056 Sleepless Sally transcript (Nora Ephron)

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[00:00:00] Amit: This is Famous Gravy, the show where we study pop culture icons for what actually made life satisfying. Now for the opening quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

[00:00:12] Michael: This person died 2012, age 71. In the summer of 1961, she was a summer intern in the Kennedy White House. In a 2003 interview, she said she was probably the only intern that President John F. Kennedy had never hit on.

[00:00:31] Friend: Ooooooooooooooooooo Diane Sawyer?

[00:00:34] Michael: Not Diane Sawyer. She's still alive. Her second husband was the Watergate journalist. Carl

Bernstein.

[00:00:42] Friend: I don't know. I don't know.

[00:00:44] Michael: She was a journalist, a blogger, an essayist, a novelist, a playwright, an Oscar nominated screenwriter and a movie director, a rarity in a film industry whose directorial ranks were and continue to be dominated by men.

[00:01:00] Friend: Ah, her name is escaping me.

[00:01:03] Michael: Her box offices successes included You've Got Mail, Julie & Julia, Sleepless in Seattle, and When Harry Met Sally.

[00:01:12] Friend: Wait, Nora Ephron?

[00:01:13] Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Nora Ephron.

[00:01:17] Friend: Oh my gosh.

[00:01:20] Archival: Do you consider yourself a screenwriter first, or a director first, or...

I'm a writer first. I don't even consider myself a screenwriter first, I consider myself a writer. I think the thing that I always say that is extremely boring and probably, um, narcissistic to people who want to be screenwriters, who are young, is don't become a screenwriter.

Go become a journalist, like me. You see, that's the bad narcissistic part. And find out something. And live a little while because you don't have anything to write screenplays about except your coming of age story and your summer camp story. Because you don't know anything.

[00:02:07] Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

[00:02:10] Amit: And I'm Amit Kapoor.

[00:02:12] Michael: And on this show, we believe that the best years might lie ahead. So we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question, would I want that life today?

Nora Ephron died 2012, age 71.

Okay. I have to chime in here because mm-hmm. , you said 2012. As our listeners know, we have a rule we only cover celebrities who died within the last ten years. So we had Nora Ephron on our docket for the fall of last year. Because we had some other opportunities show up, she kind of got pushed out and then out of that ten year window.

So we are allowing ourself a little grace, a little cheat day. Which,

I mean, just to say it, that flexibility is part of what we've learned as part of this podcast. Every now and then you gotta break the rules. Yeah, I

[00:03:11] Amit: think we even said that in a recent interview, that, uh, that's probably one of my biggest learnings is allow yourself a little less rigidity.

[00:03:19] Michael: Well, that's an excellent segue to introduce today's expert guest, Aaron Carlson. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. Coming on the show. We're really happy to have you here. Thank

[00:03:29] Erin: you for inviting me on. I'm happy to

[00:03:31] Michael: be here. Erin Carlson is a culture and entertainment journalist. She's got many accomplishments.

Among them, she's written three Hollywood history books. One on Meryl Streep called Queen Meryl. An upcoming book, which I'm really excited about called No Crying in Baseball, the inside story of A League of Their Own. I always had a soft spot for that movie. And then, you know, what is appropriate for today's conversation, Erin wrote a book called, I'll Have What She's Having, how Nora Ephron's three iconic films saved the romantic comedy.

I'll Have What She's Having. So, that title is a reference to the very famous line in When Harry Met Sally, after Meg Ryan, uh, fakes an orgasm in a New York deli. Yes!

[00:04:15] Erin: Yes! Yes! Oh! Oh, God.

[00:04:22] Amit: I'll Have What She's

[00:04:23] Michael: Having. In reading your book, the scene, then like the day of that shot, and when Harry met Sally, and everything going on there, like, Carl Reiner has his mother say, I'll have what she's having, so she's sitting right there, and Carl Reiner's like, oh, wait a sec, what the fuck was I thinking when I decided to shoot this scene with my mother in the room?

It was a scene that really leapt out for me. I really enjoyed that in your book. So

[00:04:47] Erin: embarrassing. I mean, he didn't want to do it in front of his mother, but Meg was too scared. She was too shy. She's like, what will my boyfriend Dennis Quaid think? And, and Ryder was like, It's supposed to be funny. So he sat down and acted it out.

Yeah.

[00:05:04] Amit: At Katzen's Deli. That's

[00:05:05] Erin: right. That's right. And started sweating. Flop sweat everywhere. And then Meg's like, okay, got it. Got it. She's a total pro. She sat there and Nailed like take after take and meanwhile Billy Crystal was sitting across from her and he's like have to do much He was going up and getting deli sandwiches and sour tomatoes and just having the time of his life

[00:05:28] Michael: Well, let's get into it category one grading the first line of their obituary Nora Ephron an essayist and humorist in the Dorothy Parker mold Only smarter and funnier, some said, who became one of her era's most successful screenwriters and filmmakers, making romantic comedy hits like Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally, died on Tuesday in Manhattan.

She was seventy one. This is the first time I remember seeing one with a parentheses.

[00:06:01] Amit: Oh, is there? I mean, on audio, that doesn't come through. I'll

[00:06:05] Michael: do it again. An essayist and humorist in the Dorothy Parker mold, open parentheses, only smarter and funnier, comma, some said, close parentheses, who became, so it was like their way of getting a lot more words in there.

This whole Dorothy Parker.

[00:06:19] Amit: I don't. Okay. So that's question number one for me. Who is Dorothy Parker? And maybe Aaron wants to take that. Aaron, who's Dorothy Parker? Oh my God.

[00:06:26] Erin: Dorothy Parker was a famous, like, essayist, um, and humorist, just like Nora, um, in the, in mid century. And she was known for her pithy one liners and her wit.

And she sat at the Algonquin Roundtable in Manhattan. She was the only woman writer at the table. And she created a persona around herself. She built herself into a myth. And she inspired a lot of younger women writers, like Nora, to want to move to New York City and become a famous lady writer. And Nora really sought that.

She wanted to become Dorothy Parker.

[00:07:09] Michael: I think I read something about Nora Ephron attacking Dorothy Parker or saying something not great about her. Am I misremembering this? Because I read that biography you suggested. Yeah,

[00:07:21] Erin: I'm surprised that's there because, um, so Nora wrote very brutal essays about women in the media, like Helen Gurley Brown, you know, famed editor of Cosmopolitan.

