Show Notes
In this episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice, Patricia and Nicole recap a birthday trip to New York City where they saw multiple shows, including a standout production of Cats: The Jellicle Ball — a reimagining of the classic musical set in the world of ballroom culture. The main topic explores the communication skill of distinguishing between something being objectively bad versus simply not being to your taste, touching on linguistic relativity and how the language we use shapes our perceptions of others.
Mentioned on the show:
- EEDA Pod Website
- Bookshop Affiliate Storefront (links below are affiliate)
- Become a patron! Patreon.com/eedapod
- Subscribe to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Newsletter
- Our merch shop is open!
- Wikipedia: Linguistic Relativity
- The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster by Shelley Puhak
- This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
- Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar
Find the full show notes with all the books mentioned in this episode and official transcript on our website: https://eedapod.com/
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Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Music: [Intro Music]
Patricia: Hey there, baddies, welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice. The podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And I came here to drink decaf coffee and record a podcast, and I’m all out of coffee. I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle.
We’re recording this show on April 18th, 2026.
Patricia: Reminder that this podcast is independently run, which means we, it’s just us and Jen and we are paying for it all, and we are hoping to be supported by listeners. Downloading, sharing, and giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support. If you don’t have the spell slots to write something, we understand. Thank you so much for those five star ratings though. Those help tremendously.
Nicole: And if you have a few bucks to donate, our Patreon memberships start at $3 a month and there are three tiers to choose from. And if you’re feeling generous this April?
Patricia: Sure.
Nicole: You can always gift a subscription!
Patricia: Yeah. And also, you know what I’m, I’m thinking of lowering the price of that top tier, so keep an eye out.
Nicole: Ooh.
Patricia: Hmm.
Nicole: If you’re looking for other ways to support us and you’d like to get a little something back on that, aside from just our fantastic voices. We have a merch shop and you can visit that at our website, eedapod.com, where you can also find links to our bookshop, where you can see any books that we have mentioned on the show, as well as a link to the EEDA newsletter, which Patricia puts out every other week on alternate weeks from the show?
Patricia: No, I think the same week as the show.
Nicole: Same week as the show. Just on a Friday instead of a Wednesday.
Patricia: Correct.
Nicole: So if you want your every other week to be filled with Patricia and I,
Patricia: [Laugh]
Nicole: you can go check out the newsletter and if you really want to, the second tier of the Patreon gets you access to the Patreon, plus the newsletter at a dollar less than if you paid for them separately.
Patricia: Yeah, you get a discount.
Nicole: Discount.
Patricia: So thank you all for your patience. We took off last episode. We needed a little break. We had gone to New York for my birthday again.
Nicole: I hear it’s a hell of a town.
Patricia: [Laugh] We saw four shows
Nicole: in three days.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah. Nicole allowed me to fly my freak flag, I guess.
Nicole: And see theater?
Patricia: And see theater.
We saw Oh, Mary! With John Cameron Mitchell and Simu Liu who is just stunning in person and that was fun.
Nicole: That was a lot of fun. John Cameron Mitchell’s, Mary Todd Lincoln is a riot.
Patricia: Yeah. We saw Ragtime, uh, the Ragtime revival, which is one of my favorite shows. It’s definitely one of my favorite shows to sing along to.
It’s a beast of a show. It’s three hours long, and it was phenomenal.
Nicole: Who was the, the man who played the lead?
Patricia: Joshua Henry played Coalhouse Walker, Jr.
Nicole: Good lord, that man’s voice.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like they don’t, I’m like, they don’t make voices like that anymore, and they don’t write roles for voice like for baritones like that anymore.
Just brilliant. Everyone in the show is brilliant.
We saw The Wild Party at encores through New York City Center. Which is another one of my absolute favorite shows, possibly my most favorite show. And this was a revival that they were just doing for two weeks. It is an absolute bonkers schedule. The cast will rehearse for 10 days and then they’ll put on the show for like two, four day weekends or something like that.
