrine states that the pot is already present in the clay out of which it will be made. It will be clear that the Sat Karya Vada is the Sankhya solution to the paradox of causality. I told you already, there are many solutions, different schools, each had his own solution to this particular paradox. The Sat Karya Vada was the solution of the Sankhya School of Thought. Now, the Matara Vritti has commenced upon this. In fact, my attention was drawn to this in an article by Isabel Ratier which has not yet come out, but which he sent me for my information. And in this passage, the different schools are mentioned and among them the Jivakas. Now, Isabel Ratier didn't quite know what to do with it, asked for advice to Vincent Elchinger and Alexis Sanderson and both said you have to correct a man the text, Jivakas must be read as Jivika. And in this passage, I read this passage in the translation which Isabel Ratier is given of it, we read the following. Let us admit what has been said so far. But we now ask some thing else. Do the evolutes that are the great, et cetera, these are technical Sankhya terms which the precise meaning of which is not so important here, do these evolutes arise while they already exist in matter before their arousal or are they non-existent at that time? In this respect, Mathere continues, in this respect there is a disagreement among masters and therefore there is a doubt. And here, there's this disagreement which is then illustrated by citing the positions of different schools. The Vaisesikas, for example, I mentioned, they consider that what that which exists comes from that which does not exist. For they consider that in the lump of clay before the arousal of the pot, there is no pot. The Ratchet Ajivikas, and here, of course, Rathye translates Ajivikas because she has amended the text from Jivaka to Ajivika. The Ratchet Ajivikas consider that the effect is both existing and non-existent. And the thesis of the Buddhists, so the passage goes on, give some further examples. The thesis of the Buddhists is that the effect is neither existing nor non-existent. Thus, since those teachers hold these contradicting, hold theses contradicting each other, what certainty could we get? So far, the passage from the Matara Vriti. So obviously, the one sentence that interests us is the Ratchet Ajivikas consider that the effect is both existing and non-existent. It is not difficult to understand the use of this particular position. We find ourselves, once again, in the midst of a discussion about a paradox of causality. How is it possible to make something that is not there? What does one make when one makes a pot, given that there is no pot at that time? The followers of the Satkaryavada maintained that in spite of appearances, the pot is there. Other thinkers opted for other solutions. The Ajivikas, according to this particular passage from the Matara Vriti, stated that the pot is both there and not there. The advantage of their position would clearly be that they had an answer to the following potentially embarrassing question. If the pot is already there, at the time you are making it, why do you bother to make it? But this is also the solution, as we know, that was offered in Jinnabhadras vijeshavashikabhasya, which I read out to you earlier. What is more, this is, in essence, the position that came to be known as an ekantavada. In other words, the Sankhi commentator Matara ascribes to the Ajivikas the position that we know came to be held by Jainas. How is this possible? Now, two possibilities come to mind. One is that Matara uses the expression Ajivikas to refer into Jainas, at least theoretically, that would be an option. And we do know that the term Ajivika was sometimes used in the early Buddhist canon to refer to the followers of Mahavira. But this, of course, was many, many centuries before Matara. It seems unrealistic to assume, without proof, that this custom had survived until Matara's time. Alternatively, Matara knew the Ajivikas, and these Ajivikas had adopted the same response to the paradox of causality as the Jainas. This, if true, almost forces us to consider that the Ajivikas had taken this response either from the Jainas or perhaps Piotr would rather argue that the Jainas had taken it from the Ajivikas, but in any case, they would have been a mutual influence. And this in its turn is only conceivable if we assume that Ajivikas and Jainas had remained in close contact right until the time when the paradox of causality began to occupy the minds of Indian thinkers. And we have some reason to suppose that Ajivikas and Jainas still knew each other in Kushane times. I have argued that in somewhere else, and it has not yet been published. So, but I won't say more about it here. But we are in the dark as far as more recent times are concerned. So, we know that the Ajivikas and the Jainas had close contacts at the beginning and apparently for a number of centuries to follow until certainly Kushane times. After that, we are not so sure. Next question, when did Matara live? The date of Matara, of course, for our question is quite important. And I sum up what Larson and Bhattacharya