It is a beautiful Saturday. Well, beautiful in that it’s sunny and warm in Minnesota. But even beautiful things can be ugly if taken to the extreme. It’s over 90 degrees warm! But there are things to do, like a house to get ready for sale. Again. So I am in my car, driving down Interstate 94, doing one of my favorite things: listening to NPR. This time it’s “Radio Lab.”
The episode is about colors. Apparently blue is maybe the most interesting color there is. It may be a fabrication of our imagination. It may not exist at all. Or perhaps it never did, until we named it. As the episode explores, it doesn’t exist in pretty much any ancient story. For example, in a story that takes place mostly at sea, the color blue is nowhere in Homer’s Odyssey. And apparently, if no one tells a kid the sky is blue, they wouldn’t describe it as such.
Driving on the highway, I look at the blue shorts my wife is wearing next to me and compare them to the sky over my windshield. Suddenly, I can see all the differences.
I got to my destination: a house I’m trying to sell. After two months on the market, I hadn’t received a single offer. So I put it on the rental market. One day later, over 20 people are interested, including five appointments for showing. But while I’m at the house showing it to these prospective renters, I let a new realtor talk me into relisting it with him. And so today, I am here to clean the yard—remove shrubs, plant flowers and build a rock garden (among other renovation plans.)
On the way back, the radio is still tuned to NPR. This time “Hidden Brain” is on. This episode is about the stories we tell ourselves. More specifically, the hero’s journey. Starting with a story about a Russian filmmaker, Lev Koneshov, who made a film with one actor standing in one place with the same expression—”a single, unmoving, and entirely neutral expression.” But spliced in between are images of different things—”a bowl of hot soup, a child in a coffin, and a woman reclining on a sofa.” After each image, the audience reported seeing something totally different on the face of the actor. Mind you, the actor has the same expression. Fascinating, right? That was just an introduction. Then Shakar Vedantam brings in the guest expert, the social scientist, Ben Rogers. They talk about Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and again The Odyssey.
My mind goes, hold on!
What are the chances? The Christopher Nolan movie, The Odyssey, just came out, and here are two random unrelated shows about two very different things using the same story/movie as backdrop? Yeah, the poem is a classic, but still, what are the chances? Coincidence?
Is this some sort of marketing scheme to get us to go see the movie? Is this product placement in a podcast? Are these the subliminal marketing tricks they use to get us out and spending? Is this how “going viral” happens offline—a thing few people were interested in is pushed in strategic ways, and before you know it, it’s everywhere? Commercials are one thing, but this roundabout sneaky way? Is that natural or are we all sheep going around a fire?
Did I just notice because my family, big Christopher Nolan fans, have been waiting to see the movie ever since we heard they were making it, and just couple of days ago went to see it (without me)? Like when you buy a car or have some sort of personal connection to one, you start seeing it everywhere?
Now I want to go see the movie. But why? Is it because I read the book a while ago? Is it because one of my favorite movies is Interstellar, and I really like Inception, Tenet, Oppenheimer and some other Christopher Nolan movies? Or am I simply a successful result of why commercials, in all their forms, are the engine that fuels media content production? How media manipulates us?
When I tell my son, he says, “Maybe they (the podcasts) were making connections to something that is current.” You know, so they are also part of the conversation going on. Maybe THIS is how things go viral; when it catches fire, we all bring our fuel to it. Is this how society works? Is this how we’ve all come to believe the sky and the oceans are blue?
What would “Radio Lab” make of this? What are the colors out there we don’t see, but make all the difference in how we see the world? Maybe the difference between earth and the world is the stories we tell. We have to be on the same page for it to make sense.
Or they’ve hacked into our hidden brain, we are not entirely the masters of our own actions?
I get home, and turn on HGTV, and all the houses are so pristine, with manicured gardens and shining walls and appliances. I wondered if I should paint the house and get new appliances. I have already decided to replace the roof. It appears nobody wants to buy a house built in 1951 that looks lived-in.