And she also wrote an essay about Dorothy Parker. That sort of shattered the myth of Dorothy Parker and, uh, Nora's

[00:07:44] Michael: perception of her. Okay, let's pause on all that, because it's amazing that there is this unbelievably rich and hidden history in what is almost a parenthesis in the first line of Nora Ephron's obituary line.

Amit, your reaction

[00:07:59] Amit: to some of this? Uh, I don't like it at all. I mean, I think with Aaron's explanation, I think it makes perfect sense, and it's wonderful, but I don't think that many people know who Dorothy Parker is, and I don't think that's first line material, no matter how much she may have influenced Nora Ephron, and I think I think it's just doing too much of the work that other words could do.

If Dorothy Parker was somebody so adept at one liners, who was whip smart, and who penetrated these circles otherwise occupied predominantly by men, I think that's better said in direct language. I think it's interesting,

[00:08:34] Michael: one, that they reference her. And then in parentheses say only smarter and funnier comma some said I'd like a little attribution on that

[00:08:43] Erin: as a journal.

The word some means myself the writer Means I said that

[00:08:49] Michael: you're hiding behind that you obit writer. Um, so there's no such thing

[00:08:53] Erin: as objectivity

[00:08:55] Amit: Exactly son of an obit writer, so

[00:08:58] Michael: okay so that If we were to remove that, if it were just Nora Ephron, an essayist and humorist who became one of the era's most successful screenwriters and filmmakers making romantic comedy hits like Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally, most of that is great.

I like that they say essayist and humorist too. Like they really point to One, she's a writer, which is what essayist means to me, and two, humorous, that she's funny as shit. The

[00:09:25] Erin: book's called I Remember Nothing, and this is the piece called I Remember Nothing. Sometimes I'm forced to conclude that I remember nothing.

For example, I went to stand in front of the White House the night Nixon resigned. And here's what I have to tell you about it, my wallet was stolen. I went to at least 100 Knicks games and I remember only the night that Reggie Miller scored 8 points in the last 9 seconds. I was not at Woodstock, but I might as well have been because I wouldn't remember it anyway.

On some level, my life has been wasted on me. After all... If I can't remember it, who can?

[00:10:08] Michael: Amit, your, your take on some of this. I mean, I don't know, I feel like we've, we've honed in on some real problems with this. I'm

[00:10:14] Amit: ready for score. So I, I do love that they included beyond the movie career. Yes, I agree. The essayists and journalists, I think that's hugely important.

I think not enough people know that. And it is so largely influential on the greater public and culture. I think the inclusion of the two movies, they... Had, we're fine. So totally good with those things. Hate, hate, hate that they're letting Dorothy Parker do all the work and all the adjectives that should describe the things like whip smart, one liners, et cetera, hate the sum said.

So all deductions are for that minus five points for that. I'm landing on a five. That's

[00:10:53] Michael: exactly what I got. I was going to give it a five. I thought about maybe bumping it to a six because there is one thing we haven't talked about. Died on Tuesday night in Manhattan. They didn't say in New York, they said in Manhattan.

Ah, okay. And she's such a Manhattan figure for me that I really love that little inclusion. Every now and then they tag like when Louis Anderson died in Las Vegas. But I, I agree on it. Like I love essays and humor. I, I completely agree with your analysis. Five out of 10 hate the Dorothy Parker and some said, and then SA is, and humorist and in Manhattan all adds up to a five for me.

Aaron,

[00:11:29] Erin: I agree with you all. Uh, the Dorothy Parker just distracts. From Nora's own legend that stands on its own. The sum said is ridiculous, you know, in tribute to Nora, say, I said,

[00:11:42] Amit: right, you know, say something

[00:11:48] Michael: declarative, your opinion, but I want to give it six for Manhattan. So five, five, and six. Yeah, you can do better. New York times. Let's move on. Category two, five things I love about you here. We work together to come up with. Five reasons why we love this person, why we want to be talking about them in the first place.

Aaron, before you leave us, do you have a thing you love about Nora Ephron that you would like to contribute to this category?

[00:12:13] Erin: Gosh, I'm like Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle on the radio with Dr. Marsha Fieldstone. Sam, tell me what was so special about your wife. How long is your program? I love her joie de vivre.

She didn't. Waste a second of her life and it wasn't just movies. It was she loved cooking she published a cookbook full of her favorite recipes and she was An amazing hostess and she liked throwing dinner parties her love of life that was beyond who she was it was beyond Um, she's an essayist and a humorist and a screenwriter It was the whole giant You know, arc of her life that encompassed her

[00:13:00] Michael: joie de vivre.

Joie de vivre. I love that terminology.

[00:13:05] Amit: But I think that's a, it's a perfect encapsulation of everything that I understand about her.

[00:13:09] Michael: Yeah. I mean, and when I hear that, I guess I hear Latin, I hear carpe diem or something. It's not just that there is a sort of like, get the most out of life. That's what I understand joie de vivre to mean.

It's live for the day, but it's also. Yeah, zest for life, like a passion for it. Like life has so many experiences, sensory and intellectual and communal to offer. And I do think that, I think it's sometimes mistaken for ambition and maybe it overlaps with ambition, but there is something about her character that is very like, damn, she's doing it.

She's living. So I think that that's a wonderful thing. One to contribute. Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was really fun to have you and uh, Actually real quick. When does uh your book publish september 5th? Okay So, uh, we will link to it in the show notes and I can't wait to uh, get a copy myself Aaron, thank you so much again for coming really appreciate

[00:14:05] Amit: you making the time.

That was awesome. Thank

[00:14:06] Erin: you Thank you so much. You guys have a really good show and you're really fun Thank you. It was great spending time with you today. What I will miss

my kids

Nick Spring fall butter. I'll walk in the park dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives. One for the table, the would taking a bath pie.

[00:14:47] Michael: Thing number one, joie de vivre. Amit, do you want to lead us with number two?

[00:14:52] Amit: I do, because I think what Erin said, kind of hinting at her resilience, has a lot to do with one of my five things.

Oh, okay. And what I'm going to say is giant flop. Oh, interesting. So, we talked about it in the obituary, Sleepless in Seattle, and When Harry Met Sally, and then there's all the other things that, you know, the heartbreak, obviously referred to, you've got mail. But she had major, major flops. Huge. And that is one of the things that I love about her.