wrote about this in their volume, the volume concerned of Indian history, encyclopedia of Indian philosophy. They say, our extant Matara Vritti has a common core of content with four other early commentaries on the Sankyakarika. Although for many years it was thought that the Matara Vritti may have been the original upon which the other four were based, there is now a general consensus that our extant Matara Vritti is the latest, the most recent of the five commentaries and maybe dated anywhere from the ninth century onward. Now, you give some reasons for that. I won't present those in detail now. Let's take it on trust that the Matara Vritti is, was composed in the ninth century or later. Now, if this estimate is correct, we are led to conclude that a Sankyak commentator from the ninth century or later was acquainted with Ajivikas and knew that these Ajivikas adhere to the anekantavada in some form or other. All this is highly surprising. It certainly was highly surprising to me to think this through. And we are entitled to wonder whether we are not drawing far-reaching conclusions from shaky evidence. In the after all, it is all these stories based on a textual commendation from Jivaka to Ajivika. Let's face it, what is that worth? So our first question therefore has to be, was the commendation from Jivaka to Ajivika in Matara's text, was that justified? As a matter of fact, none of the other surviving commentaries on Sankyakarika nine refer to the Ajivikas. Matara stands all alone. They all have stories about the paradox of causality here. They gave different opinions, but none of them mentioned the Ajivikas. Only Matara does so. So clearly only the Matara vritti refers to the Ajivikas if it does. If we accept the commendation proposed, but is this commendation justified? This question leads us to an interesting and perhaps important observation. The non-emended form Jivaka exists as a synonym of Ajivika, but judging by the evidence collected in the famous book of Bashem, only two authors use it, namely the lexicographer Hala Yudha and the astrologer Vaidyanatha Dikshita. They used Jivaka to refer to Ajivikas. That is to say, even without commendation, perhaps with hindsight, we should say we don't demand at all. We keep the text as it is and where does it lead us? Even without commendation, the passage from the Matara vritti refers to the Ajivikas but by using Jivaka rather than Ajivika. It may tell us in this way something about Matara's time and place. Because look at the poet Hala Yudha. Bashem says to the following about him, Hala Yudha gives two lists of unorthodox ascetics and separate verses. And then he gives the verse that mentions the Jivakas. But what do we know about Hala Yudha? If the lexicographer of that name is also the Hala Yudha who composed the text called Kavirahasya, which serves as a eulogy of the Rashtrakuta king Krishna III, we can date him rather precisely and give him a very precise geographical location. He must have lived in the former half of the 10th century in southern India. Bashem concludes that Hala Yudha had no doubt come into contact with the Tamil Ajivikas. So we know that there were Ajivikas in Tamil Nadu and this particular feature, the Hala Yudhas mentions of the Jivaka shows that he was in contact with them, that he knew about them and what is more, he called them Jivakas. And now we recall that Matara may be dated anywhere from the ninth century onward. Like Hala Yudha, he may have come into contact with the Tamil Ajivikas. If so, he may have become acquainted with their position as to the paradox of causality. Now, something similar happens with regard to Vaidyanatha dikshita, the astrologer, who refers to the Ajivikas using the term Jivaka. He wrote in South India before 1450 of the common era, according to Pingray, which means that we have now three occurrences of Jivaka and they all point to the south of India in a period from the 10th to the 15th century. So the tentative conclusion we arrive at is that the Ajivikas of southern India of the end of the first and beginning of the second millennium, they are tested in inscriptions. So it's not only these authors that make us think that there were Ajivikas in Tamil Nadu. These Ajivikas were known by the name Jivaka, that is our tentative conclusion, and they shared with the Jainas, the Anakantavada, the view that reality is multiplex. Given that the two religions were originally close to each other, if you didn't know, you have been convinced yesterday by Piotr's presentation, and appear to have remained close for a number of centuries. I think there is some evidence until Kushana times at least. We are led to conclude that they were still close when the Anakantavada was applied to the paradox of causality. When was that? We have already seen that some scholars attribute the Anakantavada to Mahavira himself. Whatever the truth in this matter, on which I prefer not to pronounce, it became the Jaina response to the paradox of causality, and this paradox did not yet occupy the minds of Indian thinkers until long after Mahavira. In this form, the Anakantavada was introduced into Jainism before the closure of