Show Notes
Episode 1 - Getting to Know You (Us)?
Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Oxygen Starved Podcast, in which Stacey, Christopher and Producer Doug introduce themselves, describe a little about how they arrived in the high country of California's Mono County, talk books, and set the stage for Oxygen Starved podcasts to come.
Episode 2 - July 4th in Mono; Michelle Obama's Becoming; Jesse Rae
Episode 3 - Obsidian Dome and June Lake, CA; "The Rosie Project"' Mammoth Brewing Co's Sean Turner
Stacey & Christopher have adventure at Mono County's Obsidian Dome, discuss The Rosie Project, and discuss brewing and blues with Sean Turner of Mammoth Brewing Company and the Mammoth Lakes' Bluesapalooza Festival.
Episode 4 - Food and Wine Fest, Children's Books, Carole Lester
Things we talked about in Episode 4:
Episode 5 - High Country Thunderstorms, Jon Krakauer's writings, Kathy Copeland of Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 6 - Eastern Sierra Crawdads, Devil in the White City, Tim Alpers
Stuff we talked about
Episode 7 - Bristlecone Pines; Beartown, Year of the Monkey; Ingrid Braun, Mono County Sheriff
Stuff we talked about
Episode 8 - June Lake Jam Fest; 'Palate Cleanser' reading; Kent Stoddard, Mono County Museum in Bridgeport
Stuff We Talked About
Episode 9 - Mono County Power Outage; Fall Season Book Picks; ESIA's Molly Trauscht
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 10 - Convict Lake; Halloween Books; WIldcare Eastern Sierra's Cindy Kamler
Things we talked about:
Episode 11 - The legend of the June Lake slots; The Interestings; Bob Gardner
What we talked about:
Episode 12 - Top Picks of the Year with Dave Leonard from the Booky Joint
Great books make great gifts and just in time for holiday shopping we welcomed Dave Leonard of The Booky Joint in Mammoth Lakes to present our top reads of 2019. We each brought 5 titles we recommended in 2019..
Episode 13 - Pogonip; Cookbooks; Sandra Di Domizio of Green Fox Events
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 14 - Snowshoeing; New Year New You Book Picks; MWTC's Colonel Hutchinson
Stuff We Talked About:
Episode 15 - Gondola Ride, Day of the Locust, Olympic Medalist Deena Kastor
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 16 - Schat's Bakery; Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson; Anna Ceruti
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 17 - Operation Mountain Freedom; Poetry; Taylor Jackson, Bodie Ranger
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 18 - Every Brilliant Thing; Books to Movies; Tales Along El Camino Sierra author David Woodruff
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 19 - Snowcat Tour of Marine Warfare Training Ctr; Tara Westover's "Educated"; Kristin Reese of the Mono Arts Council
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 20 - Alabama Hills Films; Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin; Behavioral Health's Sofia Flores
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 21 - Cabin Fever and Spring Book Releases
Stuff we talked about during the COVID-19 stay at home period-
Episode 22 - Fishmas! Hot Creek Fish Hatchery; The Last Season and Winterdance; Scott & Irie of Walker Coffee Company, NowHere, and Walker Fly & Tackle
Stuff we talked about:
Episode 23 - Mule Deer Migration; YA Author John Green; Geoffrey McQuilkin of the Mono Lake Committee
Stuff We Talked About:
Episode 24 - Virtual Adventure to Yosemite; Memoirs; Children's/Teen Author Sarah Scheerger
Episode 25 - Adventures in Streaming; What we're reading; Summer Reading & more with Library Youth Programming Manager Carissa Devine
Stuff we talked about:
Doug Thornburg, Carissa Devine, Christopher Platt, PSA, Stacey Adler
Welcome to the latest episode of oxygen starved, the podcast that brings you your ABCs adventure books and conversations from 11,000 feet with your esteemed hosts, Dr. Stacy Adler of the Monroe County Office of Education and Mr. Christopher Platt of the Mono County Free Library.
Hey listeners, welcome to another episode of the oxygen starved podcast where we bring you your ABCs your adventure books and conversations from 11,000 feet here in the beautiful Eastern Sierra. I'm Christopher.
and with us, as always, and today remotely is our producer Doug. Hey, Doug. How are things up where you are
Well, we will do everything possible to change that for you waiting.
I think so. Well, hopefully hopefully our conversation today will give you and maybe our listeners, some things to occupy yourself
Exactly. And once again we are at home staying home with the rest of the state of California. So we are zooming today in different parts of the Eastern Sierra all together my closet when you have one of those zoom backgrounds that everyone has now so it looks like you're in the Bahamas scuba diving.
this is actually I am actually using the Finding Nemo background from the Pixar movie.
