Episode 35 features Space Flight Historian Amy Shira Teitel, who may have the coolest job and the best job title around.
We discuss our shared interests in space, the process of writing books, being in love with what’s next, missing our Apollo moment, and more.
During the episode we cover:
- Interest in Space
- Our respective Space Origin stories
- Science that’s history
- Learning about NASA history outside of the U.S.
- The four children
- Fighting for Space
- Writing Books
- Being a Creator / Creative
- The Space Space
- Pete Conrad
- Forms of Media
- The NASA Bubble
- Going back to the Moon
- Going to Mars
- Politics and Space
- Try SCE to AUX
- And much more…
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Fighting for Space is not Jackie Cochran vs. Jerrie Cobb, but it’s a compelling duality
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
Photo by Jeaneen Lund.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:07 – 00:00:23:35
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com. Deke Slayton, his autobiography, is one of the best to cover the golden era of space flight. The matrix is filled with timeless truths and odd mysteries, and I hope you all learned something new about my past from Nick last episode. This is The Palmer Files episode 35 with spaceflight historian Amy Shira Teitel who may have the coolest job and best job title around.
00:00:23:45 – 00:01:07:24
Agent Palmer
We discuss our shared interests in space, the process of writing books, being in love with what’s next, missing our Apollo moment, and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:07:29 – 00:01:33:20
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic. Also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 35th episode is Amy Shira Teitel whose book, fighting for space, I reviewed and whose title as a freelance spaceflight historian is perhaps the coolest title on the planet Earth. I invited Amy on the show not just because I enjoyed her book, but because I don’t often get to geek out about space, Marvel talk, and Star Wars.
00:01:33:21 – 00:01:56:58
Agent Palmer
You’ve heard me geek out about those topics writing, being creative organization. You’ve heard me geek out on those topics too. But space geeks exist, and I’m a pretty big one. And Amy, well, the space space is her space. So we do geek out on space, but that’s not all you’ll hear. We discussed space. Surely the past, the present and future.
00:01:56:58 – 00:02:24:33
Agent Palmer
But we also discussed being a creative, writing books, learning, reading, and much, much more. It’s more than a full page load of conversation, and it’s complete nominal. Before we get it going, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer, the show at the Palmer Files, or Amy at Amy Shear, a title that’s Amy Shira Teitel.
00:02:24:38 – 00:02:45:08
Agent Palmer
You can also use that same name and spelling to follow her on Instagram, and you can visit Amy shear@title.com for links to her books and more content. She’s also on YouTube at youtube.com. Slash vintage space and streaming on Twitch as the Space Vixen. Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and writings, including my review of Amy’s book fighting for Space on Agent Palmer.
00:02:45:08 – 00:03:00:13
Agent Palmer
Dot com. And of course, email can be sent to the show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s try SCE to AUX.
00:03:00:17 – 00:03:26:08
Agent Palmer
Amy. I have been racking my brain for my own personal answer to the question I’m starting out for you, which is I love space stuff, and I’ve always loved space stuff. And I have been having trouble figuring out why. That has always been the case for me. So I will ask you, why do you enjoy space things?
00:03:26:13 – 00:03:40:15
Amy Shira Teitel
That is that is the long answer question. For for me, it started. I love that I have such a great memory of my origin story. My space origin story. Though I would be a very bad superhero because my superhero talent would be writing.
00:03:40:20 – 00:03:43:58
Agent Palmer
No. The great superpower.
00:03:44:03 – 00:04:00:16
Amy Shira Teitel
We’ll take it. I like that. Yeah. When I was seven years old, I was researching for a second grade project on Venus. And I just thought it was the coolest thing ever. That, like, it’s roughly the same size of the Earth. You can see it without a telescope, but it’s also, like, rotates backwards and is basically going to cook you alive.
00:04:00:25 – 00:04:14:21
Amy Shira Teitel
And it was just like this introduction to the variety in our own backyard that I thought was so cool. So I had this little book called That Was Fun Facts About Space. And in it there was like a two page spread per planet, per topic. And there’s one on the moon with a little cartoon of two astronauts in front of a lunar module.
00:04:14:21 – 00:04:33:33
Amy Shira Teitel
And I was like, people went to the moon. Why was I not informed? And like, I’m from Canada, we don’t have NASA, so not everyone in their grandfather has a connection to the space agency. So it was this thing of like, oh my God, I need to know all about this. And it’s one of those things that like, the more the more questions you ask, the more you dig, the bigger the answer becomes.
00:04:33:48 – 00:04:41:30
Amy Shira Teitel
So for me, it’s been like this childhood fascination that just leads to more questions instead of just finding more answers, which makes it really fun.
00:04:41:39 – 00:04:46:05
Agent Palmer
So I probably I could have been on that trajectory.
00:04:46:05 – 00:04:48:19
Amy Shira Teitel
I was your story.
00:04:48:24 – 00:05:04:53
Agent Palmer
I’ve been trying to think about. I know I was fascinated by space in space travel around, you know, age 6 or 7, something along those line and, you know, around that time I would have always said like, oh, when I grow up, I’m going to be an aerospace engineer. Like, that was my that was what I was going to be an astronaut.
00:05:04:58 – 00:05:25:44
Agent Palmer
No, I, I never had the like I, I, oh I think I knew my limitations even at her. Like he was like, I’m not I’m not cut out for the travel part. Right. Right. But I wanted to work for NASA and then I think what happened was, I got completely taken off course by a really good English teacher.
00:05:25:44 – 00:05:55:41
Agent Palmer
And the fact that at the same time, I got that really good English teacher I had problems in, in, like, the advanced maths. Right? Yeah. So it was like, yeah. Oh, okay. And then I went all in on writing and became a comms major in college. And it wasn’t until the last maybe five or 6 or 7 years where I started really getting back into reading that, I’ve kind of been all in on like, a NASA kick, so I’ve.
00:05:55:41 – 00:06:20:25
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I’ve been reading every, every bio slash autobiography I can get my hands on. Yeah. And, and so it’s just kind of always been there as, like a, hobby ish. But like, I looking back, I know now, like, I, I think I made the right path. I think the math would have been too hard for me.
00:06:20:29 – 00:06:31:07
Agent Palmer
But, like, I, I kind of envy you in, like, you got to do research and write a book about this stuff, and I’m like, that sounds like fun.
00:06:31:11 – 00:06:55:23
Amy Shira Teitel
You it’s it’s funny you say that because, like, your story super resonates with me and I think resonates with a lot of people because I’ve had this conversation with a ton of people. Like I also had the poor math teacher experience, actually, in the in the ninth grade, my class had something like seven math teachers, which is like a foundational year, first year of high school to like get some of the basics for when you start going into things like calculus and all the fancy math you need.
00:06:55:28 – 00:07:11:29
Amy Shira Teitel
So I wasn’t bad at math. I wasn’t necessarily the best at math, but like, I like that foundational year was just like a hot mess of substitutes. Every one of them starting again. And I went to a French school, so it was half an English, half in French. The whole thing was just like a hot mess. We did not have the same teacher into the last three years of high school.
00:07:11:34 – 00:07:23:35
Amy Shira Teitel
And my school did five years of high school. I always feel like I have to qualify that. So it was like a year and a half of madness, a half year of a little bit of stability. And then by the time we got into stuff with one teacher, it was like, well, now I’m just, I’m just not good at this.
00:07:23:35 – 00:07:40:47
Amy Shira Teitel
And everyone was like, but you’re artistic. Go right? And I’m like, but you also don’t want people to go to art school because that’s not a job. So it’s just like it really was like I was in that weird spot where I was like, I don’t even know what to do. And I got so lucky that I ended up at an undergrad university that had history of science as a major.
00:07:40:59 – 00:07:48:49
Amy Shira Teitel
That’s not a thing you see very often. So that’s what taught me that you can do science that’s made of history and not made of math. And it was like.
00:07:48:49 – 00:07:55:06
Agent Palmer
So hold on though, because that I that I’m so computer history of science like that history.
00:07:55:06 – 00:07:55:37
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah.
00:07:55:46 – 00:08:04:08
Agent Palmer
So just like the discipline kind of. Yeah. As a discipline. So like basically like English lit but science but science.
00:08:04:08 – 00:08:19:23
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. So what it was and it’s a little liberal arts college in Halifax called King’s College, and it’s one of, if not the only university I’ve ever heard of that does it at an undergraduate level. A lot of places do it at a graduate level. But it it really was it was like the history of Western thought as told through science.
00:08:19:28 – 00:08:39:12
Amy Shira Teitel
So it was like we started with the ancient Egyptians. And a lot of ancient culture is kind of going through. I mean, we had a class about alchemy with, like literally looking at the recipes that have survived over the years and then going through the, you know, we stopped at about the Manhattan Project. So what was always weird to me is like, I’ve never had a history class that talks about space.
00:08:39:17 – 00:08:53:10
Amy Shira Teitel
I again, I’m not from here. So we never learned about the Cold War growing up. So and everything we did stopped around the Second World War. So it was always like this weird thing where I liked this history, but it wasn’t in my history classes, but it also wasn’t in my science classes. So it’s only once I started doing history of science.
00:08:53:10 – 00:09:05:45
Amy Shira Teitel
I was like, oh, I can just make this my little self specialty within this discipline. And it was like the light bulb went off and everything changed, but it was still like four years before I figured out how to do that.
00:09:05:50 – 00:09:29:13
Agent Palmer
All right. So I want to show my kind of small little piece of, Canadian aeronautical knowledge is I know enough about the Avro Arrow to know that the United States doesn’t get to the moon. If that project isn’t canceled because we needed all the minds we could get. Yeah. To do that.
