[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica, and Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:26] Meg: And where we are currently podcasting about New York City in the '80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:34] Jessica: And I do pop culture, and I have a little share. This is, like, testament to how anxiety ridden I am. So our dear, dear friend of the podcast and of us personally, like BBBFFF, like beyond. Alex, author of the Flaming Pablum blog extravaganza, just texted me, and he said, by the way, you know, my wife's name is Peggy. And I immediately was like, what did I call her on the podcast?

[01:16] Meg: And I heard you doing that, and I was like, Jessica, he's saying that because it's what we named our mixer.

[01:21] Jessica: I know. It didn't even occur to me. I was instantly plunged into anxiety and guilt and shame. And as I texted him, oh, my God, what did I call her? He was like, it's the name of your mixer. And I was like, and that's right, it's an homage.

[01:44] Meg: Ridiculous person, you are. All right, I'm excited about my story. So shall we start?

[01:50] Jessica: Yes, please.

[02:01] Meg: My engagement question. When you think of romantic comedies based in New York City, what comes to mind?

[02:09] Jessica: Oh, obviously, When Harry Met Sally. I mean, there's a whole lot of them, but I figured that's where you might be going.

[02:19] Meg: And what in particular? You have such great, detailed recall, usually.

[02:24] Jessica: Well, obviously, that they were doing the whole An Affair to Remember redo and getting on the Empire State, getting on the, like they're King Kong, going to the Empire State Building to meet on the observatory deck.

[02:37] Meg: That was Sleepless in Seattle.

[02:39] Jessica: Yes, it was. Never mind. But same thing, same cast, same everything, same author and and director. Nora Ephron. Well, Heartburn. Want to talk about Nora Ephron in New York? Heartburn. Oh, and by the way, the thing that really kills me about When Harry Met Sally, and this is such a New York moment, I don't think that's what people normally think of as the New York moment, but it's when he's in Hammacher Schlemmer singing The Surrey with the Fringe on Top with the karaoke machine, and Helen, his ex wife, comes in. That, to me, is like every horrible moment of New York is sometimes too small. You think that you have anonymity. Oh, no, you never do.

[03:29] Meg: Absolutely. Run into Helen, your ex in New York. Guaranteed. My sources are The Washington Post, The New Yorker, New York Magazine.

[03:41] Jessica: I know where this is going, and I'm so excited.

[03:47] Meg: On March 12, 1983, Heartburn, the autobiographical novel by Nora Ephron, was published. Its narrator, Rachel Samstat, is a food writer who is seven months pregnant with her second child when she finds out her husband, Mark Feldman, a political journalist, is having an affair. The story mirrors Nora Ephron's own marriage and divorce from Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. They married in 1976, and three years and 1.5 children later, Carl was caught schtupping Margaret Jay, the wife of Peter Jay, the former British ambassador to the U.S. To make matters worse, Nora had moved from her beloved New York City to Washington to support Carl's career. Quote, "I'd left New York City a year earlier to move to Washington, DC for what I sincerely thought would be the rest of my life. I'd tried to be cheerful about it, but the horrible reality kept crashing in on me. I would stare out the window of my Washington apartment, which had a commanding view of the lions at the National Zoo. The lions at the National Zoo. Oh, the metaphors of captivity that leaped to mind. The lions lived in a large, comfortable space like me, and had plenty of food like me, but were they happy? Etc. At other times, the old Clairol ad, "If I've only one life to live, let me live it as a blonde" reverberated through my brain, although my version of it had nothing to do with hair color. If I have only one life to live, I thought self pityingly, why am I living it here? But then, of course, I would remember why. I was married and my husband lived in Washington and I was in love with him, and we had one baby and another on the way." Close quote. When Nora discovered the affair, she bundled up two year old Jacob, came straight back to New York, and moved in with acclaimed book editor Robert Gottlieb and his family for six months. Robert Gottlieb was the father of Lizzie Gottlieb, who went to Nightingale with us, and he just died in June, the week of Mr. Kersey's funeral. She was scheduled to be there, but obviously could not be. Lizzie was supposed to be at Mr. Kersey's funeral. In Heartburn, Nora describes Mark Feldman, a thinly disguised Carl Bernstein, as, quote, "a piece of work in the sack who is capable of having sex with a venetian blind." I remember that. She also describes him as "a fairly short person." Thelma Rice, the Margaret Jay Character, has, quote," a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb. And you should see her legs, never mind her feet, which are sort of splayed."