No wonder you blend in so well.
Yes. So yeah, I finally had Time to do a little exploring of zoom backgrounds and I found these Pixar background so this was one of the ones that I downloaded and it's funny that that's kind of what you know. And that was my reward. Right going and exploring and finding zoom new zoom background was my reward for getting all my work done. This is what we've come to Christopher you know, just
look everyone has their own kind of adventures, you know, zoom back. And then you if you're like, we are both the same. We both spend a lot of our work weekend zoom meetings.
And it's nice to see the little backgrounds it kind of keeps you name
it does wondering what's going to come up. I've seen some I see some great one producer Doug had the Simpsons couch, his background last week. I love that I thought that was hilarious.
So we did some we did some virtual adventuring for this. Right.
we agreed that listeners we we agreed that like most of America we're bingeing and watching all sorts of streaming series and movies and TV episodes and everything and you know, having that kind of virtual water cooler talk about and we will both acknowledge that we watch Tiger King. Like most of America, Stacy's making a face
did not. I didn't see the the charm.
You were looking for charm. I guess that's definitely a bribe.
Yeah, we watched the whole thing. It was kind of a long, long car wreck and I really don't want to revisit it. So we're not going to talk about your game. Yeah, we did both watch something that we both loved because we actually started off the podcast, many many overdue episodes.
You know, can you believe it?
With a conversation about Michelle Obama's memoir becoming and she has that new documentary on Netflix Yes, that's basically I think her book tour on that largely with other activities listed in and you know, we both watched it I think the same evening and had similar reactions. What What was your reaction to it? What do you think of it?
Well, just like with the book, I cried a lot. There were a lot of parts that made me cry and
yeah, what do you what I liked about it was all of that. Plus she is just so genuine. You know, it's definitely her that comes off. They show different interviews of her on the book tour itself. She's always in front of a very large audience. Like a stadium audience. Yeah. And you know her answering similar questions in different cities. Along the way, but all of her answers come off as very genuine. And I also liked that the that the documentary really focused on her, not her husband, right. And it also focused on a number of the people around her or the people who react to her. So her mother is a big part of the documentary her brother, and she talks about. And then the people who come up to speak to her at book signings or the teenagers she works with the young women that she works with and inspirational groups. They come from all different backgrounds, all different races, all different ages. And and I think they really react to that genuineness, and that she found her own voice aside from her husband.
Yeah, yep, absolutely. So it was great.
It was it was really it's worth the time.
Yeah. And even if you didn't read the book, oh, yeah, it's you know, it gives you if you're interested in all in Michelle Obama. It gives you a A great insight into her persona and her ethos and right you know, who she is as a person. It's it. It was really, really good.
So that's one of the things that we've been Yes, we've been watching mom and then I'll mention one other that I watched. I know you have something you want to mention, too. So one show that I binged pretty early on, it's actually a British show. So I think I mentioned in a previous podcast, I'm a big fan of James Harriet's, all creatures great and small series, I read all the books as a kid I used to watch the PBS TV series in the 70s or something. There's been another iteration since then, you know, he was a real vet working in Yorkshire, England, in the 30s, through like the 60s or something like that. And his veterinary practices still there. And in fact, it's only run by one of the guys that he trained. And so this is a show called Yorkshire that It's a British show, and it's a reality show about that veterinarian process practice, which is still very much like what you read about in those books if you've read James Harriet's original stories, which is really easy reading, similar to that the show is very family friendly. You know, there's everything from hamsters and puppies to cows and sheep and llamas a lot of long as in England now. And so, you know, it's kind of approachable. You can watch an episode, you know, with your kids and talk about what's happening. The episodes tend to be very mixture of light hearted and some serious stuff. But they always end on a hopeful note. And it's always very truthful. And he he one of the owners of the veterinary practice today is this man named Julian and this the older guy is named Peter. He was the one who's been trained by James Harriet, and he's kind of like a, not a curmudgeon. But you know, you can tell he's older. You know, you And they kind of have a competitive little, little banter between them. And then all the other staff that they have there. Julian is younger, I think his wife is a vet. And they have kids who are probably like a middle school becoming teenage age. And he also will bring a kid with him on a on a veterinary call, just kind of like experience and which I thought was kind of neat. Yeah. Yeah, so and it's got its moments of like a little bit of deer jerky, but you know, a lot of laughter and stuff like that. So I watched it on a corn TV, which is a kind of a British streaming platform, but I think you can find it on numerous, like Amazon Prime and probably others. But if you just Google Yorkshire that that TV series will come up and I think there's like four series available in the US at the moment. So that was fun. I just enjoyed it. It's just it was always a guaranteed uplifting hour to watch
and something to take is so different takes you out of your day to day zooming life, right
Totally and stuff you know me not as an animal. You know, we have a lot of pets, but I didn't grow up on a ranch or a farm. We drive by ranches in the Eastern Sierra all the time. be surprised what happens that you have to deal with houses and sheep and all this stuff. So yeah, it was it was really fun. And I think a lot of people would enjoy it.