Nicole: This show is exactly what its name says. It is a wild party.
Patricia: Yeah.
And it’s based off kind of a long poem, a novel in verse, whatever you wanna call it, about a wild party in like prohibition era. It was a very scandalous poem, and I just, I loved it. I’d never seen it staged, but I know every word from the, you know, original cast recording.
Then we also saw what is really, really bringing me a lot of joy, which is CATS The Jellicle Ball.
Nicole: Y’all, if you have a chance to see this, if you’re anywhere near New York, if you are any kind of a theater person, go see it. It is, it is how CATS should be.
Patricia: I never thought I would be an Andrew Lloyd Weber apologist, but I will say it now.
This show was brilliant. In the context of Ballroom, and we’re talking about, you know, some people know it from like the idea of voguing, some people know Paris Is Burning, and within this context, the plot and storyline of CATS actually makes sense.
Nicole: I love that even Andrew Lloyd Weber saw it and he’s like, yes, this is brilliant. Y’all have taken my show and done something amazing with it.
Patricia: Oh yeah, he’s all over the internet just raving about it.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: He loves it. Everyone loves it. It is pure joy incarnate.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Just. I love it. I love it. So much. I’m, I’m, I’m wearing my CATS Jellicle Ball sweatshirt right now.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: I am low key, obsessed. I will look at any video on the internet because it just brings me so much joy.
Nicole: Yeah, no, this is, I almost have no words about it. Despite all the words we have said, like.
Patricia: Yeah.
And of course I got to see friends, which was great. I got to see a few of my friends over there. We took some walks in Central Park.
We went to the Met Museum, twice.
Nicole: We went twice. It was great.
You found a place, we had Viennese breakfast.
Oh, yes.
Patricia: Which I don’t even know what I had, but it was delicious. It involved potatoes, eggs, julienned pickles. I don’t know. It was delightful. I had some Puerto Rican coffee, which has changed my life.
Nicole: You found like the most expensive puerto Rican coffee.
Patricia: It’s so good though. It’s uh, like 787 Coffee or something like that.
And then one of my friends over there told us about Kalustyan’s, maybe is how you pronounce it. I don’t know. It’s this massive, mostly dry goods store. So many beans, herbs, spices, teas, like all the things.
Thankfully, I can order stuff online because we couldn’t possibly fit everything I wanted to buy in our luggage.
Nicole: Y’all, she was trying to bring home pounds of things.
Patricia: Yeah.
Thankfully on the return trip, they didn’t bother us about our luggage being overweight.
Yeah, that was, that was good. That was good.
But enough yapping about New York City for now. I will yap about it again, I’m sure, because I am who I am.
Nicole: EEDA, NYC.
Music: [Transition Music]
Patricia: Today I wanna talk about a communication skill that I am not perfect at by any means, but I try. And it’s one that I think benefits everyone, and I realize that’s a bolder statement than I usually make. You know, some, many, most. I usually say like, this may benefit, like, most people, but, but I’m gonna stand by it.
I think this communication skill and way of thinking we’re going to talk about today benefits everyone in some way.
Nicole: What’s interesting about this is it even benefits people if they are not the person using this skill.
Patricia: Yeah, yeah.
And it’s kind of a two part situation. First, before you could use, you know, the communication skill, it’s learning how to recognize the difference between something being bad versus it’s just something you don’t like.
Nicole: And we’re not talking bad here in the like eighties, nineties colloquial slang sense. Michael Jackson’s Bad.
Patricia: Or Bad Mama Jama.
Nicole: Yes, exactly. No, this is thinking that something is not good.
This is really common, especially when it comes to food. It’s easy for people to confuse food tasting bad
Patricia: to them. Right.
Nicole: To them
Patricia: mm-hmm
Nicole: versus just not liking it. Especially if someone has a really narrow window of what they like to eat, or if they’re averse to foods from other cultures or, you know, seasoning.
Patricia: Yeah, and sometimes food does taste bad, right? The food is off. It’s maybe over salted and almost inedible. Right. But yeah, I find, and I am guilty, people have lots of food judgements and this isn’t even getting into the health and wellness of it all.