the Shwetambara Canon, because the Viyaha Panathi, of course, is a text, certainly not the oldest text, but the text of the Jaina Canon, which was closed somewhere in the fifth century, according to the Jaina tradition itself. It is already known, the paradox of causality, I've argued somewhere in Kunda-Kundas Pravatya Nessara. It is, I have not, the Tatvartesu tries to obscure to decide whether it was acquainted with this particular paradox as yet. It appears then that Ajivikas and Jainas were still in close contact during the first half of the first millennium of the common era, so close that the Ajivikas borrowed, or the other way around, the Jainas borrowed, wholesale the solution to the paradox of causality that the others, the Jainas, or respectively the Ajivikas, elaborated at that time. This relatively late example of Jaina influence of Ajivikism, or, of course, Ajivika influence on Jainism, would have remained unnoticed, had it not been for the fact that, A, that means one single Sankhi commentator, Matara felt the need to mention the Ajivikas in passing in his otherwise unremarkable commentary. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you.


What's up everyone take down here back with another conspiracy video. Today's actually hits close to home for me because it is on one of my favorite musicians of all time. Today marks 25 years since the death of Kurt Cobain. His death has officially been ruled suicide but there are many people that believe it was in fact a murder. So today I'm going to be looking at some of the evidence myself. Let's get right into this. Kurt Cobain was the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for Nirvana. Officially ruled he shot himself dead on April 5, 1994. However, a minority of people believe he was murdered, possibly by his widow Courtney Love. Most of these claims can be traced back to private investigator Tom Grant who has been involved with the case since shortly after Cobain's death. The rumors were given new life in 1997, three years after Cobain's death when rocker Elden Hoke took time out of promoting his brand to claim that he knew who the murderer was. Then suspiciously fell asleep drunk on train tracks with fatal results. Apparently days before his death he stated in an interview that Courtney Love offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain and then mysteriously was found dead on train tracks days later to me that is extremely suspicious. However almost everybody including the police and Cobain's bandmates accept the official verdict although some of his friends and family have expressed doubts. Kurt's body was found in a greenhouse at his home in Seattle on April 8, 1994 by an electrical contractor. Forensics showed that he had died on April 5th from a shotgun wound. Private investigator Tom Grant was hired by Courtney Love to find Cobain after he went missing from a rehab facility. Days after Cobain's body was found Grant then investigated his death. He came to believe that Cobain was murdered by Love based on factors including heroin levels in Cobain's blood, someone else's handwriting on the suicide note, and the gun itself. The general theory advanced by Tom Grant and others appears to be that Love found out that Cobain was planning on divorcing her, cutting her from his will and leaving her and as a result she allegedly hired a hitman who injected him with heroin and shot him dead. Now I'm going to share some of the evidence that my opinion backs up the murder theory a little bit more. Tests show Cobain had high levels of heroin in his body and some say that would be so much that Cobain would be unable to hold the gun and pull the trigger. Apparently there were no fingerprints found anywhere, not on the gun, the door handle or anything else in the greenhouse. If this had been a suicide, Kurt Cobain's fingerprints should have been found on the evidence but it appears that it had all been wiped down before his body was found. The police claimed that there was a suicide note found on the scene but the note itself looked to have been written by two people. The first part had been confirmed as Kurt Cobain's handwriting and didn't mention anything about suicide. It only mentioned about his plans on leaving, divorcing and taking love out of his will. Cobain only wrote part of the note and it appears that somebody added the end references to suicide. The last four lines on the note are less neatly and seem to be written by somebody else's handwriting. Some people believe that Cobain was writing this note and the heroin finally kicked in and that's why the last four lines were messy. However, Tom Grant claims that he had found a handwriting practice sheet in Love's Handbag which shows Love has been practicing faking Cobain's handwriting. The gun used was a long barreled shotgun which it is suggested that it would be hard to use to shoot oneself in the head. He was found holding the barrel of the gun with his left hand while his right hand was lying next to him, meaning if he had shot himself he would have had to pull the trigger with his right hand but some find this hard to believe because Kurt Cobain was