Cool. Well, I will check it out for sure. My, my experience is somewhat different with all of this TV stuff. Because as I overheard my husband and my daughter having a conversation just the other night saying, Well, you know, mom, she's the one that says mom being me. She's the one that always says, oh, let's watch this. This is a new series and then she watches one episode and never finish it
and they end up watching everything so I just don't have the patience, you know for spending a lot of time watching TV especially if I'm not doing something else while I'm watching it, but the one so I've been watching a lot of Top Chef because I like I love cooking so and it's something I can watch like for 10 minutes and then when I get bored shut it off and you know I can kind of back and forth to it. And it's I like to watch people cooking. So that's I've been watching that from time to time. Only series beside that I have finished is a news. It's a limited series on I think it's Netflix called Hollywood. And it was written and produced by Ryan Murphy who's the creator of Glee and it was only like six or seven episodes and I kind of watched it over time. You know, I didn't like sit down and watch them all like
I could I don't think I could. As much as I like the idea of that. I can't do it. I can't I good for you, I can't do it. But um, you know, so this is this is a series that is probably not suitable for young children. Definitely not suitable for young children questionable for young teenagers. But it is it's based in fact, and it's about Hollywood back in the 40s. You know, the, the gold kind of what they call the Golden Age of Hollywood, and it kind of blends facts with fantasy. So it is about is actually centered around this gas station that actually existed. That was a Front for prostitution. And the the people who you know the people who went and work or were the men who worked there were essentially peddled out to whoever chose to have them pedal, um and and then how these people's career took shape and the the fact that you know, at the time you know, that people who were gay or African American or all of these minority people couldn't be successful, you know, they, they were kind of looked at as second class citizens and so this this show this series I guess kind of turned that on its head and said, Well, what if it wasn't like that? You know, what if, what if people really took those chances and said, This is who I am and gave people that opportunity, which is a really beautiful thing, right? To imagine and that the, I think what drew me in really was the costumes and the sets and the, the way people dressed and spoke and carried themselves at that time, was really quite something and it was beautiful to watch. So it was Yes, it was real. It was really interesting. And there are some, you know, it really blended real life characters and told stories about Hollywood that you didn't know, you know, like, Hattie McDaniel who was mammy in Gone with the Wind. She shows up in this and You know, shares about how when she went to the Oscars because she was nominated for that role of mammy and gone with the when they wouldn't we weren't going to let her into the theater. Hmm. Because she was black and they were like, No, you you're not allowed in. She's like I nominated for an Oscar.
Yeah. So you know, it was, it was interesting. And like I said, I wouldn't have been something that I could have watched straight through. But you know, certainly it was thought provoking. And yeah, it was it was different. It was really, really different. So I liked it.
That's Hollywood. It was on Netflix. Netflix. Yes. Cool. Yeah. So those are some of the things and now I don't have anything to back to 10 minutes of top chef at a time. There's like a million episodes of that.
Well, why don't you stick around for a couple minutes and we'll talk about some books and maybe you'll get some book ideas. Sounds good to me. Okay, listeners, you stick around too. We'll be right back.
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Welcome back listeners. We have arrived at the B book section of our episode today. And yeah, we always love this part. We do We hope you do. We hope you do too. And today we're we're just talking about books that we're reading right now. And I think we're both doing a lot of reading. Now, we have been our circumstances.
You know, I think it's interesting. We may have chatted about this before that, you know, during the, it's, it's been almost at the time, this goes out about 10 weeks now. And yeah, and there are phases where it's kind of hard to concentrate on reading a full book and then phases where you just kind of like dive in, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that takes me down a path like a cereal like, you know, like, I can't stop and it's that's what I would love to be spending all my time doing, but right. Can't. Right. So Christopher, what are you reading right now?