Nicole: Yeah. I think, like, personally, I don’t like iceberg lettuce.
Is it bad? Honestly, no. It’s not bad. It’s just I don’t like it.
Patricia: Yeah. You also don’t like the crunchy, spiny parts of like romaine, right?
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: That doesn’t make it bad.
Nicole: No, I just don’t want to eat the spines.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: They’re not for me.
Patricia: We were in a restaurant when we were traveling where after a meal that we did not like, they brought out a deconstructed tiramisu and I was livid.
Nicole: I remember. ’cause we were joking about dessert is gonna be deconstructed.
Patricia: Yeah, and I was like, if they bring me a deconstructed tiramisu, I’m gonna flip the table. And then they brought this thing out and you just looked at me like, please don’t flip this table. In this foreign country.
The restaurant was in like some old Medici villa or something.
Yeah.
Nicole: Like it was ridiculous.
Patricia: Um, it tasted fine. Like it wasn’t bad, like it didn’t make me sick, but I definitely did not like it. And I was deeply unimpressed with whatever Lincoln Log BS they served me. But there were other people there that enjoyed it.
Nicole: Another, I think, classic example of this, at least that we refer to in our household, is the whole disco sucks movement.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: And this one, for bonus points, is also full of misogyny and homophobia. And this is where I urge you to pay special attention. If people are calling something bad and it’s something that girls, women, or queer people like…
Patricia: Yeah. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Like,
Nicole: yes
Patricia: uh, the color pink is bad. We see it around Pilates. A lot of dudes being like, oh, Pilates is so easy. You’ll also hear it, romance is bad, like the romance literary genre, rom-coms, like, oh, those are bad.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: They’re not good. They’re not literature and like…
Nicole: Yeah, and like the whole disco sucks thing was really part of this, but also like it’s a bunch of dudes whose like girlfriends wanted to hang out and dance and not spend time with them at their, like, hard rock shows and therefore disco sucks was born.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: Because it was something that a lot of women and queer people were enjoying.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah, and, and like you were alluding to, it’s always some unseasoned, unwashed dude that is pooping on other people’s music just like in general. It’s bad, it’s not real music. I always like to ask them like where they got their music degree and training. Like personally, I’m not into music that involves dudes screaming. Does that mean that I think something like metal is bad? No, I don’t. It’s just not for me.
Nicole: And I think that’s the crux of it there. Is it bad or is it just not for you? And what we’re getting at here is that the basics of this is that the language we use shapes the way we think and perceive the world and other people.
I don’t wanna get too much into the weeds with this here, and apologies to any linguistics people out there, but if you’re interested in this, it is essentially an idea called linguistic relativity.
Now there is a lot like capital A LOT of research and writing about this. And it touches into all kinds of other fields, notably psychology and mental health.
Patricia: Yeah, and you’ll see a lot of self-help is based around this too, like this positive self-talk and and things like that.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: And as you mentioned, it can affect how we view ourselves, but also other people.
One within recent years that I really started to understand is using the phrase underrepresented groups. And using that phrase, puts the onus on the people in those groups as if those of us in those groups aren’t standing up and trying to get ourselves represented. Like, oh, underrepresented groups. They’re not trying.
Personally, I’ve switched to the phrase historically excluded groups because it more accurately reflects what is happening.
Nicole: So coming back around to what we were talking about, saying something is bad also reinforces your negative view of that something. For example, saying disco sucks will then also impact how you view people that like disco. You’ll start to think that they suck too.
Now, of course, there are some things that are objectively bad. Eating hemlock. Racism. Genocide.
Patricia: Crocs.
Nicole: And putting raisins in things like cinnamon rolls or potato salad.
Patricia: Okay. Crocs and, uh, cinnamon rolls was a joke, but I stand by the potato salad.
Nicole: I don’t, I think it’s objectively bad to put raisins in cinnamon rolls.