00:09:29:18 – 00:09:31:15
Amy Shira Teitel
It the Canadian brain drain.
00:09:31:17 – 00:09:41:20
Agent Palmer
So is that, like, is that taught at least like, you know, or is that just kind of swept under the rug a bit? I.
00:09:41:25 – 00:10:09:06
Amy Shira Teitel
I feel like okay, so I went to I went to a French school. So we did a lot of European history. Like I know more about Louis the 14 bathing habits than I do about the history of Canada, which is really unfortunate. And there’s so many things that I that I’ve learned about the history of my own country recently, and part of my self-education on U.S. history, I’ve done a lot about Cold War, obviously, but like, I’m fascinated by the American Civil War because it’s see, it’s just it’s such an interesting conflict with so many, so many layers.
00:10:09:19 – 00:10:32:29
Amy Shira Teitel
And Canada leveraged the American Civil War to claim independence from the British. I never realized the dates lined up. So I’m, like, very curious to know about how that happened. So, like, there’s so much stuff from a Canadian history that you don’t get to. But what you do get taught is like that early stuff. You don’t get taught 1950s history because I don’t know if it was like in the 90s or the early 2000 that that wasn’t considered historical enough.
00:10:32:34 – 00:10:46:50
Amy Shira Teitel
It was weird. So like, I again, I also found out about the era, like as a grown up reading about it and saw this thing and like, write about some engineer who worked in this Canadian project. And I was like, wait, what’s so much of it? It’s just like, I always joke, but it’s not a joke at all, like I’ve done.
00:10:46:50 – 00:11:01:23
Amy Shira Teitel
So much more research as a as a freelance writer than I ever did as an academic, because, like, I get to follow all my own curiosities now as opposed to being like, well, make sure you study the historiography of this writers. Yeah, yeah.
00:11:01:28 – 00:11:15:57
Agent Palmer
Well, I mean, you, you have written books. Was that always a goal or somewhere along the way or did that kind of start like okay, this is what I’m going to do. Okay. What do I do with it.
00:11:16:02 – 00:11:24:36
Amy Shira Teitel
The I don’t really I never so this is the thing with, with my career as like a freelance spaceflight historian, which is not a job title anyone has or should really want to.
00:11:24:45 – 00:11:27:34
Agent Palmer
Know, but it should be on your résumé. But even like.
00:11:27:39 – 00:11:49:46
Amy Shira Teitel
Oh, it is. That is like literally people are like, what do you do? I’m like, I’m a spaceflight historian for whom, oh, a freelance like what? And I’m like, yes, come, let me tell you weird stories. I’ve always been a reader. I’ve always loved books. As a as an only child, books were like the thing you do to play when you don’t have someone to play with because there’s no brothers or sisters I can absolute.
00:11:49:46 – 00:11:51:41
Amy Shira Teitel
I am an only child.
00:11:51:56 – 00:11:54:47
Agent Palmer
Only child. So I understand that completely.
00:11:54:52 – 00:12:01:48
Amy Shira Teitel
Write books, become especially like, I don’t know how old you are, but I want to say we’re probably roughly the same age, maybe 30s ish.
00:12:01:53 – 00:12:03:57
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I’m I’m late 30s as well.
00:12:03:57 – 00:12:19:12
Amy Shira Teitel
Okay, good. So we’re we’re about the same age. But yeah, it’s like, you know, we didn’t have phones with videos on them. We didn’t have portable devices, so, like, road tripping to visit the grandparents in Maine. I was just reading in the car all the time. Is reading to, like, entertaining?
00:12:19:12 – 00:12:30:59
Agent Palmer
That’s where I am now. Officially jealous of you. I got carsick too much. Like even even even the Game Boy. It was something I couldn’t do. So reading in the car, I was not so actually willed.
00:12:31:04 – 00:12:46:30
Amy Shira Teitel
I think I willed myself away from car sickness because I remember one trip, my mom’s remain, and we did that road trip about a bunch visiting family. And I remember one trip we were in New Hampshire and I was so nauseous, we had to stop for like an hour to let me breathe. And then I had to sit out front because it was just making me so sick.
00:12:46:41 – 00:13:04:42
Amy Shira Teitel
I feel like I willed myself to get past it because I couldn’t stop reading and cars. I always my my least favorite in the car trips was when they were long days and you could read and then the sun start to go down. It’s like it’s so pretty out, but I can’t read anymore and now I can’t see anything.
00:13:04:47 – 00:13:21:28
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah, that was always like the nighttime road trip was like, it’s pretty, but it’s also dark to read. But yeah, I know I willed myself out of it. So, I always loved books and it was always like, books were the thing my parents taught me that, like, books are always a good investment because you can always go back to them.
00:13:21:32 – 00:13:30:45
Amy Shira Teitel
If I, you know, did well on some test or something, it was like, we can go get a book. Subsequently, both my house and my parent’s house is just full of books.
00:13:30:50 – 00:13:31:10
Agent Palmer
So, I.
00:13:31:10 – 00:13:31:36
Amy Shira Teitel
Mean.
00:13:31:41 – 00:13:41:39
Agent Palmer
I’m going to take a stab. I always wanted to write. Did you grow up Jewish? Yeah, because I feel like, well, issues and not the middle name.
00:13:41:39 – 00:13:43:18
Amy Shira Teitel
Shira is kind of the dead giveaway.
00:13:43:30 – 00:14:12:41
Agent Palmer
Well, I’m I, I mean, I was, I was a reformed Jew, so, like, Jewish, like. Right. That’s how we explained it to everybody. I feel like the Jewish ness of even Sunday school or in my case, it was a very rural congregation. So we met once every other Saturday. But you I think my Jewishness is basically asking questions is good.
00:14:12:46 – 00:14:36:23
Agent Palmer
You’re not always going to be told the answer. Sometimes you have to find it. And I find that it’s something I’m not going to say. It’s just inherently Jewish, but it’s kind of added on to everything else. Books are important and education is important, and I think it’s part of the cultural heritage aside from the religious part.
00:14:36:28 – 00:14:58:35
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah, I think because I always describe myself as traditionally Jewish, where like, I, my mom’s not Jewish, so I was never but mitzvahed or anything. But I went to Jewish summer camps and had the High holidays and stuff. But as you’re saying that, I’m immediately thinking of the four questions at Passover when it’s the different. Like was it the the I can’t remember the sun, but just like the sun, who does not know how to ask the simple sun and the selfish that.
00:14:58:35 – 00:15:04:36
Amy Shira Teitel
And I forget the wicked one. But the wicked sun was the first one. The blunt sun, not the blunt, simple wicked.
00:15:04:36 – 00:15:09:09
Agent Palmer
Not afraid to ask. Afraid I can’t remember either.
00:15:09:13 – 00:15:28:26
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. Anyways. But yeah, just I feel like that I because my again, my family does most of it in, in English because we’re not all fluent in Hebrew by a long shot. And I always thought that was kind of an interesting parable because of the way it leads you to learn about it in a way that kind of feeds like I do.
00:15:28:26 – 00:15:49:50
Amy Shira Teitel
Now that you’re saying that only now that you’re saying it am I realizing that like that is something that’s kind of natural, this idea of like, you know, you can find the answers, you can look this up, you can you can broaden your own horizon and follow that curiosity. And I think it is something that becomes whether you realize it or not, because I never did until now, culturally, available or maybe more present in some cultures.
00:15:49:50 – 00:15:53:46
Amy Shira Teitel
But yeah. Or it could just be that we had so our families, for all I know.
00:15:53:51 – 00:16:02:22
Agent Palmer
It could be. So anyway, back to the writing aspect or getting into writing, or the book, I guess.
00:16:02:27 – 00:16:20:20
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah, I always, I always loved writing and I always thought writing a book would be so cool. I just thought it’d be awesome to be like, oh, I did a thing. Look, my my name is on the spine of that thing. That’d be really great. And the the irony. I think, Alanis Morissette just ruined Canadians understanding of irony for, like, an entire generation.
00:16:20:22 – 00:16:22:00
Agent Palmer
It wasn’t just Canadians.
00:16:22:05 – 00:16:39:46
Amy Shira Teitel
The cardi. I know it was terrible, but, it’s when I wrote my master’s thesis, I, my my, adviser’s comment was like, it’s good. It’s interesting research, but you don’t really write well for an academic. And I thought that was so funny because, like, not writing well for an academic is not necessarily a bad thing because academic writing is so boring.
00:16:39:46 – 00:16:54:36
Amy Shira Teitel
So writing with too much of a narrative. I was like, maybe there’s something to this whole writing thing. So that’s when I like I started writing a blog after I finished my master’s degree, as like a placeholder to see if I could actually do popular science writing. And it just gradually was like, I like telling these stories.
00:16:54:36 – 00:17:18:40
Amy Shira Teitel
I want to dig into the narratives. And, I just kind of start playing around with the idea of trying to turn something into a book to see if I could do it, like, I didn’t even know how to do it. So I went to some, like, pitch conferences, I spoke to authors, I spoke to editors and stuff, and kind of learned a little bit about the process and, it just it just so happened that, like, as I was doing all that, my first publisher, Bloomsbury, came to me and was like, we’re putting together a new science list.
00:17:18:40 – 00:17:41:36
Amy Shira Teitel
And I really like your stuff. Do you want to write a book? I was like, well, here’s the proposal that I’ve been shopping around for six months. And he’s like, cool, we’ll take it. And I was like, I just got a book deal. Like it was just this, this surreal thing. And of course, learned a lot in the process of writing that book that, I think made my second book, fighting for space, significantly better.