So the book I am still finishing, but it's good. So I'm going to talk about nearly finished. It's called west of the Eden, an American place by Jean Stein. It came out a couple years ago in 2016. Some people may recognize Jeanne Stein, she was a pretty well known author and individual. She wrote a book a couple decades ago about Ed Sedgwick of Andy Warhol fame. She started her career back in, I think, the 40s or the 50s. And one of her earliest roles was helping alien cars on on the original play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. So she went back a ways. Yeah, the reason she was part of All That Is she is the daughter of Jules Stein, who founded one of the biggest talent agencies in Hollywood called MCA. So, you know, that's who she is. She She died a couple years ago. She actually committed suicide at the age of 83. I think she struggled with depression. But this book came out the year before that. Okay. And what it is, is it chronicles the history of Hollywood in Los Angeles in that whole millia through five influential families or characters that influenced Southern California in a meaningful way. And each each segment is character is made up of oral histories. So she interviewed a ton of people, some famous, like gore madol, or Lauren Bacall, or people who were there. And some not so famous, some were just family members or former staff or just people who were around at the time. And it's almost like reading instead Terkel book in a way. It's like bubble narratives, which kind of interweave each other. So it's almost like you're in a room listening to these people talk about this character or this family and the influence that they had. And so the five that she focuses on are ones that are a little bit well known and not well known, at least to me. So the first one she starts with is Edward Delaney. And the oil boom. Many people will recognize that last name as a prominent street in the Los Angeles area. But Edward Doheney was a ruthless oil man with a massive oil fortune in the early 20th century, late late 19, late 1800s, early 1900s and that really, in his way, puts him above the law, especially in Southern California at that time, which wasn't yet the sprawling place it is today. And in fact, he he was so notorious. He is the basis for the character played by Daniel Day Lewis
area. It really does. And I think you would, you would really appreciate the Warner and Jennifer Jones chapters. JACK Warner, his second wife was famous for they had a huge mansion, you know, in Beverly Hills somewhere with a complete golf course behind that he wouldn't let anyone play on a massive pool and all this stuff. And these two holes post massive parties, and his wife would stay upstairs. Like I guess for the last 20 years of her life. She was basically she lived on the second floor of this house and would only rarely come down. So it's just fascinating. It's just it's really fun. I think you would enjoy it a lot. Yeah,
I definitely want to check it out. I want to borrow it when you're done. So I just finished and this was from my book club was a book that they were reading and it's called the giver of stars. It's by Jojo Moyes, and many others. You will know her because she will. She's written a number of books of very vast, she's very prolific writer, right, but she's probably best known for me before you, which was a best seller which I've never read. But it was a best seller and turned into a very successful movie and is had sequels and all that. But this book was so good. I highly recommend it. I wouldn't call it historical fiction, but it is the context of it is set around the WPA acts that started in 1935 by the Roosevelts to help put people back to work right after the depression. And one of the the WPA was a workforce program and took all different kinds of aspects and one of them was the rural horseback librarian program. So yeah, I knew you would. And so what this was, is that the government would help set up these rural, like live libraries, but they were just outposts. And the people would the librarians would travel on horseback delivering books, to the homesteaders and the farmers and, and this took place all the way from, you know, down and around the Appalachian Trail through the rural Middle America and this book, the giver of stars takes place in Kentucky. Hmm. And the interesting thing about the rural horseback librarians is that most of them were women. Yeah. And so that is the background for the giver of stars and it tell that's kind of where the historical part ends because all the characters Are fiction, right? And nobody is nobody else is real beyond the context for the book. So it tells the story of these five women who come together and
She is an enjoyable author to read. Very Yes. Yeah. And that is a unique that's a really unique situation. That whole thing that happened horsepower. Yeah.
Well, yeah, I had no idea that that until, you know, until I read this I didn't know that that. I mean, of course I'd heard about the WPA, but I didn't know that horseback librarians was part of it. And, you know, it's funny because now as we're starting to think about opening up and curbside pickup for books and it's a little you know, we're kind of going back to that will we can bring the books to you. Kind of
a thing, within reason if anyone out there has a horse in a pack or a mule train that they're not using this summer. Maybe we can
Yeah, we can work something out. Yeah. Sure.
Well, so that was great. That's called the giver of Stars, right?
Yes, yeah. So check it out. We'll put a link in the notes to that. And stick around listeners will be back with our conversation in just a minute.
You were dialed into oxygen starved. The podcast that brings you your ABCs adventure books and conversations from 11,000 feet originating from the slopes of Mammoth Mountain in Mono County, California. You can find us at SoundCloud. You can find us on iTunes. You can find us at oxygen starved podcast.com. Just make sure you find us.
Welcome back listeners. We're at this C portion of our podcast the conversation portion, which is always one of our favorite parts, right stays
We get some great individuals to talk to and learn about some of the unique roles that people play here in the Eastern Sierra. So today, I'm super excited about our guest I'm a little biased. Again, I'm the library director for Mono County. So I brought one of my colleagues with me today, our youth library programming manager. Carissa Divine. Hey, Carissa thank you for joining us.