[06:48] Jessica: I remember that. The splayed feet.

[06:52] Meg: Rachel, the Nora character, is a food writer, and recipes play a prominent role in the book. When Rachel wishes she could get advice from her cheating husband, from her dead mother, she gives us her recipe for toasted almonds. When she throws a pie in Mark's face, she tells you how she baked it. Olivia Wilde posted Rachel's salad dressing recipe, which is Grey Poupon and red wine vinegar, of course, when she was splitting up with Jason Sudeikis. She posted it? Yeah, on her Instagram.

[07:24] Jessica: Well, that's a deep cut, Olivia.

[07:27] Meg: Yeah. Apparently, she made the dressing for Harry Styles, and that's how Jason discovered her affair.

[07:33] Jessica: You don't share food with another man.

[07:37] Meg: That's what Jason thought.

[07:39] Jessica: Yes. And was like, oh, no, that's my salad dressing.

[07:45] Meg: Carl Bernstein was furious when the book came out. He went from being the most celebrated investigative journalist in the world, being played by Dustin Hoffman and in an Oscar winning film, to being exposed and mocked as an ******* philanderer. He described heartburn as, quote, "the tasteless exploitation and public circus Nora has made out of our lives and what should have been our family's private sadness."

[08:13] Jessica: That he caused. You twit.

[08:17] Meg: In fact, their divorce didn't become final until 1985 because Carl was terrified of the book being made into a movie. Eventually, Nora, Mike Nichols, and Paramount Pictures agreed that Bernstein could read the screenplay, view the first cut, and submit concerns. Nora had to promise that the Mark character be portrayed as a loving father, and a percentage of the profits from the film went into a trust for their children. Mandy Patinkin was originally cast as Mark and called Carl for help in researching the role. Thanks, Mandy. Are you, like, reading the newspaper? Like, throw salt in the wound? Do not call Carl. What are you doing?

[09:03] Jessica: That's a bit tone deaf.

[09:05] Meg: You think? And by the way, he was fired after the first day of shooting, Mandy was.

[09:09] Jessica: Because he contacted Carl?

[09:11] Meg: No, this is why, quote, "we got to the first shot, which was on 81st Street at UNO Pizzeria & Grill. The cameras were across the street. Meryl and I were in the window playing the scene and I remember Mike said, just try to imagine a golf ball running down your leg to try to get me to lighten up and laugh. This was right after we did a scene in bed naked. This was the first day, a scene in bed naked, and now a golf ball running down my leg. And the next day, I was fired. I thought my life was over. They hired Jack Nicholson, who they wanted from the beginning."

[09:48] Jessica: I have a lot of feelings about that statement. Is that weird? First off, naked. Lighten up, Francis. Join the universe of actors who are constantly naked. Frequently women you know like, okay, so first off, Mandy, cool your jets you know, and then, what's so terrible about imagining a golf ball, like a golf ball running down my leg? It's not like someone like some unmentionable fluid running down your leg. Again, lighten up, Francis. So, yeah, I like Mandy Patinkin. In fact, I love him in many things. But in this moment, I'm just saying you know.

[10:33] Meg: You know, I'm sure it was really traumatizing for him.

[10:37] Jessica: But you know what?

[10:39] Meg: No, I mean, to be fired from such a big thing, like, being fired sucks. That said, I'm glad they made a change.