00:17:41:41 – 00:17:59:33
Amy Shira Teitel
In my opinion, the first one is good. It’s, you know, but I like the narrative of the second one so much better. I learned to trust myself as a writer more. And, I think my big thing was when writing books even about science, is I read a ton of fiction to understand how to create a narrative that draws you in, because that’s not exclusive to fiction.
00:17:59:33 – 00:18:02:19
Amy Shira Teitel
I think that can very well be applied to nonfiction.
00:18:02:23 – 00:18:20:44
Agent Palmer
Did you get to I, I’ve talked to authors before. Did you get a chance to celebrate? I’ve published this book or like I and I feel like this is inherently a writer thing. Did you publish that book and go, all right, what’s next?
00:18:20:49 – 00:18:37:33
Amy Shira Teitel
More the second one for sure. And I think part of that in, in, I’m trying to think what happens when Breaking the Chains of Gravity came out. I just moved to LA and it was a very like it was a private celebration when I got the first copy to just, like, open it up and just kind of like, hold it and be like, I made this.
00:18:37:45 – 00:18:42:17
Amy Shira Teitel
Like, I don’t have kids, but it’s closest I feel like I can understand, like I made.
00:18:42:17 – 00:18:44:36
Agent Palmer
That.
00:18:44:41 – 00:19:08:09
Amy Shira Teitel
So it’s definitely like a little private moment there been like there was no big events. I had one book signing this time I had a bit more way to celebrate it. I went to a, the Savannah Book Festival right before it came out that weekend, and then had a couple events here, but then Covid hit. So like, whatever there was to kind of celebrate of it all kind of disappeared and got really messy really, really quickly.
00:19:08:14 – 00:19:24:27
Amy Shira Teitel
Because it was just there, there was hard it was hard to get coverage going into it because things are starting to get a little bit sketchy virus wise. And then like within two weeks, the country was in lockdown. So it kind of, took the wind out of my sails a little bit on that one. And yeah, it very quickly switched into okay.
00:19:24:27 – 00:19:35:27
Amy Shira Teitel
How not quite yet. What’s next? But more the okay. How do I maintain interest in this for a year so I can start trying to think about figuring out what’s next?
00:19:35:32 – 00:20:10:58
Agent Palmer
There’s no I there’s no break. And I feel like it’s it’s, this is me generalizing, I guess. It’s a it’s a romantically creative thing to be in love with. What’s next? The moment you finish whatever it is that you finish, I’m just like, I haven’t written that big project. I’m a a weekly blogger and a biweekly podcaster, and, I get wrapped up in the process as well.
00:20:10:58 – 00:20:39:53
Agent Palmer
And those are smaller, like incremental things. And I’ve been doing it for so long that I’m thinking about the next three things. Now, if it was a book, it would not be the next three things, right? Like, yeah, there’s a limit, but it just seems like the people that are creative tend to not rest on their laurels because it, it’s the most the only thing I’ve got for it is it’s the most selfish.
00:20:40:00 – 00:20:48:51
Agent Palmer
What have you done for me lately? But the me is yourself, right? Like, what have I done lately? Yeah.
00:20:48:56 – 00:21:07:43
Amy Shira Teitel
I think I think that’s right. But I think there’s, there’s an idea that, like, as creative as, you know. No, no one does one thing because I’m just thinking about, like, because I also do the YouTube thing. I also do, you know, the short form stuff at the same time that, like, you can’t really stop and rest on your laurels and celebrate these things because you’re in a production cycle.
00:21:07:51 – 00:21:28:13
Amy Shira Teitel
And I think what it is, is like as a creative, the project isn’t the individual blog or the individual video or the individual book. It’s the it’s the earth that you’re creating, right? It’s like that whole thing. So like that never stops. It’s it’s not that you’re like not stopping to celebrate something. It’s that you want to continue pushing your creativity.
00:21:28:13 – 00:21:37:36
Amy Shira Teitel
And that is what stops you from just stopping and completely just like I’m taking a year off because like, no creative does that. I don’t know, a single creative that does that.
00:21:37:42 – 00:21:39:19
Agent Palmer
No. You know, you’re right.
00:21:39:19 – 00:21:59:47
Amy Shira Teitel
Like I everyone takes breaks. I’m about to take a month off for the holidays because I am very aware, just think about today. I’m very aware that I’m burnt out at the end of this year. So I’ve got a little bit of work to finish up, but it’s like. But taking a break is still like going to be reading for the next videos, going to be planning the stuff to do when I get back to a more rigid cycle or, or work workweek cycle and stuff.
00:21:59:47 – 00:22:01:51
Amy Shira Teitel
But yeah, no one just stops.
00:22:01:51 – 00:22:19:46
Agent Palmer
I was, I can’t even remember how long ago it was, but there was a while where I started the blog, and I wasn’t quite taking it as seriously as I probably wanted to. Yeah, and then I bought a house, and, like, I looked back and I went, and then I moved into the house and I went, oh, I haven’t written in like three months.
00:22:19:46 – 00:22:39:16
Agent Palmer
So I challenged myself. I was like, all right, this is it. I mean, it’s a weekly blog now, but I was like, I’m challenging myself two blogs a week for the next year, and it was going to be on a rolling calendar. So it started in November and it okay, a rolling year that’s 52 weeks. So that’s 104 blogs.
00:22:39:21 – 00:23:01:26
Agent Palmer
That’s a lot. I wrote 137 that year, I think like I didn’t just do it. And then I was like, well, I’m not going to take a break, but I am going to like, pump the brakes right, and go back to the weekly schedule that it’s supposed to be. Yeah. And I think for the next six months I averaged like 1.75 blogs a week.
00:23:01:26 – 00:23:25:21
Agent Palmer
So it was still, yeah, hovering around that two mark like and I, it took a while to get to the point where I could actually bring it down to a weekly blog. Except except it didn’t become a weekly blog until I started the podcast, right? Like when I was just up, when it was just a blogger, it was still like one and a half.
00:23:25:21 – 00:23:45:54
Agent Palmer
Like the averages were well above where it should be. So I get that like break time. And then I used to I was single for a very long time. I would take holiday breaks and work on the next thing, like my Christmas break used to be planning for the next year. That’s what I did with that time off.
00:23:45:54 – 00:23:50:43
Agent Palmer
It was like, all right, time to figure out what we’re going to do. Let’s see what’s going on. Yep.
00:23:50:47 – 00:23:59:18
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. My my Christmas break this year is, taking time, stepping a little bit away from work stuff to start playing with some other work stuff that I want.
00:23:59:18 – 00:24:00:59
Agent Palmer
To get into next year.
00:24:01:04 – 00:24:20:00
Amy Shira Teitel
Like it’s it’s true. I think I’m just thinking, like our creatives like sharks, they have to continually swim or they die. Like, I feel like there’s just creative brains constantly move and they’re constantly thinking, so if you’re not engaging with some kind of content, even if it’s just the planning stuff, it’s just like you don’t know how to not do that.
00:24:20:04 – 00:24:39:14
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I mean, I can’t tell you the last time I’ve, I’ve not I’ve not read a book for I’ve read books for pleasure, but I’ve reviewed every single one of them. Like I, I’m now in that mindset where it’s like, yeah, well, if I take the time to read this, I want to share it with the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I there’s always something, I guess.
00:24:39:19 – 00:24:49:34
Amy Shira Teitel
And it’s not a bad thing, but it’s just, it is, it’s, it’s, you know, it is a separate mindset. It is, it is, it is a thing that is not. You don’t see it everywhere. And it’s definitely a thing that hits people who are creators.
00:24:49:39 – 00:25:12:57
Agent Palmer
Is there just to shift back for a moment? Obviously there’s similar subjects, but the the process between book one and book two. Yeah. Like how much did you take from book one and go like, oh no, I’m going to do it completely different. For book two as far as like research and process and writing.
00:25:13:02 – 00:25:33:03
Amy Shira Teitel
There were some pretty there are a couple major differences. The major differences, I mean, the first the biggest is that breaking the chains is more like the history, the history of an organization. So it’s, you know, there’s there’s key players in there like Eisenhower is in there and John Brown is in there. And it’s like weaving all these little stories together.
00:25:33:10 – 00:25:54:38
Amy Shira Teitel
But it also has to explain the technology and the history. So like there’s little vignettes of the people, but it’s not as narrative driven. Whereas fighting for space is like like I pitched it and wrote it and approach it as a dual biography of these two women and making it as a more biography than straight history, even though it’s like, I mean, we have 40 odd pages of references in there.
00:25:54:38 – 00:26:25:12
Amy Shira Teitel
It is deeply, deeply, painfully researched. You know, it allowed me to kind of be a little bit freer with the form of writing and, you know, looking looking at dialog and looking at things that they wrote, but also having people as the main figure as opposed to an organization, meant that they had memoirs that they wrote, they had letters, they had interviews that were done so I could really use all of that primary stuff to build out their characters, as opposed to just making it fit into this neat narrative.
00:26:25:17 – 00:26:47:25
Amy Shira Teitel
Which which was a lot of fun. Like researching a person is very different than researching an organization, especially Jackie Cochrane, who saved everything. And it’s all in the Eisenhower Library. And this book also afforded me the chance to travel to, to actually do some of that research as opposed to kind of gently asking archivist to send me PDFs of stuff that they might have lying around.
00:26:47:30 – 00:27:03:01
Amy Shira Teitel
So yeah, it was nice to be able to go in and just like, sift through all of her papers and just take pictures of everything. I’ve got six boxes next to me on the shelf here of all of her papers, all of her notes and stuff that I use to kind of build out her storyline. And it’s it’s nuts.