So, uh, I think three of the biggest box office flops that she produced, and this was all after essentially Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, Mixed Nuts, Lucky Numbers, Hanging Up, even Heartbreak was a commercial flop for the first year until a critic picked it up. So this is a woman that we know for these hallmark successes, but there are many major, major flops.

In between.

[00:15:47] Michael: Yeah, if you look at her awards, Bewitched, I think, was nominated for several Razzies. And are you familiar with Razzies? It's like

[00:15:55] Amit: an insult award, right? Yeah, it's

[00:15:56] Michael: like, this is the worst movie of the year award. Yeah. It's like, so terrible, we should... We should note how, just how God awful it is.

[00:16:04] Amit: Yeah. So the thing I love is who gives a damn right bounce back from the flop? And she did that. I mean, the way I understand from reading about it and hearing her interviews is like she took it a lot to heart. Yeah. She hated the flops. Yeah. But if you're gonna talk about it in the totality of life and the fact that you can have many.

Major, huge flops, yet still be a topic on a show like this is very, very important to know. Not everything has to be a home run. Not everything even has to be a base hit. You can completely strike out very frequently and still have a hugely successful, significant, impactful. and fulfilling and happy career.

I

[00:16:50] Michael: watched her, uh, Wellesley, um, commencement speech. It's a fairly famous commencement speech from, I think, 1996 or 1998, something like that. And one of the things she tells these graduates is that, What

[00:17:03] Erin: are you going to do? Everything is my guess. It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. And don't be frightened.

You can always change your mind. I know. I've had four careers and three husbands.

[00:17:20] Michael: Which was a, you know, I think speaks to that point. It's not just professionally and creatively flopping. I think that there are some, oh, that didn't go well. I need to change what I did life decision wise, uh, aspects of her resilience, to your point.

Okay. Shall I take number three? Yep. I'm gonna go with Legendary Party Thrower. I know this came up in the Diego Maradona episode and it's come up a few times on our show, what it means to throw a great party. Her parties were apparently legendary. So she is a... Like next level chef. She's a total foodie before there were foodies, but also like loves being in the kitchen.

This was part of the reason she was so excited to work on the Julie and Julia project. But she's also like an insane conversationalist. I mean, Nora Ephron is. Really smart and I think would be just a delight to talk to and to like Be in a conversation with and I think she's the kind of person where if she's throwing a party Like there's gonna be great cocktail chatter all around it And you know, she floats in this company that I find really sort of enviable I mean, it's very manhattan and you know, mike nichols or rob reiner or You know, Meryl Streep.

I mean, there's celebrities there, but you also, there's a sort of intelligentsia community that I think surrounds Nora Ephron, you know, between, you know, arts, culture, journalism, and so forth. I would love to go to a Nora Ephron party. She's a legendary party thrower, and that's something I wish, that's something I want to do in my life.

That's desirable to me. I want to You know, be the kind of guy who's like Michael Osborne's having a party. There's going to be great food. There's going to be great conversation. You're going to meet interesting people and you're going to feel like you belong in sort of a really special community. So I find it really desirable.

And that's my thing. Number three. Yeah,

[00:19:13] Amit: I like it. Let me cap that with, uh, her own funeral. So, she set aside in her will 100, 000 that she wanted spent on her memorial service. And she wanted it, like, she planned it. That's a move. Hell of a move. Well done. She wanted top end pink champagne. Yeah. And the other thing is like, from what I understand about these parties that she threw in the 70s, is they were equivalent to like, what I would call a parlor.

If you think about like, the movie Midnight in Paris, and you picture like, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and all of these, all of these, like, Right,

[00:19:48] Michael: all these like, great writers from the

[00:19:49] Amit: 20s, yeah. But musicians, writers, everything. You just had ideas flowing, and booze flowing, and whatever. That's, that was my understanding of some of these gatherings that Nora Ephron, Through.

And even when she didn't really have the credibility of the chops, she would go up to people and be like, I'm Nora Ephron. You want to come to a legendary party at my house?

[00:20:08] Michael: Totally. Yeah. I heard that story a few times. You said, uh, I, one thing you were saying about the throwing your party for your own funeral.

Joie de vivre, even if you're not viving. You know, all right, why don't you take number

[00:20:20] Amit: four number four mentorship, you know, in both the documentary about her that her son through and in several of the interviews that I heard a lot of people referred to Nora Ephron as their mentor and three of the names that were significant to me were Rita Wilson.

Lena Dunham and her own sister, Delia Ephron. And so I think that is wonderful, because here is a woman, and we haven't gotten into the backstory of her life, but she came from a Hollywood family. Her parents were also sort of in Hollywood screenwriter type of things. They were both alcoholics. Alcoholism essentially killed her mother.

When she was a teenager, right? So she had kind of this, a little bit of absentee parentism. And the fact that she saw it as so important to pass on and educate, and how important that is, that she has a gift. And in addition to making masterpieces, another way to pass on and live out your legacy is to mentor others.

And I love that she saw that, and she

[00:21:25] Michael: Do you feel like you're at a point in life where that's happening for you? Where people are asking you to be a mentor of sorts? It's

[00:21:32] Amit: a little bit, it's come up, but frankly, I think we had this conversation on our hike the other day, Michael. I feel I'm in the opposite camp.

I want one. I think both things can be

[00:21:41] Michael: true. I think

[00:21:42] Amit: it's important that both are true. To learn and give at the same time. Yeah, I agree. I mean, Adam Grant's whole book, Give and Take, is sort of about that. Yeah. Especially as you're in this stage that we are. I mean, we're mid 40s, but I think this applies to anybody in age, say, mid 30 to 60.

Yeah. Have a mentor and be a mentor. Neither of which I do, but

[00:22:02] Michael: I know that actually not to be true. And you know, look, man, I think mentors don't necessarily have to be above or below. I think they can also be lateral mentorship and then, and that some ways, man, don't let this go to your head. But I look at you as a mentor at times, I don't necessarily tell myself.

I'm going to put Ahmed and mentor mode here, but certainly one of the reasons I wanted to start this show to begin with is because I think there's a lot I can learn from you. And I think it is a good mentality overall, as you said, to be both seeking mentorship and offering it in both directions. That is service to humanity.

That is service to those around you. And I think it's highly desirable and something that we should like have as part of our daily aspirations. Totally.