[10:46] Jessica: Yeah. I think that as I step into this decade of my life, my tolerance for like, it hurt when you said this, is incredibly low. I'm so sorry that you had to you know show your butt, Mandy which, P.S., no one wants to see. Well, maybe at the time we did. I don't mean. Okay, I was going to say something really rude, but I'll say it anyway. Okay, I love him, but you know my deep love for Kevin Klein. I do. I always felt like he was kind of like the poor... You're going to say something.

[11:27] Meg: Are you going to make me cut this when you say it?

[11:30] Jessica: No, I won't say it. I won't say it. Okay, I think we can dot, dot, dot. Yes, and I'll make your editing more reasonable this time. But I'm just crabby, right now as you know.

[11:42] Meg: The point is, he's not part of the story. But I thought that was a fun/

[11:47] Jessica: No, look. It was such a great detail that I lost my mind.

[11:51] Meg: Back to Nora. Nora Ephron's New York of bohemian apartments and excellent food shopping at Citarella and Zabar's and lovely walks through the falling autumn leaves in Central Park would soon become immortalized in her movies. When Harry Met Sally. You've Got Mail. Sleepless in Seattle. The most famous scene from Heartburn was filmed in the courtyard of The Apthorp, where Nora moved after her stay at the Gottlieb's. Quote, "In February 1982, months after the birth of my second child and the simultaneous end of my marriage, I fell madly in love. I was looking for a place to live, and one afternoon I walked just ten steps into an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And my heart stood still. This was it at first sight. Eureka. Ten steps in and I said, I'll take it. The apartment was huge. It was on the fifth floor of The Apthorp, a famous stone pile at the corner of Broadway and 79th Street. The rent was $1500 a month, which by Manhattan standards was practically a bargain. Trust me, it was."

[13:04] Jessica: I do believe, and I'm sure if I am mistaken, I will hear about it quickly. But I do believe that Only Murders in the Building takes place in a fictitious or fictionalized version of The Apthorp. Cool. And it's a podcast. It's about murder. Self referential.

[13:28] Meg: Nora did fall in love again. She married Nicholas Pileggi. Oh, Nick Pileggi, writer of Goodfellas fame, in 1987, and they were marvelously happy together until her death in 2012 of leukemia. She was 71. In her 2006 book, I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, she wrote a list of what I wish I'd known, including these are my favorites. You can't be friends with people who call after 11:00 p.m.. The last four years of psychoanalysis are a waste of money. The plane is not going to crash. Write everything down. Take more pictures. You can order more than one dessert. You can't own too many black turtleneck sweaters. If the shoe doesn't fit in the shoe store, it's never going to fit. When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you. Whenever someone says the words, our friendship is more important than this, watch out, because it almost never is. There's no point in making pie crust from scratch. Love that one. And overtip.

[14:40] Jessica: So do you want to hear another weird connection? Sure. So not only did she stay with the Gottliebs, Lizzie Gottlieb, Nightingale friend, but Abby Weintraub of Nightingale and Lizzie's class designed the book cover for I Feel Bad About My Neck.

[14:59] Meg: Oh, did she?

[15:00] Jessica: She did. And it is a great, brilliant, genius cover.

[15:05] Meg: Abby is so talented.

[15:07] Jessica: She is. She is outstanding.

[15:09] Meg: Okay, one more fun fact. Oh, please. So Nora Ephron knew who Deep Throat was the whole time.

[15:18] Jessica: Really?

[15:18] Meg: Yes. And people would ask her, and she would tell them because she was not a huge fan of her ex husband. So when people said, who is Deep Throat? Do you know? And she said, yes, I do know. It's Mark Felt.

[15:32] Jessica: Oh.

[15:33] Meg: And she said it hugely, publicly. She said all the time, and people just didn't really believe her. She told her son Jacob, who told his classmates at Dalton. So there's this whole group of kids who totally knew who Deep Throat was.

[15:49] Jessica: That's so bananas.

[15:51] Meg: I love it, though.