00:27:03:01 – 00:27:13:08
Amy Shira Teitel
The amount of material is amazing. It’s insane. But it it was a fun way of researching a person as opposed to just the straight technology.
00:27:13:13 – 00:27:31:19
Agent Palmer
But you’ve you I mean, you’ve been doing all this research space is still exciting for you because it’s obviously not just that, it’s that it’s it’s the it’s the short form stuff. Like, yeah, you’ve been in the space the space, space, space for a while. So like it’s you’re still in love with it.
00:27:31:24 – 00:27:50:00
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. And it’s, I mean it’s, I am, I am still in love with it, but I, I’m thinking it is definitely I am kind of broadening my brand a little bit right now. And that’s not to say that I want to get away from space, it’s that I wanted to start doing stuff that’s more tangential to space, to kind of make it more about, because I love context and I feel like that’s always missing.
00:27:50:04 – 00:28:08:50
Amy Shira Teitel
Right? Like, how much do people just, you know, celebrate how great Apollo was, but also never talk about the fact that it was just an extension of the Cold War and it wouldn’t have happened. And Kennedy tried to cancel it. And we have all these, like, these contextual details that make the story more interesting. So I’m kind of broadening a little bit to go into more Cold War and mid-century history.
00:28:08:50 – 00:28:35:43
Amy Shira Teitel
That kind of gives more context to the space stuff, which I’m really enjoying. So like doing this, I’m right now on my channel doing this deep dive into Cold War aerial espionage, which includes space, because we’re doing the Corona discovery satellites. But, like, you know, I’ve been doing the YouTube for three episodes, and it’s so interesting to look at, like how much of this played into the Cold War relations, which to me is giving me a better understanding about where the space race was positioned in those early days.
00:28:35:54 – 00:28:48:54
Amy Shira Teitel
So it’s all it’s all, to quote Marge Simpson’s therapist, it’s all a rich tapestry and it all goes together. So what I’m kind of enjoying is the stuff that like, makes the space stuff more interesting and more, kind of feel richer to me.
00:28:49:03 – 00:28:57:15
Agent Palmer
Do you have, an era of space that is your favorite to research?
00:28:57:19 – 00:29:17:44
Amy Shira Teitel
I always say that my expertise is kind of like 1930 to 1975. So like pre World war to rocketry, to to, Apollo-Soyuz. But like I think my favorite if we’re looking at state space I mean it is it’s it’s hard it’s honestly it’s hard to pick between like the Mercury Gemini and Apollo. So I just do kind of Apollo era is my catchall.
00:29:17:44 – 00:29:41:32
Amy Shira Teitel
But like, I really like I like the early, the early 60s I think is kind of my favorite if we’re going to like, narrow down a little bit because my, my interest in early technologies is always how you solve problems you don’t even know you have yet. So, like the first airplanes I find interesting, the first, cross Atlantic transatlantic steam ships are just like, how do you solve these problems?
00:29:41:37 – 00:29:59:40
Amy Shira Teitel
And that was just the era where, like, everything was unknown and they were making best guesses and unpacking those best guesses, I find to be a really interesting conversation and a way to look at this stuff and understand, you know, it’s not just that they like, here’s how you go into space. It was like, here’s all the conversations they had to figure out who descended into space.
00:29:59:40 – 00:30:02:22
Amy Shira Teitel
And it was it was months of conversations.
00:30:02:27 – 00:30:35:00
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I’ve I’ve kind of enjoyed I, I’ve, I’ve read a lot of books I think crafts and crafts. Yeah. In terms of spending a lot of time on the what ifs and, and I think craft does it so much like Francis book on Apollo 13, his Apollo 13 section, probably one of the best written because he spends, I don’t know, so many pages dedicated to the things they didn’t do.
00:30:35:05 – 00:30:59:22
Agent Palmer
But explaining that these were the three options we had and it’s like, okay, so wow. And what you’re talking about, which is kind of fascinating to me, is they didn’t have the internet. It’s not like there was a worldwide network, like maybe most of the smartest guys were in that room. Yeah, but they were talking about stuff no one had ever figured out before.
00:30:59:22 – 00:31:16:48
Agent Palmer
And a best someone’s best guess was the best. You were going to do the at best, you could be like, well, I would prefer that guy’s best guest over that guy’s best guest, maybe. Yeah. But it’s it’s absolutely fascinating that that’s that’s how we got to where we are now.
00:31:17:01 – 00:31:33:24
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s you know, when you look at it’s this is a time before you could computer model things and I love, I love looking at sort of the decisions for this. The shape of the Mercury spacecraft. Like they were trying to look at different shapes. They didn’t have computer models to figure out how they would work.
00:31:33:35 – 00:31:52:26
Amy Shira Teitel
They made them out of paper and dropped them down a flight of stairs to see which design generated lift, and based on that, would build wooden models to put into wind tunnels like it was trial and error based on like I’m smart, dude, I’m going to think and then I’m going to do some stuff and we’re going to push it from there.
00:31:52:26 – 00:32:08:19
Amy Shira Teitel
Like we’ve no idea if it was the best idea, but it was the only one that seemed to yield good results. Like, it’s this really interesting era of trial and error and like for me, that that goes to aviation, like the early explains and stuff like trying to figure out like, can we make something that goes faster than sound?
00:32:08:34 – 00:32:09:31
Amy Shira Teitel
Let’s find out.
00:32:09:31 – 00:32:11:58
Agent Palmer
Like, like.
00:32:12:02 – 00:32:33:51
Amy Shira Teitel
And the whole thing is wild. So I always say that, you know, what you see in the history is like the tip of the iceberg, and then everything underneath it is just this massive support network of failed ideas and things that didn’t get off the ground. And people who had something but were, you know, shunted away for whatever reason, like there’s this rich history underneath it that goes very broad and it supports this little bit that you see.
00:32:34:04 – 00:32:44:54
Amy Shira Teitel
And that’s what I really like digging out, is just kind of the stuff that you don’t read in the typical, you know, in-depth article that like, now this is scratching the surface. Come on now.
00:32:44:59 – 00:32:58:01
Agent Palmer
Well and and what I’ve, I’ve one of the things and this is my favorite piece about reading the same story over and over from different authors. And it’s kind of why I gravitate towards the autobiographies and the biographies is that.
00:32:58:06 – 00:32:58:43
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah.
00:32:58:48 – 00:33:23:36
Agent Palmer
It’s the same story, but it’s a completely different layer. Yeah. I don’t think anybody I mean, I’ve, I’ve it’s mainly been astronauts. Craft and crafts are the first like administrators and system guys whose books I’ve read. But yeah, it’s just amazing that they all especially from like the Mercury era through Apollo, they all tell the same stories.
00:33:23:51 – 00:33:27:01
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but they’re all so vastly different. Yeah.
00:33:27:10 – 00:33:33:14
Amy Shira Teitel
Have you have you read any of the official NASA histories, like, this new ocean on the shores of Titan and chariots for Apollo?
00:33:33:14 – 00:33:37:34
Agent Palmer
No, one of them is on my shelf right now. Okay. And the other two.
00:33:37:36 – 00:33:38:55
Amy Shira Teitel
They’re big and they’re daunting, for.
00:33:38:55 – 00:34:17:00
Agent Palmer
Sure. Yeah, I I’m I’m so as a reader, I’ve been reading through a lot of different things. Like I’ve, I’ve been reading through the, Len Deighton bibliography, which is like a million things. And by the way, if you’re talking about Cold War stuff, there are some he did some very good nonfiction of, like, some World War stuff that you might be interested in, but I, I made it a point to, like, not skimp on any of his nonfiction stuff, which is why I now know more about World War Two than I ever thought I wanted to know.
00:34:17:04 – 00:34:32:34
Agent Palmer
Yep. But because of that, like, I’ve been kind of going back and forth. So I’ll read some spy fiction. Yeah. And then I’ll read some of this and I’ll read some of this and I’ll come back to that. So like, yeah, I’m at a point now where I only have like 9 or 10 books left in Dayton’s bibliography.
00:34:32:34 – 00:34:55:39
Agent Palmer
So I’m about to get, a slight, slightly more freedom in regards to my reading habits. And I think I’m probably going to dig in a little bit more on the space front. And those things like, I want to read them absolutely. I also don’t know enough about where they come from. They have been mentioned in at least three books I’ve read so far.
00:34:55:39 – 00:35:01:57
Agent Palmer
Yeah. But yeah. No, the the I think Chariots of Apollo is on my shelf right now.
00:35:02:02 – 00:35:22:32
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. They’re I, I love those books. I use them as references a lot. So basically I mean they’re the internal program history. So they’re obviously putting it in a good light. But like you know, admittedly they do not shy away from problems. They do not shy away from Apollo one like they’re very but they’re also built of, like using all of the interoffice memos and all the correspondence and all the minutes of the meetings.
00:35:22:32 – 00:35:52:08
Amy Shira Teitel
So like when you look at the references, because that stuff exists in the NASA archives, but you can’t necessarily find it like it’s there. But if you’re not going to Washington. So it’s a it’s a great source of like these little details. So when you read that kind of more neutral history and then you compare it to all the memoirs, Trump memoirs and stuff, it’s just a different perspective because this is like, you know, you hear about this conversation from this guy in this conversation with this guy, but then you hear about the meeting minutes from this official history and you’re like, oh, this is the same meeting.
00:35:52:08 – 00:36:08:23
Amy Shira Teitel
And you all had different experiences, and this is what was actually on the table. So that’s why I recommend those to people. They are they are dense and they are long, but they’re pretty. They’re very readable. They’re not like there’s also the Apollo program chronologies. And those are literally like on this date, this happened on this date this happened.