[00:22:43] Amit: And, and thank you for what you said.

[00:22:46] Michael: All right. Does that mean I get number five?

[00:22:47] Amit: That means you get number five. My mentee.

[00:22:52] Michael: Easy.

I wrote conflicted romantic. One thing that's surprising and we're going to get into it about Nora Ephron is that she's not a softie. You watch these movies, Sleepless in Seattle, Harry Met Sally. You know, Julia and Julia, and you kind of think like, Oh, she's just a sort of sweet and hopeless romantic. And no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This is a fierce woman. This is a biting, you know, she's got ambition and determination, a sharp intellect, a wit, which seems to stand in contrast to the kind of, I don't know, lovely leading figures that you see in the Meg Ryan characters in these movies.

[00:23:37] Erin: Missed the spring and a fair to remember is a kind of.

Fantastic, weepy woman's movie in not necessarily a good sense of a woman's movie. It's really kind of hooking into those pathetic female fantasies. What we were trying to do in Sleepless was hook into a completely different romantic fantasy. Which was, what if there's one perfect person for me somewhere out there and I never find him?

What if I never meet him? What if

[00:24:10] Michael: this man is my destiny and I never meet him? But I also think she's still a romantic. I think that it is possible to believe in Happily Ever After on some level and also be really realistic about how rough the world is, how discriminatory the world is. How hard life is and so the reason I wrote conflicted romantic is that I don't think she's naive in her steadfast belief in a kind of happily ever after or for that matter, belief that your soulmate might be out there conviction because I think Nora Ephron holds that.

But I also think she does it while being very realistic and intelligent and the opposite of naive. I see that conflict in her and I admire that. I also desire that because yeah. I want to have that worldview too. I want to believe in true love. I want to believe in soulmates, even if life does deal you, you know, some really rough, uh, cards at times.

Yeah, I think

[00:25:08] Amit: that's really well said, especially, you know, two divorces and she finally makes it later and we'll get into this in that category. But yeah, it seems like she truly believed in the human spirit and the importance. And existence of unconditional love. And I shouldn't even say importance. I would say the elevated importance that it is everything and that it is always possible at any age, at any state.

And maybe it comes when you're not looking. Well said.

[00:25:37] Michael: Okay. Let's recap. Number one, Aaron said, joie de vivre. Number two, you said major flops. Number three, I said a legendary party thrower. Number four, you said mentorship. both giving and receiving, and number five, uh, I said conflicted romantic. Let's take a break.

All

[00:25:57] Amit: right, category three. Malkovich, Malkovich.

[00:26:00] Michael: This category is named after the movie, Being John Malkovich, in which people take a little portal into John Malkovich's mind, and they can have a front row seat to his experiences. All right, I'm a little... conflicted about what I'm going to say

[00:26:15] Amit: because I You're a conflicted romantic about what I'm a

[00:26:18] Michael: conflicted.

Well, and it gets even more deep than that. I wrote Catching carl as my malkovich moment and I was hesitant to bring it up because I do think this is painful for noravron and everybody involved but We'll get into this more in the marriage category. Nora Ephron was married to Carl Bernstein when she is pregnant with her second child, seven months pregnant.

She discovers he's been cheating on her.

[00:26:45] Amit: Oh, that's what you mean by catching. Okay. I thought you were talking about the initial spark.

[00:26:49] Michael: No, I meant, I meant catching him in the act. She had Nora Ephron goes on to write a book Heartburn, which gets made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

And it's a well known public painful point in her life. Here's why I chose it as my Malkovich moment. Her parents, as you mentioned a second ago, developed a real problem with drinking, and her dad cheated on her mom a lot. One of the things that, you know, you hear a lot about in Nora Ephron's life, everything is copy, meaning, or at least I interpret that to mean, we are all the authors of our own lives.

The way I hear the story about her discovering that her husband's been unfaithful to her, Was that she felt, at least for a moment, that despite her best efforts, she wound up making the same mistake her mother made. I think she was smart enough to see that pattern, because she knew her parents history well enough, and I think she saw it through that lens.

It is one of the two times in her life where this motto, everything is copy, meaning you get to interpret, The events of your lives through writing and through storytelling gets really challenged because I'm not sure that there is a whole lot of opportunity in this moment of, oh, shit, I made the same mistake as my mom to interpret it any other way.

Do you see what I'm trying to, like, draw attention to with this Malkovich moment on it? Yeah. I think in this moment, she doesn't have. That freedom. I think that that's true again, by the way, at her death. And you hear people say that, that the one time that everything is copy did not apply was when she was faced with her own mortality.

We'll get to that later, but that's my Malkovich moment. I want to know what it feels like to confront two conflicting interpretations of what life is all about.

[00:28:46] Amit: Nice. I like that you isolated the exact moment of catching because I think the larger narrative is she wrote a book about it, which became a famous movie.

And it seems like, like she had so much agency and so much control over the narrative, but you don't, you don't over that actual present moment. And that's what you're really interested in. Yes,

[00:29:06] Michael: exactly. That's exactly it. You put it well. All right. Amit, you're

[00:29:09] Amit: a Malkovich. Yeah. So, um, do you like the movie swingers?

Love the movie swingers. Okay. Do you remember that moment at the beginning where John Favreau is still very heartbroken and he's talking about like going out and trying to meet girls and he's like, I spent half the night talking to some

[00:29:24] Michael: girl who's looking around the room to see if there's somebody else who's more important.

She should be talking to. And it's like, I'm supposed to be all

[00:29:30] Amit: happy. Uh, Because she's wearing a backpack. Do you remember that line? Yes, I do. That image just came to mind as I heard the story that I'm about to tell. And much like yours, this has very little to do with Nora Ephron's Hollywood career. This is life.

So Nora Ephron was known for many things. She was known for being very staunch, very strong in her opinions, having the last word. Things had to be her idea. Things had to be perfect. And her sister tells this story that she was in a boutique in New York and saw a backpack purse, which she thought was very great and would be great for Nora.

And so she gives it to Nora as a gift. And Nora was legendary for not really receiving gifts and returning them or discarding them, and she kind of knew this. Uh Delia kind of knew this so a few weeks later Delia is back in the same store in which she bought the purse And she sees this backpack purse back in the store and there was only one So she knows for an absolute fact that her sister Nora had returned to the purse Okay, and Delia says okay.