[15:53] Jessica: So speaking of food, the thing that always stuck in my head about Heartburn and that I thought was the ultimate in romance was after she and Bernstein, before they were actually married. I think that was the plot point. Whenever they had sex afterwards, she would make spaghetti carbonara and eat it in bed. And I always thought that was the ultimate in cozy New York romance. At this stage in my life, of course, all I can think is, don't wipe your fingers on the sheets. So that's off the menu. But, yeah, I thought that was. I loved that. That was very, like.

[16:37] Meg: I think I'm going to post some of the recipes.

[16:39] Jessica: Oh, my gosh. Yes. And, I mean, there were so many good ones.

[16:43] Meg: Oh, my god.

[16:46] Jessica: And she was, actually, another growing up in New York thing. So Nora Ephron came from a writerly and showbiz family, and her sister Delia, also a writer, she wrote a book that was a very big hit in my house and my dear friend Nina Rosen's house. And it was called How to Eat Like a Child And Other Lessons in Not Being a Grown-up. And it's hilarious, and I recommend it. I don't know if it's still in print, but if you can find it, it's a great, great book for kids about being irreverent and being yourself and also for grown-ups. I think it's like, something good to revisit.

[17:27] Meg: Okay, let's get our hands on that.

[17:28] Jessica: I thought my section today would be a more personal storytelling. It's about my grandfather. It's also about New York. There is a quote, in fact, I think it's the opening line from a book that I really love called The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley. And it's about a young boy who winds up being the go between, between these sort of star crossed lovers. And the line is, "the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." And I think that so much of what we talk about on this podcast is that there's so much that's changed in the last several decades. We've talked about the children of friends of ours not knowing how to dial a rotary phone or just things that, like, what's a CD? These things are beyond the beyond. And the thing that sort of strikes me the most about our upbringing, and I know that this applies to you, but in a very different way, is that part of being kids of the '70s and then teenagers of the '80s is that we were raised by people who were raised by Edwardians, really. We were much closer to a 19th century sensibility than I think we ever knew. Right. And now, looking back, I see how much that's incredibly true. And that there were ways that you did things and customs that were just and we look at them now, and it's like, that's so sexist. And it's like, yes, it was. But it came from a very specific tradition. I think, that I've mentioned in the past that for me, I was always incensed that I had to clear the table and John did not. And I was like, how ******* dare you? But that's what girls did. Like, you go and you're in the kitchen and blah, blah, blah. Like my father's side of the family, Russian Jewish, immigrant and earthy and fun and bananas. And my grandfather was an artist, and they were not uptight. And my mother's side of the family was and they were very bourgeois, you know appearances mattered kind of family. And so I grew up with all of that. And my grandfather was. I wouldn't say appalled, but not delighted that he only had granddaughters. And so when John arrived, that was like the second coming. It was like, oh, John. But nonetheless, there were certain things that we were taught as the girls of the family. And I look back on it now, and I see how incredibly antiquated it was. And that the idea that Alice would ever be taught something like this now is kind of bananas. But in a way, it was right at the time. When I was, I guess, 20 or so and I do believe that my female cousins also had this lesson, my grandfather taught us how to be taken seriously in business as women. He always owned his own business. And we were taught, like, how to drink bourbon and that you drink bourbon, not some silly grasshopper or some nonsense like that. This idea of manly manism, but New York urbane, sophisticate kind of and how to be was very much from my grandfather and that side of the family. And so I was thinking about all of that, and I was reminded of something that I had completely forgotten about, not for any particular reason. And I asked my dad about it over the last couple of days, and he couldn't place the timing of this. And I am convinced that it was about 1980, maybe 1981. One of the things about my grandfather, he definitely liked to hang out with the boys, the guys, and he had the golfing and all of this stuff. And he and his brother were best friends, and they were off on their own all the time and in keeping with that, it was something that I never took seriously. Why would I even think about it? I was a child, but my grandfather was a Mason.

[22:01] Meg: Oh, I was going to ask what kind of artist?

[22:06] Jessica: No, no. So my father's father had nothing to do with that. This is my mother's father, who was super bourgeois and went to Columbia and would go to school in a limousine and all kinds of whackadoodle stuff like that. And part of his identity, and it was like a really big thing, was that he was a Mason. [22:27] Meg: By trade? I'm confused.