00:36:08:23 – 00:36:13:32
Amy Shira Teitel
And those are like it’s like reading dried egg on toast. But it is it is a great reference.
00:36:13:32 – 00:36:31:33
Agent Palmer
Well, it does remind me when they did the 50th, year of the Apollo landing, when they created that website, that in real time, you could listen to all the transmissions. And then they did the same thing for Apollo 13. And I felt bad for the Apollo 12 guys because I was like, well, they could have just released the Apollo 12 stuff.
00:36:31:33 – 00:36:32:31
Agent Palmer
Like, they didn’t have to.
00:36:32:34 – 00:36:43:15
Amy Shira Teitel
I have a I have an action figure of Pete Conrad on my desk. So I also feel bad for the Apollo 12 guys. Also, my cat Pete Conrad is sleeping on the couch right now.
00:36:43:20 – 00:36:55:39
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I look okay. Let me ask why. Pete Conrad, you could have named him after any other astronaut. I mean, obviously, you went with Pete. Why? Pete?
00:36:55:44 – 00:37:12:29
Amy Shira Teitel
Pete. So when I started looking into the. Okay, so when I. When I started reading about this stuff, it was so far beyond my little seven year old brain. And then when I was ten, Apollo 13 came out. And big is one of my favorite movies. So I was like, oh, I know Tom Hanks. Oh, there were real people in there.
00:37:12:29 – 00:37:30:59
Amy Shira Teitel
And then it was like, all of a sudden my little brain opened up to the idea of personalities and not long after that, Tom Hanks did the From the Earth to the moon mini series on HBO, which, if you haven’t seen it but I’m sure you have it, it’s fantastic. Yeah. The Apollo 12 episode of that is so fun and captures how much fun that crew had.
00:37:31:06 – 00:37:47:10
Amy Shira Teitel
So after I saw that, I started getting into the crew memoirs and biographies and learning about them. And that mission always just seemed like the most fun. And I’ve at this point, I’ve read the mission transcript, I’ve looked at all the stuff and like they they were just three best friends going to the moon one day, like it’s wild.
00:37:47:10 – 00:38:08:04
Amy Shira Teitel
So I just like I loved that. For me, it was Pete Conrad’s mission that made made me realize that there’s human stories that I can tell, and I can discuss history and science through a human narrative, which is a huge thing as a as a, you know, young writer who didn’t even know she was going to be a writer was like a huge thing to learn.
00:38:08:09 – 00:38:24:56
Amy Shira Teitel
And I just always loved that. Like, he was such a personality and such a character and never got any love. And I was like, this is, this is a this is an important, like, you know, role model. For me growing up, I just I love that he took his job seriously, had fun with it was five foot six and a half damn it.
00:38:24:56 – 00:38:33:07
Amy Shira Teitel
Because fellow short people, and I just. Yeah. So so Pete Conrad, Pete Conrad is curled up on my couch.
00:38:33:12 – 00:39:02:11
Agent Palmer
I like, I always feel bad because I know and look, it’s the closest I can come to it. As a fellow, I don’t know what you space geek space of files. I don’t know what the term is, but I. I feel like we are like, as, close ranked as, like, Marvel or like DC or like Star Wars fanboys.
00:39:02:11 – 00:39:26:31
Agent Palmer
We’re like, yeah, okay, so everybody knows Iron Man and everybody knows Neil Armstrong and everybody knows Batman, but, you do know that they didn’t just go to the moon on 11 and they didn’t go on 13 like there were other those weren’t random numbers. There were other things. Yeah. And I just, all of this information just kind of like, is in our heads.
00:39:26:31 – 00:39:44:34
Agent Palmer
And then I, no one wants to talk to you about it, like, it’s just. And like, I’ve straddled the Marvel and DC and Star Wars thing as well, and I understand that there are people that are like, yeah, don’t don’t I like the movie. That’s it. I’m done. Yeah. Okay. I know we went to the movie. I’m done.
00:39:44:39 – 00:39:53:35
Agent Palmer
And it’s always exciting to find somebody where you can be like, I just finished reading Deke. It was fantastic. Yeah. Like, yeah.
00:39:53:40 – 00:40:13:31
Amy Shira Teitel
It’s that. And it’s also fun to find people that are like, wait, tell me about this thing and and that want to learn, like the weird, intricate details. And because, like, I don’t think you can see it, but because the lighting is so bad, but my mug just says, keep calm and try. See you to OCS. And I when I do my my Sunday morning Twitch streams at 7 a.m. because you’re up.
00:40:13:36 – 00:40:36:06
Amy Shira Teitel
I drink out of this mug, and I actually have an AC command in my chat to a explain it, and b say that the coffee is effectively turning my brain from FC to. And it’s fun because it’s a goofy thing, but then people learn a little bit about the story and they’re like, that’s wild. I had no idea of a lunar mission, was struck by lightning, and that they didn’t cancel, and then nobody died.
00:40:36:06 – 00:40:58:44
Amy Shira Teitel
And I’m like, yeah, we’re learning today. We’re learning about how how a rocket going through clouds generates friction. We’re learning about this mission, and it’s like it’s a fun way to kind of excite people a little bit. And I always say that, my, my goal as a creator is always like, if you can swing by my, my channel or one of my social feeds something and like learn a little thing about space or about history that you didn’t know and be like, cool.
00:40:58:44 – 00:41:16:04
Amy Shira Teitel
And then move on about your day. Like, that’s that’s all I want is to give you that little moment of like, I like those moments. So if I can, if I can leverage something weird into teaching you a little thing about space and give you that feeling of like, I learned something today, then it’s a win.
00:41:16:09 – 00:41:39:08
Agent Palmer
All right. So you’re a published author. You’ve been on television. Yes. You have a YouTube channel. Yes. And you stream on Twitch I do, do you have a and obviously you’ve done interviews and radio and podcasts and stuff. Yeah. Do you have a favorite form of communicating. And I’m taking in-person out of it for the moment. I’m just right as far as media is concerned.
00:41:39:15 – 00:41:46:58
Agent Palmer
Do you have a favorite? Now that you’ve you’ve basically experienced the spectrum because.
00:41:47:03 – 00:42:16:36
Amy Shira Teitel
It’s a little bit ridiculous how many things I’ve done. But this is this is what being creative is, especially creative during a pandemic, you just monetized your life. I’m, I’m I mean, I’m very new to Twitch. I’ve only been streaming on Twitch for a little over a month now, but it’s very quickly become something that I really like because I allow it to be very freeform and open, like it feels like just chatting with you right now, only you know the other person is a wall of of chat text going by.
00:42:16:48 – 00:42:39:44
Amy Shira Teitel
But it’s you know, last night we did one and we discussed a paper that I found on personality types and motivations behind digital exposition ism, aka sending lewd pictures to somebody unsolicited and like the personality types. And we ended up in this hour long discussion. That was a very serious thing. Based on this research that I found. And like we have doctors in there and psychologists in there, and it was like this really fun chat.
00:42:39:44 – 00:42:58:12
Amy Shira Teitel
And I’ve, I’ve brought stuff up and like shown, 16 millimeter film and just, you know, discussing missions very casually and like some people are super into the space stuff and have pointed questions. Some people have no idea what they’re looking at. And it’s just this really fun way to just, like, engage people or have a drink just like relax.
00:42:58:12 – 00:43:18:34
Amy Shira Teitel
And it’s it’s I like how casual it is. It kind of makes me I, I maybe it’s because I miss giving talks and I miss kind of engaging an audience because that’s so much fun to get people excited and see that. So being able to do that in a, in a forum, it feels more and more natural than the YouTube stuff, which is, you know, doing YouTube videos.
00:43:18:34 – 00:43:28:19
Amy Shira Teitel
I’m talking to my camera alone in my apartment, and then I edit it, and then I put it out there and then that’s it. You know, it’s like it’s there’s a distance with YouTube that you don’t get when you’re doing something live.
00:43:28:24 – 00:43:58:48
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I get that. I’m, I, I mean, I’m, I’m new to Twitch as far as a, I have a friend whose channel I moderate. I have been watching or taking part in following streams for about a year and a half. And yeah, it’s weird when you get to that point where you turn on your television and you go, okay, TV, YouTube or Twitch, and you go, yeah, all right, well, I’ll just check and see who’s on first.
00:43:58:48 – 00:44:16:39
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I’ll go to Twitch. And it it’s such a mind like it’s just I, my behavior is now changed like ten years ago. I just turn on the TV or it’s like TV or internet, right? Like now it’s just. Yeah. So different. But I love the community building aspect, I think.
00:44:16:39 – 00:44:19:09
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. What’s which. Sorry. Go ahead.
00:44:19:09 – 00:44:39:55
Agent Palmer
No, I was going to say I, I, I think it’s one of the things that creators, it’s twofold. Your community is a reflection of you, but you also get to curate your community a little bit. So it’s it’s it’s, it’s a weird give and take both ways somehow.
00:44:39:55 – 00:44:56:11
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. Yeah, it’s definitely it’s it’s. And for me, it’s really it’s different and very interesting because my, my YouTube audience, I mean, I can see my analytics and I know that it skews to kind of, it definitely skews to people who grew up with the space program when it was in its infancy or kind of grew up in the post Apollo era.
00:44:56:11 – 00:45:17:15
Amy Shira Teitel
And our loving kind of revisiting these things as adults. That’s definitely my demographic. And it’s great because everyone’s really there’s a lot of people that have great stories to share. And it’s, you know, I love creating these deep dive videos and stuff. It’s so gratifying for like, all of my nerdy research needs. But when I started really watch, I mean, I’ve been very active on Twitch as a viewer for like a year and a half, so about the same as you.