I really like this purse. I'm gonna buy it for myself Sometime later. She's seeing her sister Nora And Nora's like, Oh, that is such a cute backpack purse. I need to get that. And Delia is like, I gave this to you and you've returned it. And this is what I want to know from the, what can only be described as a Malkovich moment, is what she was thinking behind her eyes.

And I want to know if she realized her fallibility. This is especially important to me because I am one of those. I am one of those that is kind of like hard to, I don't receive gifts very well. But there's a certain acknowledgement in this story that is like, Yeah, you know what? Somebody does actually know your tastes.

And people do actually know your style. And maybe, just possibly, you may actually have blind spots. And I'd really like to know if in this exact moment, when Delia says, you know what? I gave you that backpack already. If she recognized it,

[00:31:42] Michael: I think what you're getting at is humility, and I think it's a really interesting question, which will come up in a future category, but for now, category for love and marriage.

How many marriages? Also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? Well, this is fun. Okay, so there's dan greenberg married 1967 divorced 1976. Nora was 26 Uh when they got married they divorced around age 35. No kids Second husband we've talked about a lot already carl bernstein.

They were married in 1976 Nora was 35. They, marriage falls apart and they divorce, uh, in 1980. Nora is around 39. I should say this was sort of interesting. I, when I read the biography, she had a great relationship with her first husband. They remained friends so much so that when she was. Dating Carl Bernstein, like the three of them went out to dinner and he's like, Oh, I'd like to meet the guy.

That sounds like great. And they had like the three of them were chummy around it all. So Dan actually sounds like a nice man. And then finally her third husband, Nick Pileggi. This is, uh, they were married in 1987. Nora's about 46 by this point, uh, and they were together until her death. He is notable because he's the author of a book called wise guys that gets made into goodfellas.

He also wrote casino, which, so he's responsible in a sense for two Martin Scorsese movies. And this one is described as. A soulmate kind of relationship like a wonderful pairing and one thing that's really funny here You know, he's responsible for these martin scorsese hard guy movies, but he is apparently a big softy Uh, you know real sweet kind of sensitive guy and she's responsible for when harry mintz Sally and sleepless in Seattle, you know, these kinds of softie movies, but she's a hard lady behind the scenes.

So it's, that

[00:33:26] Amit: is an interesting dynamic. I'm glad you pointed that out. Isn't that

[00:33:28] Michael: funny? Two children with Carl Bernstein. I think I said that, uh, one of whom Jacob Bernstein is a journalist and was responsible for the documentary about Nora Ephron. So where do you want to go with this one, Helmut? I mean, I

[00:33:41] Amit: feel like we've talked about it so much already in her not giving up and her being a, uh, what was the word you use?

Not cynical romantic, but

[00:33:50] Michael: Uh, conflicted

[00:33:51] Amit: romantic. Conflicted romantic. And that she's not really giving up on the idea. And she finally finds true everlasting love and pure happiness at the age of 46. And it seems to only get better. From there, and I'm not even just talking about love and marriage here.

That's sort of the big lesson from it all. But my biggest curiosity is all in the same profession. She's always married to writers. Yeah, that doesn't

[00:34:18] Michael: surprise me because that whole idea, everything is copy. That was something her mother said. Her mother was a working woman in an age where that. Was very, very uncommon.

And I think her mother is a complicated character. And I guess I only draw attention to that because I do think that one thing that was true in the Ephron or Ephron family, like from the get go is writing really matters. Storytelling really matters. Everything is copied. These are words to live by. And so it's not surprising at all to me that she.

Ended up marrying three writers. Your mother, she meant a lot

[00:34:57] Erin: to you. My mother was a real piece of work. She was a screenwriter with my father, and she was so determined that all of her children would be writers. I mean, what she would say to you, if you went to my mother and you said, Oh, the worst thing happened to me today.

She had no interest in it. She only wanted to hear about it when you had turned it into a story with a good punchline.

[00:35:22] Michael: All right. Category five network. I had to dig a little bit. I saw 40 million. I saw 40 million.

[00:35:28] Amit: I did. I saw a few things, a few numbers that were a little bit lower, but 40 million seemed to be the most consistent.

[00:35:33] Michael: Yeah. What was your reaction to that? Higher than I

[00:35:35] Amit: thought. I didn't, yeah, I always think in Hollywood, it's the actors that are bringing it all, but it's actually is factual that the writers, directors, and producers are making, and directors are making just as much. And that's just my own bias that preexisted before that when I see that somebody like her ended their, like when their life ended, they had 40 million in their account.

I was a little surprised. But I think great.

[00:36:00] Michael: Yeah, I think great. I wasn't surprised. I did think, I mean, her turn towards Hollywood is actually interesting because she was a journalist in the kind of new journalism mold of Tom Wolfe throughout much of the late 60s and 70s. Her way into screenwriting was actually through Carl Bernstein because his book about the Watergood impeachment Gets adopted into the movie, all the president's men at some point, Carl and Nora get ahold of that script and are like, okay, this needs some real work.

Yeah. So, but the other thing to note there is that when she and Carl divorced, you know, she was at a low point financially. So most of that 40 million seems to come. From the mid eighties onward, I don't know, man, these movies are huge. These were huge box office blockbusters. It's rare that writers are this level of famous.

And I guess we'll get to that in the next category, but I'm, I wasn't surprised to see 40 million. Were you, were you expecting higher? No, I thought it was about right. If I had seen 30, that would have made sense. If I had seen 80, I guess I could have been like, wow, that's more than I would have expected.

So this, this looked and felt about right to me. Yeah. I

[00:37:06] Amit: mean, rich woman, well deserved, I don't think corruptible rich. She had expensive tastes. I think that's, I think that's all there is to say about it.

[00:37:14] Michael: Alright, 40 million. Nice job, Nora. Alright, Category 6, Simpsons Saturday Night Live or Halls of Fame.

This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or The Simpsons as well as impersonations. You ready? 0 for 4. Now, from what I could see, not her specifically, her specifically, I think the movies get parodied and

[00:37:37] Amit: infinitely probably across all of

[00:37:39] Michael: those, but no guest appearances or direct references on the Simpsons, nothing on Saturday Night Live.

I was really kind of hoping she and Arsenio Hall might've had a conversation, but that didn't happen. And there is no Hollywood star that I could find. So, uh, you know, she was nominated for Academy Awards, but I actually, this kind of. Computed to me. I think that there's a difference between important and famous.