[22:28] Jessica: No. No, no, no. Okay, so let me roll this back. The Masonic lodge.

[22:34] Meg: I thought you were talking about stones, Jessica.

[22:37] Jessica: No, he was a pharmacist. No, there was no.

[22:41] Meg: See the confusion.

[22:42] Jessica: Yes, I do.

[22:44] Meg: Mason. Like the club.

[22:46] Jessica: Like the club.

[22:47] Meg: Thank you.

[22:48] Jessica: Exactly. And it was just part of this sort. You know, we've talked about this in other episodes, how my brother was really deeply into the occult. And I'm convinced that part of that came from, and I have to ask John about this, but I am quite sure that as the only male grandchild, he was privy in some way to the Masonic secrets and brought to a basement somewhere, which sounds really bad. He was chained to the wall and then they pelted him with pomegranate.

[23:21] Meg: What was that wonderful movie? Young Sherlock Holmes.

[23:25] Jessica: Oh, I love that movie.

[23:26] Meg: That was all occult like.

[23:28] Jessica: Yes. I can't believe that you mentioned that. No one else thinks of that movie. That was one of my favorite movies. Why did you love that movie so much? I know why I loved it. What did you love?

[23:38] Meg: Well, it was kind of like a precursor to the whole Harry Potter thing. It was a bunch of kids who were trying to solve adult serious stuff and there was lots of occult stuff. There were lots of serpents and weird symbols that they had to figure out.

[23:56] Jessica: And stuff that would not pass the cultural sensitivity meter these days.

[24:02] Meg: Probably not.

[24:03] Jessica: But yes, I agree.

[24:05] Meg: It imprinted.

[24:06] Jessica: Yes. And I loved the kid who played Sherlock Holmes, Nicholas Rowe. Yes. Can you believe that? I still remember.

[24:14] Meg: I can't.

[24:14] Jessica: Nicholas Rowe, who is still an actor, P.S.

[24:16] Meg: Well, he was a wonderful young actor, so I'm not surprised.

[24:21] Jessica: But he pops up in The Remains of the Day as like random guy signing, blah, blah, blah.

[24:28] Meg: Yes, he's very recognizable.

[24:31] Jessica: Yes, he's distinctive. He was truly a young Basil Rathbone. Yeah. So I'm convinced that John was in some way, we have to get John on this. But funny enough, because we were talking about, well, those were the Shriners.

[24:49] Meg: Oh, whoops, sorry.

[24:50] Jessica: No, no, these are all good things. So from mentioning the occult and all of that on our last podcast, our Bbbff, Alex, before he texted me you know Peggy is my wife's name. And I was like, I'm a monster. What did I do? He said the bookstore you were trying to think of that your brother went to was probably the Magickal Childe with an E. And he was right, 1000%. And for those of you, because we keep pushing our listeners to read Alex's blog and he has a whole entry on the Magickal Childe and '80s occult.

[25:31] Meg: I will supply a link, on the Instagram.

[25:34] Jessica: And that's the thing, like in the '80s, occultism, like, obsession with that kind of stuff. It wasn't scary, it was fun, and it wasn't underground. It was like part of popular culture.

[25:47] Meg: It's kind of like witchcraft now, maybe. Or vampires.

[25:50] Jessica: Vampires. It's like vampires.

[25:51] Meg: Vampires in the '90s and witchcraft now. Yeah.