So yeah, one of the things I'm really excited about where the library is going with Carissa's
Yeah, sure. So I'm originally from Pennsylvania I grew up in a county called New York right next to Lancaster and most people know it because it's where the largest population of Amish are in the US go wow
Did you see a lot like horses and buggies and stuff growing up
yeah and the county next door not not so much in my home county but right next door so 20 minutes away I mean, you have the road signs there with the warning you that there's a buggy and horse potentially just ahead of you. So you have to be careful you take a fast corner you got to be ready for that. So yeah, I did grew up seeing that they they're fascinating. They play a lot in American play a big role in American history when it comes to pacifism and the right to to your beliefs to sort of even homeschooling. homeschooling is not limited like in Germany, it's not allowed but we are allowed to do that here because of the Amish actually
So anyhow, Pennsylvania. Yeah, I kind of grew up on that outskirts of the sprawling suburban world that is the East Coast. And I had a rough time. When I was in my teenage years, when I was 15. My parents actually filed for bankruptcy. And I was I went to three different high schools in three years a mix of moving because of foreclosure losing the house. I also had some, you know, teenage questions going on and me at the time, was
a great college experience. That's amazing. Yeah, it was beautiful. And my, my two of my professors are actually still mentors for me today and they were huge and that's probably why I like working with kids today. They just really believed in me and I come in from a tumultuous background, feeling and feeling their faith in me really helped me believe in myself and really it came down to I was I wanted to study abroad had a conversation with this one mentor Professor about I wanted to study in India, I was really fascinated with Hinduism. And our college didn't have a program that went there and he was just like, Chrissy, you know, you can, can study anywhere you want to Wow. And I was just like, You're right I can and I went home I was even house sitting for him and his wife that summer. And I looked into programs going to India decided to withdraw first semester and semester and roll. And Pondicherry University which was through a nonprofit based in New York. So yeah, may just made it all happen that way. So
Yeah, so I went my junior the spring of my junior year I hooked up with a nonprofit based out of New York and studied in Pondicherry University in southeastern India. And then it was just super crazy coincidence, because I had had an Indian religion of philosophy course. And in it we studied classic, more medieval and then contemporary philosophy. And the contemporary philosopher that we studied is called Sri Aurobindo and he lived from the late 19th century till the mid 20th. A century and pure coincidence it just so happened the university I went to study yet was near, like five kilometers away from a commune based on this thinkers philosophy. So that just kind of was like wow here I didn't even know there was a commune based on this thought. And so my study abroad experience took me near to this eco village is the largest and longest lasting eco village in the world. Wow. So an eco village is a community that is an intentional community, they come together generally with the aim to be ecologically self sustaining. They have not reached their goal. But so when they started, the land that they took over was a barren wasteland, basically, leftover from French and British colonialism. They will used to be a teak forest that had been decimated by by that historical process. And so it was the star of the commune. I mean, it was in the era of hippies. It started in 68. It was a lot of Western hippies from Europe from the US, as well as Indians. And they were given a, like a five kilometer radius plot of land and started growing their own forests. And today that's what it is they've they've revegetated this land, with the initial goal of being self sustaining and their food growing as well. That hasn't been a complete success. Nonetheless, their intention is is for is, is to be as ecologically sustainable as possible.
So did you live on this in this commune while you were studying or did you live at the university?
I lived at the university during this study abroad exchange, but as a as a young American girl that was fully in the poker wave that came around at that time. I don't know if you guys recall when Texas Hold'em became really popular. But I was a nomad So in this commune, there was a group of group of older men started to play poker and I went to watch soccer one day. And so I was living at the university but came into contact with, with many people in the commune, I was really fascinated by its history. And so I started playing poker. And poker on Thursday nights, met more and more people and just became more fascinated by this sort of historical living moment. It was, it was a community based on very rooted beliefs. And so the founders of this community started to become in some ways enshrined really and not quite fully deify, but on its way there, and this really
Yeah, it was it was. It was something
what a cultural shift that must have been I mean to go Had you ever been abroad before you went to India.
I was I had visited Holland a few times. Growing up. My my mother traveled the world through her through her husband's it's a joke. My biological father is American but Then she, she married a man from the Netherlands when I was two. And they were together until I was about 15 when curses worlds started to fall and fall apart as a teenager, and then her third husband was Canadian. So anyhow, while she was married to my stepdad from the Netherlands, I visited there at the age of 512 and 16. I remember I was told my students my first real moment of culture shock was French fries and Manny's It was a life changer.
No, no, that's wrong. That's wrong gun. Okay, that's another show.