And Nora Ephron is more important than she is famous in some ways. Right. I think that this is a figure for who a lot of people are like, I know that name. What do I know her from? I mean, her association with, you know, these very famous rom coms, if you know her name, that's why you know her name. Um, I think this whole.

Previous life as a journalist, that's something that a lot of us are going to forget, I suspect. So I don't know, I guess I wasn't surprised totally to see 0 for 4 here.

[00:38:32] Amit: I, I am surprised. I'm very surprised at no Simpsons reference. I don't know if she would have asked to be voiced or her character, she would have appeared as a character, but at least referenced.

[00:38:43] Michael: Okay, let's move on. Category 7, Over Under. In this category, we look at the life expectancy for the year somebody was born, to see if they beat the house odds, and to look for signs of graceful aging. So, the life expectancy for a woman born in the United States in 1941 was 66. 8. She died at 71, so she is about four or five years over.

But a pretty young death, I think, and certainly unexpected. Uh, well, she

[00:39:12] Amit: fought leukemia, which she kept largely a secret for, um, about six years, which was the cause of death. So if you take sort of those six years, which I think was 2006, was her diagnosis, and it was a secret, but you can kind of look at it retroactively of the work that she did in the life that she lived since that diagnosis, and I think she's the gold medal winner.

wrestling with aging gracefully and publicly. And I think a lot of that's been ascribed to her. I mean, she did, Julia, during that time, she wrote a lot of these memoirs, which were about conflicts with aging. You know about letting go of your younger self, but also about embracing, you know, what is here and now And I think a lot of her contemporaries and those people close to her said they've never seen as much joy and life and vibrancy In her as they did in her final years when they didn't even know she was dying of cancer Other than memories anything else

[00:40:14] Michael: wrong with getting older?

[00:40:16] Erin: I don't think it's better to be older. I don't. No, no, I don't think so

[00:40:19] Michael: either.

[00:40:20] Amit: But I think that

[00:40:21] Michael: it doesn't have to

[00:40:21] Erin: be bad. No, it doesn't have to be bad. And you have to know, but you have to know that at some point it will be. Oh, sure. And sooner rather than later. Which is why it's very important to eat your last meal before it actually comes up.

When you are actually going to have your last meal. You either will be too sick to have it or you aren't going to know it's your last meal and you could squander it on something like a tuna

[00:40:54] Michael: melt. I do think that some of the secrecy was a professional consideration. That she's not going to be able to, you know, land directorial jobs or screenwriting jobs if people think she's not going to be around to see those projects all the way through.

So that's one reason for keeping things sort of secret. But that's the thing I wanted to talk about with you here. Because I... A hundred percent agree gold medal winner for grace. And I really liked the way she handled herself from 2006 up into her death into 2012. Everything I see looks extremely admirable and graceful, but you know, this has come up a few times on the show about keeping an illness in this case, what turns out to be a terminal illness secret.

There are people in her family who know what's going on and there are a couple of very, very close friends, but most people. Who, when they learned about her death, said, I had no idea. I suspected nothing. She never said anything. And in the past, you've expressed some reservation about that. How are you feeling about it

[00:41:53] Amit: today?

I mean, this is one of the rare cases, Michael, which I just have to just. Throw down my arms and saying, I don't know. I really can't place myself in those shoes because to me, I, it seems weird, especially for somebody like Nora, who lived so much of her personal life publicly or projected it into the characters that she wrote.

That seems weird to me, but it also seems like you're depriving yourself of a lot. Of sort of affection as well as you're depriving your fan bases an opportunity.

[00:42:26] Michael: But I guess like, that's interesting to hear you put it that way, to me it's a question of how you receive support. You know, what it means to you to feel supported.

Does fan mail do that? You know, do the weak tie friends writing a note or paying a visit in the hospital or taking you out to a meal or whatever, you know, does that feel like support? That is a subjective question. That, that, that is, that changes for every individual. And I, should I ever get to a point in life where I, you know, get news from a doctor that says you may only have so long to live and I've got to make a decision about who I do and don't tell.

I do think that's the way to think about that question is what does it mean to be loved and supported, you know? As I enter into this process, that is the final chapter here. And I kind of imagine that's how she thought about it. Yeah. And

[00:43:14] Amit: it's, it's interesting to how much joy came out of her in those final years post diagnosis.

Yeah. And what I think about is really interesting. It, it, if we all had a diagnosis that we're going to die and guess what we do. We're all going to die, Michael, you know, we don't know that it's going to be five to 10 years, but we know it's going to be anywhere from one day to, I don't know, let's call it a hundred years just for the sake of it.

I think that's

[00:43:43] Michael: a safe window you've outlined.

[00:43:45] Amit: We've all got that diagnosis. Right. And so it's like, it's possibly the biggest lesson out there. Is that we've all been diagnosed, right? So what are you going to do about it? And how are you going to find the joy? And, you know, she had a smaller constraint to do it in, but I don't think we really evolve enough as a world, let's say spiritually, until we realize that we truly have that diagnosis.

[00:44:10] Michael: All right, let's take another break. Okay, category eight. This is where we start to get into the more introspective questions. The first of these is, Man in the mirror, what did they think about their own reflection when they saw

[00:44:23] Amit: it? So this is one of the rare cases that she caught on tape saying, I avoid mirrors.

[00:44:28] Erin: Um, you know that thing you start doing at a certain age, which is, you see a mirror and you just close your eyes. And then you kind of... And then if something bad is looking at you, just close them again.

[00:44:39] Amit: There's a few other things that I found kind of odd and interesting. So in the documentary that her son produced, they highlighted that all the sisters say that like their parents never told them they were beautiful.

Yeah. And then I think of this other fact that she is actually,

[00:44:54] Michael: I got to say, I just want to pause. I think she's an attractive woman. I don't know that she's like my type necessarily, but I find her.

[00:45:00] Amit: Attractive. I think she's undoubtedly, I would challenge anyone to find her unattractive. She, she's a type, but yeah, you're right.

And then the other, the other clue that I was curious about is, you know, she is essentially the character in all of these movies, you know, in when Harry met Sally and sleeps in Seattle, which are essentially all played by Meg Ryan, who. for all intents and purposes was a bombshell in the 80s and 90s, right?