[25:56] Jessica: Anyway, yes, 100%. By the way, are you aware of a guy on Instagram, he's a comedian, his name is Kevin. Oh, God. But he has this whole thing where he's like, it happened in the '90s. He has this song that he does about growing up in a fundamentalist christian community in the '90s, like, all the insanity that he believed. He's really funny. So we should put a link in that because every time we. If you remember his name. I will, I will because I follow him. But every time we say, like, in the '80s or in the '90s, all I can hear is this guy's voice with this weird effect that he does. So, yeah, the occult was definitely a thing. And so my grandfather, being a mason of the Masonic lodge. Did not make stone walls. Which is, by the way, what they originally were. The Masons go way back to, like the 13th century, something cuckoo kachu and they were indeed masons. And somewhere along the way, it became sort of a brotherhood. And then it was imbued with all kinds of mystical brouhaha. So my grandfather was a Mason, and it fit with his whole, like, here's how to be even though you're a woman here's how to be a man's man and here's how to hang with the boys. I remember distinctly this very odd moment when my mother, with sort of a sense of reverence, but also deep irritation, told us that we had to go to, and I quote, "Poppy's coronation." It's like, Poppy's coronation? What the hell is happening? And my grandfather was made into the head of his lodge and we were all like.

[27:48] Meg: In New York? That sounds like a big deal.

[27:51] Jessica: Yes and it was absolutely not on to make fun of it, but at the same time, we were all kind of like, okay, so we referred to it. Wait, did they give him a crown? No, so we referred to it as the coronation.

[28:09] Meg: Okay.

[28:10] Jessica: The Masons have these different levels, and the highest is you are the master. So it's like you're an apprentice, all, like, as though you are in the guild making the stones and blah, blah, blah. So you become a master Mason. You're like the stone cutter of the gods, but in fact, you're an old man who sits around smoking cigars and kibitzing. In a fancy chair? I'm sure in a very fancy chair.

[28:39] Meg: I want to know what the perks are.

[28:41] Jessica: I know. And what made it even weirder was that we were not allowed to go to the actual coronation. We could only go to the celebration afterwards.

[28:50] Meg: Right because it's a secret ceremony. Duh.

[28:53] Jessica: So I asked my dad about this just like a day or two ago. I was like, do you remember when this was? And he was like, well, I went to some of those meetings in the '70s. Like, you what? He's like, yeah, it's just some guys hanging out like, that is not true. I know that there's more to it because the whole thing about the Masons is that no one knows what they do. It's all secret. Everything about it is completely secret.

[29:22] Meg: You mean like the ceremonies or the making of the stone?

[29:26] Jessica: Everything! There's no stone. Forget the stone. I know that you fixated on the one thing that is literally and figuratively tangible here, but you have to let go of the stone.

[29:39] Meg: I will no longer speak of stones. So just like what they do when they're together

[29:41] Jessica: Yes. What they do when they're together.

[29:42] Meg: Do they still exist?

[29:50] Jessica: Yes. So, needless to say, because John and I were kids, our only association with lodges and being the head of it, was The Flintstones. So it was both Poppy's coronation and Poppy is the grand poobah now, which, of course, brought to mind all of The Flintstonesiana. And my cousin Basha, who was also taught by Poppy, our grandfather, how to drink and all of that. We will frequently greet one another on the phone with a Flintstones tune. "Here we come on the run with a burger on a bun and a dash of coleslaw on the side. Our burgers can't be beat because we grind our own meat. Grind, grind, grind, grind."

[30:41] Meg: Now, I guarantee you, my kids have never heard of The Flintstones.

[30:45] Jessica: What?

[30:45] Meg: I guarantee you.

[30:47] Jessica: How do you feel about that? Don't you feel like it's your responsibility to like.

[30:51] Meg: Like, look, I did Bugs Bunny. They've seen every single episode.

[30:56] Jessica: Do they like it?

[30:57] Meg: Of course.

[30:58] Jessica: Oh, thank you.

[30:58] Meg: That's in their blood.

[31:00] Jessica: Okay.

[31:00] Meg: The Flintstones. I mean, that was something that either you come across and you go, Hanna-Barbera, or you don't, and it's just not in rotation anymore.

[31:08] Jessica: Well, I think also the fact that we on Channel Eleven picks on WPIX that they aired The Honeymooners nonstop.

[31:19] Meg: And we benefited from that.

[31:20] Jessica: Yes, and The Flintstones is The Honeymooners.