left-handed. However, Cobain apparently played guitar right-handed. The bullet casing itself was found on the left side of his body lying perfectly on a shirt. Given he was found holding the gun upside down with the barrel facing his head and the trigger was on the top of the gun, the injector port for the bullet was on the right side of the gun, meaning the bullet should have been found on the right side of Cobain's body, not on the left side. It is still unclear how it ended up going on the left side of his body. Some people claim that Cobain was holding the gun upright and the trigger was on the bottom whenever he pulled the trigger and once he pulled the trigger that's when the gun spun around 180 degrees and landed on him upside down. Now there's a couple things that to me don't make sense with that scenario if he had shot himself and the gun was upright. Number one is if he had shot himself and pulled the trigger underneath his hand wouldn't have been found on the right side of his body in my opinion. His hand should have been underneath that gun it wouldn't have just slid out and landed as far away as it did. The other thing is how did the gun mysteriously spin 180 degrees from being upright and spinning down completely landing on him perfectly still? To me that makes no sense if he had shot it that way it would have at least landed on its side and I think his hand would have been underneath the gun it wouldn't have been found in the position it was whenever the police found him. And the last thing that I want to mention is how fast the police announced it was suicide. On average it takes about three weeks in an investigation to find out what actually happened. This usually involves going to all of the people that were close to the victim in this case Kurt Cobain and asking questions and finding out if there's anything wrong with him mentally who had seen him last and other things like this. That's why it usually takes a few weeks on average but two hours after Kurt Cobain's body was found the police at the scene announced to the world that it was suicide without doing an investigation. And on top of all of this there has been some lost evidence over the years. Apparently the first suicide note had mysteriously disappeared. You can find copies of it online and see the note for yourself but the actual physical copy of the note is mysteriously gone. Apparently the other thing that has disappeared is the gun. It is reported that the gun had accidentally melted down which to me makes no sense because it is a huge piece of evidence in this case. So even though no fingerprints and nothing else was found on the gun they can never go back and look at this gun again because this gun has been melted down it no longer exists. Now before I looked into Kurt Cobain's death and looked up some of this evidence I did believe that Kurt Cobain was murdered however looking at all of this evidence right now at least in my opinion from where I stand after doing all this research is I believe 100% that Kurt Cobain was murdered. So to me this case should definitely be reopened and it should definitely be looked at a little bit more closely to find out exactly if it was a murder or a suicide. Like I said at the beginning of this video today marks 25 years since the death of Kurt Cobain it is very emotional for me because like I said he is one of my favorite musicians of all time so what do you guys think? Do you think Kurt Cobain committed suicide or do you think he was murdered or do you agree that they should at least reopen the case? I want to hear what you guys think comment down below and let me know. For me this was a very exciting conspiracy video to do to do all of the research and put it together for a video was awesome especially since it was on one of my favorite musicians of all time I really enjoyed doing this video. So I hope you guys did enjoy if you did please leave a like comment down below any other conspiracy videos you guys would like to see me do in the future I really would like to do a few more this year and try to do a lot more research stuff videos like this. I do have plans to do a series called Into the Myth where I look up different myths and urban legends expect to see that in the future hopefully the first episode will be out this summer but I am gonna leave this video here hope you guys did enjoy comment down below what you guys think if it was a suicide or murder in the case of Kurt Cobain's death and I will see you guys in the next video please take care peace