So I wonder about that. I wonder about being cast as somebody else who is an unconditional, like, symbol of elevated

[00:45:31] Michael: beauty. Okay, so she may say I avoid mirrors.

[00:45:34] Amit: Yeah, so I laid out three cases against, but my answer is yes. She does like it. She likes the reflection?

[00:45:40] Michael: Yeah, that's interesting. There

[00:45:41] Amit: is the, the confidence that she wields and how, how declarative she is and how much she owns herself and how much she takes agency and control of every situation.

Sometimes too far, as evidenced by the little black backpack, but yeah, I'm going a yes. High on self esteem and high on liking herself. I

[00:46:02] Michael: had the exact same thing. I came to the exact same answer, based on the exact same set of reasons. That even, like, her early essays are about, you know, not having big enough breasts and things like that.

Like, there's a lot of self criticism that gets worked out in her writing and that gets said in interviews. Ultimately, I see a lot of confidence that says, you know, I actually like it. When all jokes are aside, I actually like it. I love

[00:46:26] Amit: that you brought that up because she actually wrote in one of those essays the exact sentence because she talks about that she wrestled with the, the size of her breasts and she did write the line of the exact words that said, if I had larger breasts, I would be a completely different person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what? So what? I don't. And this is who I am, this is how I'm living it out, and I've got dynamic features in every other thing that probably matter a lot more. Yeah. And I think that's the essence of who she was.

[00:46:57] Michael: I agree. I agree. Category 9, outgoing message. Like Man in the Mirror, how do we think they felt about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine or outgoing voicemail?

Also, would they have the humility to record it themselves, or would they use the default setting? on an outgoing message. I struggled with

[00:47:17] Amit: this one. Let me start then. So yeah, you know, I heard the phrase whip smart come up a few times and Aaron used it as well. And I love that phrase. Uh, I love that phrase period.

I, but I love it to describe her. I mean, she is incredibly articulate and not all writers are. Sometimes the writers can only, she's a

[00:47:33] Michael: good writer and a good talker. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:35] Amit: Incredible. And so she has. To like the sound of her own voice. And really the intonation is quite good too. It's nice, it's pleasant, it's educational, it's soothing.

So I, I think there's no way she couldn't like the sound of her own voice, the humility I am very conflicted on.

[00:47:50] Michael: That's where I was most conflicted. I, again, the same answer. I, I kind of do think that there is a. Kind of elitist vibe

[00:47:59] Amit: around your effort, right? First line

[00:48:06] Michael: of I do think that the company she's keeping and the kind of, I don't know, culture of, uh, creative intelligentsia that she swirls around, you know, has, has a snobbiness to it. So I think she probably wouldn't. My instinct, even though I kind of don't like, it sounds insulting to her to say, I don't think she would.

I don't think

[00:48:26] Amit: she would. I don't think she would either as close as those relationships were. I think we've, I think there's a little, a little too much man. There's a little above it. There's a little above it in us there. Yeah, there's a little, little bit. Yep. You're born into a Hollywood family. Hard to get that out of your

[00:48:41] Michael: head.

There you go. OK, category 10. We're doing a little bit of rebranding here. We're now going to call this category Control Z. This is where we look for the big do overs, the things in life that we might have done differently. I had one. I wrote marrying Carl, but not because of the relationship itself. I think the compromise she made, the one that she never should have done and that she would like to do over, is moving to Washington, D.

C. She is a New York woman through and through. She was born there. Even though she grew up in Beverly Hills, I think she felt at home in Manhattan. And I think when she married Carl Bernstein and said, okay, I'll move to DC. Those kinds of geographic moves mean a lot for a creative, right? And I think that she was not a DC woman.

So it's the marriage kind of, but even more than that, the willingness to move and relocate. I think that that's her big control Z moment. Okay, uh, what do you got

[00:49:42] Amit: also Karl Bernstein related? I feel a little bad that we're owning so much in it So, you know this affair that he had she aired very publicly there were some statements made about what is worse those who cheat or those that expose their children to this fact and I wonder about that.

Again, this is one of those things that I don't know how to place myself in those shoes. But I wonder if she would control Z, that whole public airing of it, for the sake of the children. And her son in the documentary, in his face to face with his father Carl Bernstein, was like, yeah, for a long time, I was really, really pissed at you.

And... I don't know how to deal with that, man. Like, it's, it's, it is definitely between her and him. I'm not sure how important it is that the kids know this and what steps you need to take to protect the kids from that reality.

[00:50:50] Michael: I think it's, well, okay, first of all, it's complicated. And I don't know what's right or wrong here.

I know I would definitely hit control, and then my other finger would sort of hover over the Z button on this one, if I'm really looking at it. Because I think what the risk is, is that your ego and pride are getting involved in an unhealthy way. You know, even if it hurts the kids, I need to air this shit out publicly, because fuck him for what he did.

Right? That's pride. And that may feel good in the moment, and that may be the kind of thing you want to do over. I also think another interpretation of the same thing is, I have to stand up for myself publicly, and I need my children to see me stand up for myself publicly, and like it or not, we are public figures, and this needs to be out there.

And maybe both things are true, Amit. You know, maybe both things are true. Whether it's a big control Z moment, I really don't know. And I don't know how to approach these, but I, I do think parenting is so much, and I've said this before, about modeling. And I do think that if you're Nora Ephron and you're an icon and, you know, you want to stand up for what, for, for certain principles, there is a, I have to stand up for myself here.

And I need to do that in a way that is consistent with the fact that I am a public persona. And that my cheating husband is a public persona. But I think you're right to wonder about this one. And I think that it is a, it is a control Z, a bowl moment. So I I'm not, I'm not resolved on what's right or wrong here.

And I do wonder if she questioned it.

[00:52:25] Amit: Cause to be clear, this is not just letting the inner circle know and letting the neighbors know this is airing it to the international. No, this is the

[00:52:31] Michael: Washington post knows this is the New York Times right? Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson and Mike Nichols know.

Everybody

[00:52:39] Amit: knew who was of age at that time. I, I,

[00:52:42] Michael: I, there's a part of me that also admires it though too, man. I don't know, but I think it's complicated. I think it's complicated. Second to last category, cocktail, coffee, or cannabis. This is where we ask, which one would we most want to do with our dead celebrity?

This may be a question of what drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person, or another philosophy is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them that we are most curious about. I kept this pretty simple and went coffee. I think that she's funny. And I think that, um, she's witty, like really witty, witty.