[31:24] Meg: And my kids watch they're into Scooby Doo because for some reason that got into the Gen Z zeitgeist but not The Flintstones.

[31:34] Jessica: That is a pity because I'm convinced that whoever wrote and created The Flintstones had some real Masonic insight. Because all of that grand poohbahs stuff, it holds just as much water as anything else you're going to read about the Masons because everything about it, so I tried to do all of this research about the Masons for this podcast and I was like, I'm going to finally crack the code. I'm going to know things. No, what you can find out are things like the very first Masonic lodge in the United States was in New York. Cool. St. John's Lodge. And that building no longer exists. But on West 23rd Street is the Masonic lodge of New York. And I think it's like the biggest Masonic lodge in the country. Inside it looks like exactly what you would think. Like pillars and the ceilings are like night skies with stars and all this kind of stuff. But what I love about it is that it's all made out of plaster. It's all like a stage set. The whole thing is like entirely. I'm glad it survived. Created. Well, I think the one on 23rd, because when they first came to the United States, they were meeting in taverns. And as a result, that lodge, St. John's Lodge, they have their artifacts that have just, I guess moved around with them and then finally came home to roost at the 23rd Street location. They have the Bible that George Washington was sworn into his Presidency with. There is a lot of history, a lot of artifacts floating around New York that are attached to the Masons. There are some very famous New York Masons, including Harry Houdini and Fiorello LaGuardia. So anyway I was thinking, so there I was having this whole like my family and the Masons and da da da. And I was like, is it just me? Am I having some kind of like a made up fantasy life about how the Masons were like a real thing in the '80s that went with the occult and then I thought, no, no, I am not making this up. Because the film from 1986 made by Francis Ford Coppola, Peggy Sue Got Married.

[34:07] Meg: Yes. Which I love.

[34:08] Jessica: The entire plot hinges on a made up version of the Masons, which became a huge thing. So the thing is, Kathleen Turner plays Peggy Sue and she goes to her high school reunion, and she's just split with her husband.

[34:30] Meg: And she's had an unhappy marriage. She goes to her high school reunion.

[34:34] Jessica: She meets up with her old girlfriends, and she becomes prom queen again with the nerd who's, like, made into. I think it's the nerd who's, like, the prom king, because he's now, like, a billionaire inventor, right? And she faints like, she's so overwhelmed. And she comes, too and it's 1960, and she is herself at that age, and she has to figure out, she has to make different choices. Exactly. And the person who she was with, her husband, who she splits from, is played by Nicolas Cage in guaranteed the weirdest performance in the history of film, where this is the voice that he does the entire character in.

[35:17] Meg: Isn't he the cool guy? He's the nerd?

[35:19] Jessica: No, he's, like, her love interest. But he bizarrely made this choice as an actor that he had this whackadoodle voice. And even at the time, the reviews were like, say what now? What you doing there, Nick? And I don't think it's telling tales out of school to remind our listeners know, Francis Ford Coppola is his uncle. Clearly, he didn't get fired for making some weird choices. In fact, there was a review from the time that said, like, he sounds like a cartoon character, or he said that Nicolas Cage defended his choice, saying that he wanted it to sound like a cartoon character because of the cartoon-ness of the times. And the guy who was the reviewer was like, yeah, well, you sound like Jughead, and you are a Jughead. It's like, I am now dead. That's hilarious. So, yeah, he did this bananas thing. But anyway, so in the movie, she realizes that she can actually see her now dead grandparents. So she goes to see them, and she tells her sort of wackadoo grandfather what's going on. And the next thing she knows, she's at the lodge. And all of his friends who are like, his old card playing buddies, like, now they're all in robes with wacky hats.

[36:41] Meg: Oh, are they going to help her get back?