Hello, hello everyone. My name is Laura. This is my channel Laura's Little Library and welcome to today's video Which is my April wrap-up 11 books in the month of April. It was another kind of slower month for me I just I have so much on my plate, but you know 11 books is still pretty good And for the most part I'm really happy with what I read. It was definitely like a four star Month, I would say. I had only one five star this month and it was actually a reread, which I don't ever reread books So the fact that I wanted to do a reread and that this book maintained its five star Writing it kind of blows my mind. I'm really happy about it though And that was the Bromance Book Club by Lisa K. Adams. So at the beginning of April was the beginning of Baseball season and I was just in such a baseball mood and in a romance mood So this was like the baseball romance that I have and that I love so I went back and reread this I still give it five stars. I still love Everything about it. I have a different kind of appreciation for everything that happened happened and all the character relationships and now having read like the other four books But yeah, like reading it first reading it last It's still five star book for me Then I had a whole bunch of four star books So let's get started on those First one I would love to talk about is Vera Wong's Unsociated Advice for Murderers This is by Jessie Q. Sutanto. This is her newest book that has just been released We follow Vera Wong Who is this old Chinese lady living in Chinatown and who owns a tea house And then one day she wakes up and finds a dead body on the floor of her tea house And so she takes it upon herself to solve the murder I okay, so I've read other books by Jessie Q. Sutanto and I know that She has a hilarious Murdery murder mystery writing style like dial A for aunties. I absolutely love but this was only 4.5 out of five stars because there were so many POVs and I wish I had gotten just more from Vera's point of view and more of the comedic moments of Vera trying to solve this crime Don't get me wrong I loved the found family elements that were in this book and the relationship between characters was amazing and they were such complex characters that Like Vera I grew to love but still I think the beginning was like the funny part and I wish it had been maintained a little bit better through the book but Otherwise 4.5. I absolutely adored this. Oh my goodness. It is so good You should definitely pick this up Then another four star book that I read this month was the fountains of science by ruta. Sopetis This is actually my first ruta. Sopetis book But I have a lot of her books on my tbr Like I want to read all of her historical fiction because she tends to Write from a different perspective or not just world war two So the fountains of silence actually takes place during the spanish civil war and it is kind of going back and forth between A spanish woman who is trying to protect her family and an american man who His mom is from spain and he goes to spain and he's trying to Win this photography contest about and show the true spain during the civil war So it was very heartfelt very touching.  This is a little ridiculous what's happening between characters But overall it was still like very heartwarming still like Kept my attention going because again, it's a it's a little bit of a chunkier historical fiction So the fact that I was able to just flip through it and read it so quickly Definitely was a bonus and then another 4.5 star read. I am so happy that this book was a 4.5 star read I was so nervous to read it. I knew I'd either hate it or I would love it And that is rise of the snake goddess by jenny elder moak So this is the second book and the samantha nox series It came out like last year or something and the first book Underwhelmed me. I was disappointed by it. So I was really nervous to read this one Because I desperately wanted this book to be better for the most part. It was The writing was much better the plot was so much better I was all the critiques I had of the first book were significantly better in this book however What stopped it from being a 5 star read for me was the relationship between sam and benet the romance I felt like the entire book they were just kind of on edge and I didn't feel any chemistry there Not like the first book where there was chemistry. There was just zero chemistry between the characters Even when they are disagreeing there was nothing between them and it made me really sad because I was like Oh, I'm losing the relationship here So that was the only disappointment for this one But I really hope more of these books keep coming out because I cannot wait To see or to read the next adventure. I did also read the next sarah j mess book In april I'm doing a whole separate vlog for that. So I won't talk about it here But I did also read that book four stars Comment down below if you have any guesses what book I'm at in the series that I rated four stars Moving on. I then read a magic steeped in poison by judy. I lin This is an asian inspired fantasy where basically your magic system is People who prepare tea also kind of do magic and they're kind of used together Tea has magical properties, but also you're the one who is doing the magic But you can only do it through tea But also tea is tea and you can add things to it for different properties, you know, kind of like how we have tea now of like Um sleepy time tea or like throat coat, you know We have different teas to help along with different things is that idea but also with magic confused So our main character has a younger sister who has fallen ill to this mysterious poisonous plague that is Kind of spreading through the land a little bit. So she enters in the competition to be the next like