00:45:17:15 – 00:45:39:55
Amy Shira Teitel
But like the more I got involved and active in chats, I realized that like, there’s like this brings together people from all over the place with all different backgrounds who I mean, in my case, and what I watch were brought together by Mario games. And it’s so interesting that it’s like then the kinds of people that you’re in there and you’re like, this is actually a very interesting group of people who are super curious.
00:45:39:55 – 00:46:03:14
Amy Shira Teitel
And as soon as I started streaming and started talking about all the nerd stuff, to see the people that were like, I had no idea I wanted to know about this. And it’s become this interesting way of curating a very different audience. It’s just as excited and is almost more engaged because it’s real time, and it really does just feel like a fun little community that you just get to jump into and have that interaction with as opposed to like presenting, you know, like giving a lecture, which is kind of what YouTube is.
00:46:03:24 – 00:46:12:33
Amy Shira Teitel
And I mean, I really enjoy both of them, but there’s something really nice about just having this, this little super nerdy, very niche, nerdy community on Twitch.
00:46:12:33 – 00:46:23:16
Agent Palmer
That’s nice. Well, it’s your probably more so than any other medium. It’s your little corner of the internet like it really is.
00:46:23:20 – 00:46:37:07
Amy Shira Teitel
And like, and literally if someone comes in, oh, I always feel like Twitch is like my house. If I don’t want you there, I can just kick you out. And it’s like, I really can. I can just say in my rules, like anything, if you say something that makes anybody feel uncomfortable, I’m just going to get rid of you.
00:46:37:07 – 00:46:49:47
Amy Shira Teitel
And that’s that’s all it is. And it’s nice to be able to because like, we all know the rule, you just don’t read the YouTube comments. Oh my God, the YouTube comments. I got one today of someone like mansplaining Eisenhower’s real name to me. I was just like.
00:46:49:52 – 00:46:53:33
Agent Palmer
Did you do you really not read them or do you read them?
00:46:53:38 – 00:46:54:02
Amy Shira Teitel
I do.
00:46:54:12 – 00:46:54:20
Agent Palmer
Them.
00:46:54:21 – 00:47:15:24
Amy Shira Teitel
Okay. And part of it is because I hate. I hate when someone leaves a comment that has nothing to do with the video. And then people, all of the indicator on the video is just people fighting in the comments, because you don’t want to do that. You know, I research these videos for weeks, like I want people to learn something and it’s just like, it sucks.
00:47:15:24 – 00:47:38:03
Amy Shira Teitel
And I’m like, oh my God, you guys are all literally just having a conversation about whether or not it’s okay to comment on my hair, which, spoiler alert, it’s not. So like, I delete those comments just to kind of try to focus the conversation in the comments, but it’s also because I want to just get rid of the cesspool that ends up popping up of people being like, oh, so many comments about my hair.
00:47:38:03 – 00:47:38:41
Amy Shira Teitel
It’s just so.
00:47:38:41 – 00:47:52:24
Agent Palmer
Irrelevant. Has it has it ever been good? Like, have you ever gotten like, like that? That person that’s like, oh, I know something about this. And they tell you one little tidbit you didn’t do. You did for sure. So there are some big.
00:47:52:28 – 00:48:07:11
Amy Shira Teitel
Things there 100%. And that’s why I like I want to get rid of all the crap because I want those good ones to be there, because those are the conversations I want to have. And there’s always people who are like, I remember watching this mission as a kid, and here’s my story. Here’s my experience. I used to work on this, and I love that.
00:48:07:11 – 00:48:25:12
Amy Shira Teitel
I love reading those. They’re so interesting. And it makes me feel like, you know, even though the community aspect on YouTube is separate because it’s, you know, two weeks between recording and actually putting it up, that it’s out of my mind by the time everyone sees it, it makes me feel like there is this nice little niche of people that do want to engage on the material, and I love that.
00:48:25:12 – 00:48:33:26
Amy Shira Teitel
It’s it’s heartwarming to me. So I get rid of the negative stuff just to to, to not have that kind of negativity looming.
00:48:33:37 – 00:49:10:10
Agent Palmer
So I want to ask you about the personal aspect of it, because I absolutely love those stories. And unfortunately for our generation, and I don’t know if this is the same for you, it’s it’s it’s tragedy. Like, we don’t we don’t have an Apollo moment. Right? Like we don’t we have challenger, we have Columbia. Like we don’t have those live like really good things until now, where we’re starting to get like successes with space and like, additional things.
00:49:10:14 – 00:49:32:50
Agent Palmer
Do you do you feel any. I don’t know, I, I’m going to say personally, I feel a little resentment that I don’t have that like manned landing on the moon thing because like, it’s not like the shuttle. And I watched it, you know, within my lifetime, I think I watched almost all of the shuttle launches that I could and most of the landings, it was just cool.
00:49:33:01 – 00:49:42:17
Agent Palmer
But it was not Apollo cool, do you know what I mean? So I don’t yeah, we don’t have that. Like, oh, we did this thing that’s never been done before.
00:49:42:26 – 00:50:00:34
Amy Shira Teitel
It’s true. And I well, I think, I think what it is a little bit is like we’re doing so many things that have never been done before, like like space-x landing, successfully landing and reusing. Its for stages one. You know, some people would argue that similar, you know, the first commercial or the first private missions to the space station is exciting.
00:50:00:34 – 00:50:22:10
Amy Shira Teitel
But you’re right, it doesn’t have that. Same like the world was brought together to see this thing. But I think that I think that’s so rare. I mean, I’m trying to think of what other moments. I mean, what other positive moments brought the world together? I mean, Apollo like, again, people ignore this. Like Apollo had a 50% approval rating when Apollo 11 launched.
00:50:22:10 – 00:50:44:25
Amy Shira Teitel
Like people didn’t love it. We had Vietnam. We had like a lot of social issues coming to a head in America. And then NASA’s operating in this little bubble, you know, doing this thing. But when they landed, the world stopped and kind of forgot all of that stuff just for a brief moment and was kind of united with this, like, peak of humanity for a minute.
00:50:44:30 – 00:51:02:58
Amy Shira Teitel
I can’t really think of another moment when that happened. And I think part of it is the technology like that. We were able to broadcast it live obviously that week, whether of us were around. But, you know, it was able to be broadcast live around the world, that it was able to be shared in real near, real time.
00:51:03:03 – 00:51:19:07
Amy Shira Teitel
You know, there isn’t really something that has allowed that to happen in the same way, because now we have everything shared in real time. So, I don’t know, maybe just doesn’t feel special. Like when those moments do happen, there’s so many things that are happening at the same time that we’re competing for it. I mean.
00:51:19:12 – 00:51:31:10
Agent Palmer
You know, like, yeah, I mean, you’re going you’re going live on Twitch with hundreds of other creators, no matter when you decide to go live, like even if you went off schedule, you’re competing.
00:51:31:15 – 00:51:55:55
Amy Shira Teitel
And there’s there’s some stat, there’s like, like two days worth like, like 40 hours worth of content uploaded onto YouTube every minute or something. There’s some like, ridiculous stat like that. Don’t quote me. That’s that’s not it. But it’s like there’s so much stuff out there to consume that I feel like our attention is being divided, whereas there was there was less of it and that and that and I wasn’t around in the 60s.
00:51:56:02 – 00:52:20:46
Amy Shira Teitel
I might be making this up, but I feel like having, you know, researched it a whole bunch. There were there weren’t that many TV stations, no radio yet books. There was not this constant flow of information. There’s not this constant access to everyone doing everything all the time. So I feel like we’re diluted. We’re almost diluting our potential big moments, maybe.
00:52:20:47 – 00:52:50:38
Agent Palmer
Well, I mean, first of all, that’s the reason that I still read physical books. Yes, because I’m just like, well, this is great. I’m I’m I’m reading this, but I want to go back because you talk about the NASA bubble, and it’s my favorite part of every NASA biography and auto, especially the autobiographies. Yeah, because they all talk about what happens after the moon landing and like when they go out for the first time or like they retire and they’re done.
00:52:50:38 – 00:53:25:01
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And they go out into the real world and they have no idea what has become, because whenever they went in, whether it was the late 50s or the early 60s, yeah, they’re in this bubble for so long and we do that too, ironically, like, I’m I’m guilty of it. Like, I, I will. And what’s unfortunate for maybe our generation too talks to exactly the point you just made is that I can work on a blog post, a deep research blog post, and go in a bubble for a week and be as confused.
00:53:25:01 – 00:53:30:43
Agent Palmer
When I came out as the Apollo guys were when they were in Apollo for a decade and went, what happened to the world?
00:53:30:43 – 00:53:50:53
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s I think, okay. One thing I always like to bring up when we’re discussing the bubble is if you because I have, I have a signed picture from Jerry Griffin and I think Glenn Lunney. It’s the celebration of Apollo 13 splashdown. And if you look at that picture, they are all wearing white dress shirts and skinny ties.
00:53:50:53 – 00:54:13:58
Amy Shira Teitel
And it looks like even style hadn’t evolved within NASA because they were so insulated in this little bubble. It really wasn’t until like the early 70s that they started to even show that they were aware of the outside world. So like when you look at pictures of the Apollo era, you even see that they are not aware of social trends and changes happening.
00:54:14:03 – 00:54:31:06
Amy Shira Teitel
But the bubble thing that we kind of all experience, I mean, I 100% do it. I mean, I do it daily and I think we have this Twitter I think is the best slash worst for it is that things will just get picked up and start trending. And if you aren’t following the social media stuff, the news, it’s happening in real time.
00:54:31:06 – 00:54:38:27
Amy Shira Teitel
There’s always something breaking. You can go and like read for an hour just to take a break and you come back and you’re like, oh my God.