And like, it's coming at you fast. And I want my brain moving at a pace that keeps up with her wit. And I would love to just like have an energetic. caffeinated conversation with Nora Ephron. I think that'd just be so much fun. And you know, somewhere in Manhattan, I mean not so different from the coffee image that I had with Gene Wilder, but this one's a little bit more like, I want a strong cup of coffee.

Let's go. Let's talk. I want to hear it. Um, And I think we could go in a lot of different direction directions. I think it could be about politics I think it could be about feminism. I think it could be about parenting I think it could be about all kinds of things that I think she like I would just love to Pick her brain to use that phrase and i'd like to do it with a nice strong cup of coffee

[00:54:00] Amit: Uh, i'm about to emasculate the hell out of myself, but rose all day.

Oh good, man She had a love for pink champagne. In fact, it was served at her memorial service So I didn't specify pink champagne, but I went with rosé and this goes back to why they pink This is what you said, uh about being a conflicted romantic and uh, I just want to hang out. I mean right she's funny She's quick witted, but she also It is rare to have that and also be such a lifelong romantic, and I think that colors her view of the world, and I'm not even necessarily talking about love and about romance, but I think the type of person that holds that idea of romanticism alive can see the colors of the world differently, can see the scenes of nature, can hear different words and meanings in songs, and I think it would be a hell of a hangout, and it would be a funny one, too.

That's what I

[00:54:57] Michael: want. I think, I think we have the start of a script here. I feel like we've got a movie. Ah.

[00:55:03] Amit: Ahmet and Nora. It would be like the sequel to Julie and Julia. I remake those films. Or

[00:55:08] Michael: maybe we need to get in touch with Rob Reiner. We'll see. He might, he might be into this. Okay. We've arrived. Our final category.

The Vanderbeek. Named after James Vanderbeek, who famously said in Varsity Blues, I don't want your life. Ahmet, do you want Nora Ephron's life?

[00:55:29] Amit: So one thing that we didn't get into enough that I, I don't really like that much about her work and her creation. It was always about falling in love and that act, it was not much about the enduring present moment of after love, and I don't like that.

And like I'm. There's so much of Bollywood, which I've, I've been exposed to, like every movie is like falling in love, and I think Hollywood has less of that problem, but she always did that. She over emphasized the falling part, and I think a lot of it was her commitment to revealing the dynamic between men and women, which is best veryuite Probably during that phase,

[00:56:13] Michael: but yeah, I was gonna say this is done make for good movies necessarily like a normal boring.

Happy marriage

[00:56:18] Amit: great No, it definitely does somebody is smart and quick witted As her absolutely she can make it. So you're right. I don't like that That's kind of the problem that I have with the art In the creation. I like a lot of it. That's the one way in which I'm conflicted. All of these curveballs thrown at her in especially, you know, the second marriage to Carl and how that became so much of a centerpiece of her life.

You know, I, I definitely don't want that to happen to me, but to be built with the tenacity and the conflicted romantic, but to still have the romantic at the end of that. I love this woman. for that. I love that she is a party thrower. I don't think I want to be a hard ass as much as she was. I think she kind of had to be as a result of the times.

I don't think you necessarily, I don't think, like, Alina Dunham, who is probably a very good example of a modern day Nora Ephron, Has to be that as much I wouldn't want to be that, but you know what, it's the times, right? You can't change that. It's the, it's the present that it was in. And so over the course of the last couple of weeks, I've really grown to like this woman.

It was, it was a bit of a love hate, you know, um, with some of the things, but if I just take one step back and look at the arc and where she saw the romantic in it outside of. Of love. I just mean in the joy of life and the way that she embraced it at the end and aired everything in between. Yes, I want your life, Norephrine.

[00:57:59] Michael: Excellent answer, and I agree with a lot of it. I mean, I think I was going to go a slightly different direction than you. It only in one way. It's the word icon has come up a couple of times in this conversation. And I do think that Nora Ephron is sort of on that bubble of celebrity icon, a status that, that she's remembered.

Like she's, she's somebody who was. I think much to her chagrin, invited onto every panel about women in Hollywood. I think that she was asked to comment on that in a way that was probably exhausting to her. But I also think that she is a trailblazer in a male dominated industry. And is making statements ahead of her time.

And every time we've looked at somebody who's sort of approaching icon status on Famous Gravy, I wonder about the responsibility of that. I wonder about the added burden that places on you and how hard it is to live up to that as a complicated human being who people want to see ideals represented and, you know, how much do you have to think about?

How much does that mess with your head to live up to those standards? I'm thinking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I'm thinking about Mary Tyler Moore. This has come up before Betty White. This has come up before on our show. So that gives me a little bit of pause because I do think that that is hard and I don't really want to be famous and I really don't think I want to be an icon, right?

I think it's like even less just because I think it's hard, you know? I see a woman here who lived a life Where everything is copy, and with some exceptions, yes, she was able to write the script for her life, and did so, and was dealt incredibly hard blows, but also, uh, bounced back, and turned Trauma into creativity and how does what they be?

I mean, I, I don't know that I need a whole hell of a lot more than that. I want an experience rich life. I want to meet interesting people. I want to taste wonderful food. I want to throw amazing parties. I want to travel the world. I want to have a family. And I see like so many boxes checked here. There are some things that give me pause.

I wish there was a little bit more humility and I do wonder about the burden of an icon like status, but that's not enough to sway me. I also want your life. Nora Ephron, so I am also a yes. Okay, two yeses.

[01:00:30] Amit: Michael, you are Nora Ephron, you have died, and before you now is Saint Peter, the proxy for the gateway to all things afterlife. What is your unique Contribution to the world.

[01:00:48] Michael: I may be wrong, but I think that everybody down there on planet Earth is looking for love. And a lot of people are especially looking for love in a relationship and with a soulmate.

I think we all need that on some level. I think we all need to receive it, and I think we all need to give it. And that is a hard and complicated and confusing process. And it's the source of a lot of pain and conflict, but it's also the source of a lot of validation. I don't know how we go about doing that, but I do know that storytelling, and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we make sense of our own needs and our own virtues, how we give love and how we receive it, that's what I did.

I told stories about love in all its beauty and all its complexity. In that way, I think I helped people understand themselves, their partners, and one of the things we care most about in this world and in life. For that, I hope you let me in.