magic tea person for the emperess And it is very much like that. I I would say Like again, it's a four almost 4.5 out of five stars. It's the first book in a duology I cannot wait to read the second one And the romance in here I admire how it was done. I truly do so Very happy I got around to reading this because it was on my spring tbr and it's almost the end of spring I also read delicious monsters and this is actually a book club book And honestly, this was probably more of like a 3.5 Rather than four just because like There was so much thrown into this book and some of it was unclear I like I like a little bit different elements But just the way they tied together was a little fuzzy and I think could have been executed a little bit better And the writing could have been a little bit better And you're following two povs and the crossover characters can be a little confusing between the two But it was still like a good book. It was still thoroughly creepy.  Yeah, there is just so much Throne at us and I like I said I liked all the different elements of it It just was a lot And it was all very creepy But it also like made sense because there are some things that felt like oh, it's supposed to be a big reveal But I also kind of just figured that's what it would be. So there were some surprises and some non surprises And some that were like I figured it out, which was a surprise and then it was revealed later so then it wasn't a surprise, but It felt pretty good. You like haunted house stories This would be a good one another 3.5 out of 5 star book that I read was daughter of the moon goddess This is by su lin 10. I also read heart of the sun warrior, which is the second book in this duology So I read an entire duology this month. That's super exciting for me. Yay But I mean they were both kind of like three star For me what it was with these books was that there were certain parts of it that I loved like I loved kind of the middle of this one And then heart of the sun warrior I loved really just kind of like the beginning and the other parts I was like this is Slow or boring or I don't quite see how this connects or how it's important to the story um But overall it is a beautiful like lyrically written Book about the daughter of the moon goddess who is trying to set her mother free So she enters in a competition in order to study with the prince Study magic so that she can then gain the skills that she needs to figure out how to set her mother free lots of different um mythological fantastical elements Again, really love this chinese mythology It just the writing had some posse spots for me, but overall Really good. I'm really happy that I read both books in the duology. So fun Also, I didn't hate the love triangle. I mean, I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it Now the last three star book I read was beasts of ruin by Ayana gray This is the second book after beasts of prey and the second book in the trilogy We're still waiting on the third one. I think it's like beasts of war or something It kind of lost me for a bit. I loved the first book For like the first two thirds And then when it kind of started getting into the bigger plot and everything behind it all It kind of lost me and with this book. I was bored. It was putting me into a slump I was not motivated to read this until I hit probably two thirds of the way through like 60 to 70% may be more like other way through then I became invested I became reinvested into characters and in the plot I just think that we backtracked so much with what Was happening or just kind of what we needed to know. It was almost like we just ditched Majority of the first book and just went with the second half of the first book And like it was a weird switch. So Yeah, I had a hard time with this one. I I think I'll read the third one when it comes out But I really hope it's better. Otherwise, this is just going to be like a mediocre trilogy, which you know, isn't bad, but like But the size it is I wish it had been better. It could have been it could have been so much shorter Then the final book that I read in the month of april and my only two star this month Was the wicked remain by laura pole. So This is the second book and the grim rose girls duology. I read the first one and I liked it More than enough like I I enjoyed the concept of it. I just wish it I had I don't know It didn't quite give me everything I was hoping for Kind of the same with this one.  But at the same time I was like really That's what we're doing here. It was it was very disappointing. There are a lot of things about this book That was disappointing and it just left me feeling Like kind of annoyed and just like, okay, well, it's done. I finished it Especially for the idea of it being a fairy tale based dark academia in europe like there were just so many possibilities and so much potential there and I feel like It just didn't go In the best direction that it could have So it was a two star. All right, so those are the 11 books I read in the month of april if you like this video give it a thumbs up Otherwise feel free to subscribe and hit the bell so that you're notified when I post for the next couple months I'm just going to be going down to posting one video a week because I will be Insanely busy and also not in my home country for two months. So I'm gonna go down to one video a week But so subscribe and hit the bell so you're notified when that video goes up Otherwise, I do also have bookish social media linked down below You can keep up with me and what I'm doing there And while you're down there comment down below highlights of your april reading month What was the sarah j mass book that you think I read in four stars? What was your favorite read or your least favorite read? Anything like that. But yeah until I see you all in the next video. I wish you Happy reading