00:54:38:27 – 00:54:39:50
Agent Palmer
What just happened?
00:54:39:55 – 00:55:01:46
Amy Shira Teitel
Like, I feel like I do that all the time and I, I’ve stopped, like, I’ve actually deleted it all from my phone even because it was just getting to, like, soul crushing to constantly see this stuff. But I also can’t not have social media, but it’s just like, it’s wild that you wake up in the morning. It’s like, how many, how many new things have happened right now that the world is freaking out about?
00:55:01:46 – 00:55:08:10
Amy Shira Teitel
Like, it’s so easy to get into this little bubble because the bubbles are so much smaller. Now, I don’t know if this analogy is work.
00:55:08:12 – 00:55:29:11
Agent Palmer
No, no, it is, but but I mean, to go back to what we were talking about, though, in order to get your Apollo moment, it would have to be so much grander, because within those little things that happen, like when we go to bed, because the world is a 24 hour cycle, something good or bad can happen. And those things trending are never neutral.
00:55:29:11 – 00:55:41:23
Agent Palmer
They’re usually good or bad. So in order to have that one good thing, and even now I’m it, those things may also be in the past. But yeah, that’s the unfortunate part.
00:55:41:35 – 00:56:10:38
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. And I’m also thinking that like to to something that would be grand on the scale of Apollo. I mean Apollo’s kind of set the bar really high. And I’ve said this before, I have videos about this that like Apollo, kind of ruined spaceflight because it gave us this unrealistic expectation of what we should and could be doing, when, again, we ignore the context of Cold War and war era funding and pushing everything forward the way it did, you know, we would need something that would be grander.
00:56:10:38 – 00:56:27:52
Amy Shira Teitel
So like, I would returning to the moon do it, maybe. Would landing on Mars do it? Maybe. But that’s going to come with a light time delay. We’re not going to be able to experience it the same way. You know, it’s almost it’s almost. What about the curiosity landing on on Mars in 2012? I mean, that almost did it.
00:56:27:55 – 00:56:29:52
Agent Palmer
Maybe. But I think he stopped.
00:56:29:52 – 00:56:30:46
Amy Shira Teitel
But it wasn’t the same.
00:56:30:48 – 00:56:54:35
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but I think I think going back to the moon would be a good step in the right direction, because it’s an entire we are an entire generation that didn’t experience that in real time. So experiencing that in real time will make a difference. And I, I wrote a blog post, I think within hours of Neil Armstrong dying being like, how can we haven’t been back yet?
00:56:54:39 – 00:57:11:54
Agent Palmer
And I feel like I was just one of a million bloggers that wrote that same post. Yeah, it felt that way, but I it’s something that and I have little doodles and notes from like when I was much younger the first time I was interested in space, where I was like, how come we haven’t been back yet?
00:57:11:59 – 00:57:27:22
Agent Palmer
And there’s something romantic about the moon that Mars will not get because the, the heroes, quote unquote, because that’s what they’ll be that go back to the moon will be coming back in my lifetime. Yeah.
00:57:27:27 – 00:57:47:26
Amy Shira Teitel
Oh, and I think there’s something about like, I mean, the moon just even going back to like, movies and music from the 1930s and 40s. I mean, the moon is this romantic thing about on a moonlit night, you know, there is this like, the moon occupies a space in pop culture and always has as something that’s like, that’s special.
00:57:47:26 – 00:58:07:34
Amy Shira Teitel
That’s a little bit alien, although not called alien. You know, it’s it’s unique. It holds something. And going there makes it’s like, that’s, that’s so much more tangible because we can also see it. This is the other thing that that people kind of struggle with when we’re talking about, why aren’t we on Mars yet too, is like I’ve said this, like man moon decade are three very tangible things.
00:58:07:34 – 00:58:24:47
Amy Shira Teitel
We know what a human is, we know what the moon is, and we a decade we have a bit better understanding of what ten years is. But human Mars 30 years or so is not. This does not have the same like punch to it because like we still know the human, but like no one really understands how far Mars is.
00:58:24:52 – 00:58:43:13
Amy Shira Teitel
I’ve spoken to people who are like, I would totally go to Mars because I could always just call my friends and I’m like, not with the light time delay. You can’t, you can’t. You’re you are, you don’t you don’t understand how far it is. You you don’t come home. You can’t turn around. It’s not a car trip. And 30 years or so, like, how many people can really grasp the length of time?
00:58:43:13 – 00:59:18:03
Amy Shira Teitel
And we. I think we see it a lot in, like, the way, you know, the new administration will forever be changing NASA’s forward momentum. And it’s it’s I did a whole deep video about how politics is just ruining spaceflight as well. But it’s also, you know, that’s kind of how it’s made. That like, it’s so hard to lay the foundation that will not only outlive one, you know, one president’s administration, but like, like ten administrations, you know, it could be it could be this, like, hugely long thing that has to somehow survive these massive political shifts.
00:59:18:07 – 00:59:29:22
Amy Shira Teitel
That’s really hard. So like when we talk about having that moment, there’s so many hurdles that like, I don’t think we even understand how many hurdles to get by, to even think about having that moment.
00:59:29:27 – 00:59:30:40
Agent Palmer
Do you.
00:59:30:44 – 00:59:31:53
Amy Shira Teitel
So we’re I’m such a downer.
00:59:31:53 – 00:59:54:27
Agent Palmer
No, no no no. Look, I so I’ve been quiet for a while, but I also agree with absolutely everything you’re saying. And, and I also go back and I look at history and I go, yeah, the, the other problem, especially with politics being a 24 seven news cycle more than any other, is that and this isn’t just with the current regime.
00:59:54:27 – 01:00:27:28
Agent Palmer
This is always we want the credit. It’s kind of human nature. Yeah. And the person who signed the bill that funds the launch for the mission to Mars, the manned mission to Mars will not be probably alive. Yeah. When that success happens. So there’s no impetus for it, right? Like there’s no like, hey, by the end of the decade, it’s like, well, it’s going to take a little bit longer than that.
01:00:27:28 – 01:00:56:45
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I think we also get ruined by there’s a lot of pop culture, spaceflight, Star Wars track, etc. that has happened since Apollo, where you go, oh, how can we don’t have a faster than light drive yet? Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s not just as easy as writing it into the script. So there’s all these like, different factors that are like, thrown into a pot.
01:00:56:48 – 01:01:03:05
Agent Palmer
You go, all right, well, so what do we do now? Low-Earth orbit. Okay. Like. Yeah.
01:01:03:10 – 01:01:19:50
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. No, I mean at that point of going to take credit I think is so is so interesting. And this is again, one of those Kennedy things that we just never talk about. Like he did it knowing full well that he would probably not be in office when it landed if anything happened, because the ID, the original target date was 1967, so he would still be in office.
01:01:20:02 – 01:01:39:05
Amy Shira Teitel
But, you know, realistically, he knew it might not happen. But he also was very concerned about his legacy. And that thought that I don’t know if you’ve heard this white House recording between him and Jim Webb talking about it was in 62 or 60. They had two conversations. I think it was in 63 that they had this conversation.
01:01:39:10 – 01:01:53:44
Amy Shira Teitel
And he says, you know, I don’t want my legacy to be the guy that started this boondoggle of a program and had to cancel it. And it’s just terrible. And I wasted all this money. I need to I need to stop it. I have to stop it because this is ruining my legacy. Because, like, you want the credit, but you also don’t want to tarnish your reputation.
01:01:53:56 – 01:02:12:30
Amy Shira Teitel
And it becomes this really interesting play. And when you like, that’s that’s a huge part. That’s a huge part of what people do. I mean, Trump’s whole thing of like, we need to get back to the moon in four years, but like has no understanding of the technology behind it. And everyone’s like, he’s pushing us forward. It’s like, but not for any reason that is technologically relevant or realistic.
01:02:12:35 – 01:02:30:16
Amy Shira Teitel
And it’s it just becomes this thing of like everyone, you know, people do it for ego. I’ve written a lot about, like this idea of people wanting to have their Kennedy moment, but not really understanding how hard the Kennedy moment is, because you don’t necessarily get the payoff of it and you don’t know it’s going to be a Kennedy moment until you do it.
01:02:30:21 – 01:02:59:24
Agent Palmer
Yeah. No, you’re I mean, 100% right. Like and I can’t agree more because everything I’ve read points to the fact like, and this is the this is it’s not a problem but the problem I’m still going to call it a problem issue. Concern I guess, is that if you take the statement you just made and then go back and read any history book, it will literally corroborate exactly what you said.
01:02:59:29 – 01:03:08:04
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And okay, but we’re supposed to learn from history, so like, we should know a better way. Yeah.
01:03:08:09 – 01:03:31:51
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah, I feel like well, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been feeling a lot, especially the last four years, that it would be really nice if there was like a white House historian on staff that was like, hey, so we tried to do this in 1953 and it didn’t work. So let’s just learn from this. But I mean, how many times like we the thing with with looking at history, is it’s so easy to see things when you’re looking back at it or not think about.
01:03:31:51 – 01:03:52:37
Amy Shira Teitel
And we, we have this tendency to not think about the reality of like the unknowns, like it’s so easy to look at Kennedy and be like, he knew what he was doing with Apollo, or I mean, any president doing something grand. It’s like, no, they tried something and it worked. And that’s good, I guess. I mean, depending on what it is, you know, whatever.
01:03:52:37 – 01:04:08:43
Amy Shira Teitel
But anyway, it’s like, you know, they no one’s going into anything thinking it’s like the sure bet. So like, I kind of makes it a little bit more understandable, maybe why presidents struggle to do that or don’t want to do it, or try to do it, but then don’t follow through on it like it is. It’s a very complicated thing.