[36:43] Jessica: And part of the Masonic story is that time travel is involved in the Mason, the legend if the Masons. Okay, so he's like, I have a way to get you back. And they have, like, a ritual and some goo that she's supposed to drink. And it's like a stormy night, and you're all set up to think something's going to happen. That's amazing. And then the lights go out, and Nicolas Cage character whisks her out of there. So all of the old men are like, it worked. Let's play cards. It's completely loony. Then, you know, I forgot how she gets back with, you know, she's like, oh, I made all the right choices, and I'm with the right man, and everything turns out fine. As if that weren't enough for Nicolas Cage. And speaking of George Washington, then there's National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

[37:35] Meg: Oh, right. I never saw it.

[37:37] Jessica: It's actually.

[37:38] Meg: That's not '80s is it? That's 2000 something

[37:41] Jessica: No, no no no. But we go back to the Masons. It's his second bite at the Masons.

[37:46] Meg: Got it. So that can't be a coincidence.

[37:47] Jessica: No, I mean, the thing about Nicolas Cage that I really love is that he has consistently been a bit of a whack a doodle, like with his obsession with Elvis Presley. Are you aware of this?

[37:58] Meg: Okay.

[37:58] Jessica: Yeah. He was completely obsessed. And I think when he married what's her name? Patricia Arquette, like in an Elvis suit. And there's all kinds of. Anyway, so he's a bit of an odd duck as we all know. The Masonic thing, it runs deep. So for anyone who is interested in having a party in New York, what I found out is that you can rent a room at the Masonic Lodge on 23rd Street and all of their secret stuff, whatever it is that they do, it's going on right there. I guess the theme is the Masons are alive and well and living in New York. So our tie in? I think, improbably the tie in is Nora Ephron finding, like, her crappy marriage and reassessing and examining love in her movies and books. And then she does find love with Nicholas Pileggi. And I think that with Peggy Sue Got Married you know, she has to reassess, did she choose the right guy? And what's going to make her happy? I can't find anything between Nora and kooky old men in hats.

[39:27] Meg: No, I think that's good. I mean, marriage for women was complicated in the '80s. We didn't realize that because we were children.

[39:36] Jessica: No, but I started off by talking about how women's roles really pissed me off, even when I was a kid and I had to do the girl things. Remember, I said, oh, right, that's true.

[39:46] Meg: Where you had to set the table.

[39:48] Jessica: Well, I had to clear the table. Yeah. While John was still able to sit and yak away. I love that like what, 40 years later, I'm still irritated.

[40:00] Meg: I'm glad that you had the wherewithal to be irritated because it would be difficult. It would be even more difficult if you didn't even have that wherewithal.

[40:10] Jessica: I noticed everything, every slight and indignity.

[40:15] Meg: But isn't that good? Think about that for a second. What if you had just been like, oh, well, this is my lot in life. But instead, one thing that the '80s gave us was like, this doesn't feel right. I don't like it.

[40:26] Jessica: But that's because we're us. I mean, there are tons of people who were just like, that's life. Oh, how relaxing it must be to just be accepting. It must be delightful.

[40:41] Meg: You think? I feel like in the case of Peggy Sue, she was like, no. I did everything I was supposed to do, and it didn't work out. And now I need to go back in time and fix it.

[40:51] Jessica: But when she was accepting she had a nice time. It didn't work out. Why? I know. I don't know what I'm even trying to do. Don't freaking clear the table. I'm having a stroke. There is something wrong. All right.

[41:11] Meg: I think our point, if it, as tenuous as it is, was possibly communicated. We are taking a very well earned break for the rest of August, and we will be back in September.

[41:29] Jessica: We will recharge. We will reconnect with ourselves, with our inner children and each other.

[41:37] Meg: We have to come up with a really great back to school special like we did last time.

[41:41] Jessica: Cool. Yeah. Our last back to school was like the ultimate back to school. Yeah.

[41:45] Meg: So this one, we don't know what it will be, but it will be something.

[41:48] Jessica: But it's going to be amazing.

[41:49] Meg: Amazing. Have a wonderful, wonderful August, everybody.

[41:53] Jessica: We adore you and love you and appreciate you. So happy August, and, yeah, see you after Labor Day. No white shoes.?