It's 2021, welcome to the new 21 report. I'm here with Alex from Playing with Fire. Alex, how you doing? Hey, good to be here. Yep, I'm glad you're here. Alex, give us a little description of what you do. Yeah, so I'm a dating coach, and we specialize in helping guys being able to meet girls online, but that's just the, you know, that's kind of the focus of it. But we also go broad on that, just help guys be better men in general. So what goes into meeting girls online and getting better pictures? What goes into better pictures? Getting a better shape. So we kind of just go down my rabbit hole and help men be overall better men. Okay, well, this is your first time here? My first time. Yep, so tell me about your experience at 21. It was a good experience. I mean, everything is really well organized, which is impressive.  So everything is well organized. There's some good speakers. Definitely met some cool guys. Yeah, overall, I'm happy. And as a first time speaker, how do men benefit from your speech and tell us about your speech? Yeah, I mean, my speech gives you a very straightforward blueprint on what you can do to start meeting girls right away. So a full A to Z strategy. Now, of course, I obviously had only an hour, so I'm not gonna go into extreme nuance, but in that speech, there's everything you need to know to successfully start meeting girls from Tinder, Bumble, whatever, today. What type of man needs this kind of guidance, help? Any man who is not happily in a relationship. So explain that a little deeper, like. If you're married and you're happy, great, you don't really need my speech. If you're out now, if you're choosing to be a priest, you don't really need my speech, although I would argue you'd probably still do. Anyone else, like if you're a single guy or you're not happy in a relationship, you probably wanna meet girls, right?  My speech is those tools. It doesn't give you, it doesn't do the work for you, right? But it gives you the tools that you need. Okay. Another thing I think that you have talked about on your channel and other channels are, I guess I would call them the frauds, for people to take your money, not getting what they paid for. So why don't you kind of expound on that a little? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of dudes who use the word loosely, who yeah, who are just mainly like their main goal is money. They don't really have a tangible success or tangible results. So the question is, okay, how do you measure success? Well, you would look, for example, for me, you would look at my website, I have, I would say probably over a hundred lay reports with all the screenshots from start to finish. So you can see the girls have looked up, but now obviously we censor faces for privacy reasons, but you can still see everything else. Like you can see I've had many, many girls on my channel.  The same thing with like, you know, my buddy John Anthony, there's countless examples. When you see a guy who's telling you, oh yeah, you know, I'm really good at this, but they have no proof. It would be the same thing as a bodybuilder saying, hey, I have this best workout program, but he's skinny, he has no muscle. It's something that doesn't add up here. So, I mean, should we get into it and like mention some names or? I'll leave that up to you. Well, I'll use, I'll use Rollo as an example, because I think he's a good one.  He hasn't been in the game since before the internet was even a thing. This would be like a doctor who hasn't practiced medicine in 30 years. Would you trust a doctor who hasn't practiced medicine in 30 years to do your operation? No, never. You'd be like, dude, like I want someone who actually practices medicine. For some reason, the same common sense the end doesn't apply. And then like perpetuating theories that don't really make sense. Like I'll name one, like for example, you can never talk to your girl about the number of partners you've slept with. You should keep that secret. Pure nonsense. Me and my girlfriend, I've told her many times that I've slept with hundreds of girls.   So I publicly challenged her for a friendly debate. Like, hey, you think this, I think that. There's some things that we agree on. Let's come on and actually talk it out and have a debate.  So it's basically the argument they use against them, they flip it on you, right? It's like, it's like a police to catch a thief.   