01:04:08:45 – 01:04:21:49
Amy Shira Teitel
It becomes, I think, more about human. I’m rambling now, but it almost becomes more about like human nature and, personality types and who’s willing to take that risk and put their reputation on the line, having no idea if it’ll pay off.
01:04:21:54 – 01:04:25:29
Agent Palmer
Have you ever made a risk that you didn’t know would pay off?
01:04:25:33 – 01:04:33:44
Amy Shira Teitel
Oh, 100%, 100%? I was, my I think my my biggest I mean, I first of all, I’ve never had a job. That’s probably a.
01:04:33:44 – 01:04:38:36
Agent Palmer
Risk. I mean, technically, you’re I self-employed.
01:04:38:49 – 01:04:50:53
Amy Shira Teitel
I am self-employed, yeah. No, I, I always joke there’s this there’s a great I forget what episode it is on science. Robert George. It’s like, you know what I hate when you you see the same people every day, and you have to say hello to them. And you’re just like, I hate this, and you’re in the office and you hate that.
01:04:50:53 – 01:05:12:32
Amy Shira Teitel
And Jerry’s like, I’ve never had a job. I was like, there’s nothing in that show that resonates with me as much as Jerry saying, I’ve never had a job. I’m like, I’ve literally never had a regular job. When I was when I was, 29, I picked up I, I ended a relationship, I picked up, and I moved to LA with a drugged up cat and moved into an apartment that I’d never seen before.
01:05:12:37 – 01:05:15:05
Amy Shira Teitel
That was a risk. I didn’t know if it was going to pay off.
01:05:15:09 – 01:05:16:57
Agent Palmer
Are you. Are you still in the apartment?
01:05:17:10 – 01:05:36:42
Amy Shira Teitel
I am, I am still in that apartment. I still have the cat. Yeah, it’s I mean, you know, those big risks are definitely hard, but like, that risk was, you know, it only affected my life and Pete’s life. But he’s kind of, you know, a package deal with me. It wasn’t a risk that was going to affect millions of people with my decision.
01:05:36:42 – 01:05:51:58
Amy Shira Teitel
So like, you start to understand, I don’t know, the idea of making that big risk is, is it’s scary. And when people are affected by it, I don’t want that responsibility. Have you ever taken like a crazy risk and you’re like, oh good God, no.
01:05:52:12 – 01:06:20:30
Agent Palmer
I mean, the closest I’ve come is I’ve been unemployed for a year during a pandemic, and I’ve chosen to kind of live off of savings and, find a career instead of a job. And I, I, I know there’s, you know, there’s something weird about this risk because everybody’s like, are you okay? I’m like, no, I’m I’m like, I’m not crazy enough to do something that would endanger myself.
01:06:20:35 – 01:06:50:28
Agent Palmer
If I have to, I will get a job. But there’s something in my brain that’s like the guy who can’t code a website or can’t write coherently. Let him pick up the boxes. You should find a job where you can build a website or do this or do that or that. And so I, I’m looking for this career that it seems like people are less and less likely to care about, because all the people I know in careers with any skill that I have are overworked and underpaid right now.
01:06:50:29 – 01:07:06:05
Agent Palmer
Right. And I, I feel like that’s kind of the way it goes. But yeah, I don’t know, like I’m the biggest risk I’ve got right now is like, what I, I only I only have a finite amount of savings. Yeah. I’m.
01:07:06:10 – 01:07:25:45
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. I think that’s to go back to, creative people. I think that’s like a risk a lot of creatives end up taking because it’s, yeah, it fuels the creativity and gives you a very good impetus. I always joke, but it’s not a joke. The best motivator for self-employed people is fear.
01:07:25:50 – 01:07:34:35
Agent Palmer
I.
01:07:34:40 – 01:08:00:32
Agent Palmer
One of the things that Amy and I have in common, not just as content creators, but as people, is that we are genuinely curious and not afraid of a little research. And that we love reading helps this immensely. But as Amy dives deeper into not just the golden era of space exploration surrounding the Space race, but the contact, sort of the decisions that shaped that era, her journey will diverge into many different arenas of history.
01:08:00:37 – 01:08:30:31
Agent Palmer
She will embark on journeys much longer than she anticipated, and undoubtedly she will find many more questions than answers. That is the nature of education we seek. And once we find, we ask why and seek again. We discussed the four suns at Passover a bit, the force on to represent the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who doesn’t know how to ask this has been updated to the four children, but it’s based on asking why the celebration of Passover is taking place to begin with.
01:08:30:35 – 01:08:49:39
Agent Palmer
The wise one asks about details the wicked one asks, whatever does this mean to you? The simple asked what it means. And of course, there’s the child who does not know how to ask. If you are Jewish. This is all familiar and perhaps overdone as it is an annual thing, but if you are not, this may be foreign to you.
01:08:49:39 – 01:09:12:23
Agent Palmer
Rest assured I bring it up because I can’t believe I didn’t remember all of them quickly off the top of my head during our conversation. And because as I become older, I’ve found that to me, we are all, all of them. Not concurrently. But there are times when we are the wise, the wicked, the simple, or do not know how to ask.
01:09:12:28 – 01:09:36:53
Agent Palmer
Thank you for listening to The Palmer Files episode 35. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can tweet me at Agent Palmer, the show at The Palmer Files, or Amy Shira Teitel that’s Amy, IRA title. You can also use that same at to follow her on Instagram.
01:09:36:53 – 01:09:59:11
Agent Palmer
Or you can visit Amy Shira Teitel.com for links to her books and more content. She’s also on YouTube at YouTube.com. Slash vintage space and streaming on Twitch as the Space Vixen. Don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and ratings, including my review of Amy’s book fighting for Space on Agent palmer.com. And of course, email can be sent to the show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com.
01:09:59:11 – 01:10:11:52
Agent Palmer
If there’s a topic or guest you’d like me to consider.
01:10:11:57 – 01:10:19:51
Unknown
You.
01:10:19:55 – 01:10:32:22
Unknown
Need.
01:10:32:27 – 01:10:42:17
Unknown
Me.
01:10:42:22 – 01:10:46:27
Unknown
She.
01:10:46:32 – 01:10:49:24
Agent Palmer
All right? Amy, do you have one final question for me?
01:10:49:28 – 01:11:05:23
Amy Shira Teitel
I do. So I, I think about this a lot with my stuff that, you know, you know, when you’re growing up and you love stuff, and your parents are like, it’s just a phase. And then when you’re grown up and you get to do it on your own time and with your own money, you’re like, I still really love this thing from my childhood.
01:11:05:23 – 01:11:23:39
Amy Shira Teitel
For whatever reason. Do you have a thing from your childhood? However goofy or weird or obscure it was that you’re like, it’s it was not a phase. I came back to it and I’m more kind of just love leaning into this. Now as an adult.
01:11:23:44 – 01:11:48:33
Agent Palmer
Yeah, this is going to sound, absolutely weird. I, I treat the Palmer brand right. The Agent palmer.com is the blog and The Palmer Files as a podcast. I treat this like a job, and I treat it seriously. Yeah. And to me, even when it was not my full time gig. And it’s not because I make no money at it, but it’s all I’ve got to do right now.
01:11:48:38 – 01:12:08:10
Agent Palmer
It reminds me that when I was five and six, I used to borrow, I guess, and take the hand-me-down like briefcase that my father had and pretend to go to work like I was the kid that was like, now, granted, we’ve established I’m an only child, so like, I wasn’t like, I didn’t.
01:12:08:10 – 01:12:10:23
Amy Shira Teitel
The children definitely come up with their own weird little game.
01:12:10:23 – 01:12:34:38
Agent Palmer
So. So it was like, I’m going to pretend to go to work. And that’s why I pretended to go to work. And now I’m not pretending. And I have these processes that I’ve kind of created for myself. And I, you know, I’m, I’m quote unquote pretending to go to work because this doesn’t, you know, this still doesn’t feel like work, but I treat it seriously.
01:12:34:42 – 01:12:57:18
Agent Palmer
So that way when somebody is like, well, you’ve been out of work for a year, what have you been doing? It was like, well, actually, I’ve been editing audio and recording and scheduling and promoting and writing and editing and but I and I mean, it comes up a lot on this show. Do I don’t know if this is what I want to do for, like, real, real, real.
01:12:57:22 – 01:13:18:48
Agent Palmer
Yeah. But absolutely, as a passion project, like I look back at borrowing my father’s old hand-me-down briefcase and be like, I, I didn’t tell anyone, right? Like, it’s just like, in my head, I’m like, I’m going to work now. And you walk out and you go into the other room and you open your briefcase and you take out whatever pad, and you do whatever.
01:13:18:52 – 01:13:32:51
Agent Palmer
And now I just, I have my own office where I can kind of play work, except when I’m playing work. I actually have published things that I can throw out on the internet. That’s kind of the thing. I think for me.
01:13:32:56 – 01:13:38:11
Amy Shira Teitel
Nice, I like that that’s a really good one. That’s really good. I like that story.
01:13:38:16 – 01:13:46:15
Agent Palmer
I mean, luckily I was an only child, so I don’t have like a sibling who’s like, remember that time when you used to pretend to go to work?
01:13:46:20 – 01:13:53:51
Amy Shira Teitel
Yeah. That’s it’s it’s nice. It’s nice that you can, control the narrative of the potentially slightly embarrassing story from your childhood.
01:13:53:56 – 01:13:54:54
Agent Palmer
100%.
01:13:54:59 – 01:13:57:10
Amy Shira Teitel
That’s very good, I like it.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).