It doesn't make any sense. So you see a lot of that and it's just kind of love, I would say like fuckery. So yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's kind of a shame that, and Rolo is only one of them, there's many others, but like that you have these guys and their fanboys are just like, so adamantly defending them. When these guys, they don't even want to debate you. Like, if you're, look, if you're a fan of mine and I'm not willing to debate someone, you should call me out.  Like why are you not, why are you afraid to defend your ideas? But for some reason that standard doesn't apply. So I've always found that kind of odd. Okay. Now the word game is tossed around a lot in the managed sphere. Give me your definition of game. Game is the ability to be able to either date, sleep with, have a long-term relationship with women that you find attractive. It's as simple as that. So let's say your goal is to, you know, get into a serious relationship. If you can get into a serious relationship with a girl who meets all your standards, that's a good game. If your girl is a lot casual sex and you're able to sleep around with a lot of, you know, when you find attractive girls, that's a good game. It's as simple as that. Do you find game is manipulation? Because we hear that a lot. No, it can be, but it doesn't have to be. It also depends on how you define manipulation, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. It's more like persuasion. So let's say I'm doing sales, right? Let's say I'm selling, I don't know. I used to sell solar panels way back when. It's a fun little fact about me. And let's say that you want to buy solar panels for your house, but you're not sure which company you want to go with and I make a really good argument why I should go with my company. And you're like, yeah, you know, this makes sense and you buy it. You would say I manipulated you. You would say I persuaded you. But let's say I lied to you about my panels. I say, yeah, these are the best panels, you know, they're going to work for a hundred years and they break down the first year. Then you would say I manipulated you. So it can be manipulation, but it doesn't have to be. Like my game is not manipulation. I don't lie or cheat or deceive girls by the very persuasive. Do you think the word manipulation usually implies lying? Because that seems to be a kind of a narrative. It has a negative connotation. If you can use the word manipulation in a non-negative way, in which case I think it applies, but the way most people in turbo manipulation is in a negative deceiving type of way. Now there's going to be a guy out there, guy out there that's watching this right now that is not doing well with women, is not progressing in that, we'll say department of his life.  Let's do it. So it can definitely be frustrating, right? So you're in a place right now where just, you know, things haven't been going well and you might be tempted to come to the conclusion that game doesn't work or game doesn't work for you, right? I would make this analogy. Think about a guy who's gone to the gym for a few months and he hasn't been following good workout program. He hasn't put on any muscle. Would it be fair for that guy to say bodybuilding doesn't work? No, he just hasn't been following the right plan. You're in the same boat. It's not a perfect analogy, but somewhat similar. So I would say you have all your life to give up. You can give up a few years from now. Try some of the stuff that I'm saying. Try some of the stuff that John Anthony, one of the other speakers of the event has been saying. Give it a shot and give it an honest shot.  Like actually try it and commit to it. What's the worst that can happen? You give up a year later. Okay, like whatever, right?  I've coached guys that were virgins. I've coached guys that were depressed and suicidal. I've coached guys that were super short. I've coached guys that were super minorities. Like whatever you think of it, I've probably coached a guy like that. Now I'm not gonna say that it works for 100% of people, but it doesn't work for 98, 99% of people. I would say something like that. So just like bodybuilding works for 99% of people. If you're missing an arm and a leg, you're not gonna put on that much muscle.  But it's gonna be a lot harder, right? But for 99% of people watching this, you can succeed if you put in enough work. And so what my stuff is, is the tools, the work part is on you though. Excellent, Alex, how can everybody find you? Yeah, check out my YouTube channel, Playing with Fire Dating. Check out, watch our Instagram, I'm just thinking now. Check out websiteplayingfire.com. We have a free tips and guides section. We have literally anything you want information on. We have free articles on it. We have forums, forums.playingfire.com where you can ask questions and get them answered by me for free. So we have a lot of resources for our fans to take advantage of. I wish I had this stuff when I was actually learning game, but it exists now, so take advantage of it. Excellent, Alex, we appreciate you at 21. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being on the 20-Hand Report. Appreciate you. Anytime.