Patricia: No, that’s what I mean. I stand by it. No, that’s what I mean. I stand by it being objectively bad.
Nicole: In cinnamon rolls?
Patricia: No.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: No. Sultanas in cinnamon rolls can be nice.
Nicole: No they can’t.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: They ruin a cinnamon roll.
Patricia: Mm mm
Nicole: You can keep them in your oatmeal cookies.
Patricia: I disagree to disagree.
Nicole: You can keep them in your oatmeal cookies that trick me into thinking it’s a chocolate chip from a distance.
Patricia: Sneaky oatmeal cookies.
Well, this brings us around the communication skill that we mentioned earlier, and Nicole jumped the gun a little bit in the script that we want everyone to learn and that’s being able to say, it’s not for me, instead of that thing you like is bad, of course. Unless it’s actually bad, like harmful.
Nicole: So why do we do this? Well, like we said, how you speak helps shape how you view things and how you think about them. It’s less about being positive and more about recognizing when to reserve judgment.
Patricia: Yeah. Also, for example, it feels pretty terrible if a person say, got invited to our home and looks at our pantry and is like, ew, is that spam?
Ew, you drink flavored coffee? Ugh. Are we listening to a 90’s mix?
Nicole: First off, if you poo-poo our nineties mix, get out.
Patricia: GTFO. Just what are you, what are you even doing here?
It not only makes me question inviting that person over, but it affects my comfort level overall in sharing other things that I like with them.
I’m less inclined to be open with someone when I feel like they’re just going to judge the things that I like or bring me joy.
Nicole: I’m pretty sure this is one of those things that actually helps you win friends and influence people. If something just isn’t for you, you can always keep that to yourself. You can just let people enjoy things.
Joy can be really hard to come by, especially right now.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah, agreed.
It’s actually taken me a long time to get to a place where I could just be like, wow, we really like different food. Or along the same lines like we have very different palettes, or this music isn’t for me. Sometimes there’s humor on the internet that someone shares and I’m able to say like, wow, I’m not the audience for this.
Nicole: But someone out there is.
There is a pot for every lid.
Patricia: There’s a pot, there’s a Tupperware for every lid.
Nicole: Yeah.
Music: [Transition Music]
Nicole: Okay. Patricia, what is your takeaway from this one?
Patricia: Yeah, it’s really honing that skill of recognizing is this thing bad or do I just not like it?
Nicole, what’s your takeaway?
Nicole: Following up to that learning how to say, that’s not for me, but maybe not always to someone’s face.
Patricia: That too. That too. That’s, that’s really important.
Like,
Nicole: those can be inside words.
Patricia: Those could be inside thoughts.
Nicole, we have a little bit of time. I wanna ask what you’re reading right now, or have you read anything good lately?
Nicole: I just wrapped up this book last night. This is The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster by Shelley Puhak.
This is the real story of the blood countess, Elizabeth Bathory. There is longstanding pop culture references and other things to Elizabeth Bathory. I think Lady Gaga even played a version of her in American Horror Story.
Patricia: Really?
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Oh.
Nicole: The crux of this for people don’t know, is that she was a Hungarian Countess who supposedly killed somewhere between 200 and 600 young women and virgins and bathed in their blood.
And this is of course not true. This is just like basically slander.
Patricia: Huge smear campaign.
Nicole: This is, yeah. And this is the story of that. The author Shelley Puhak, goes like deep into the archives, and like letters and everything from this era. And you know, Elizabeth Bathory was a very powerful woman from a powerful family. She owned multiple properties and had vast amounts of wealth and jewels at her expense. And due to various reasons, some of them political, some of them people who just didn’t like her because of various reasons. And that she was a 50 something year old woman who was a widow, whose children were coming up in the world as well to be powerful, did not want her to have this level of power, and really wanted her properties and wealth and jewels. And started a smear campaign that has lasted for 400 years.
Patricia: I mean, yeah. Yeah. And people are still basing their books off it and, and
Nicole: yeah
Patricia: everything. Yeah.
Nicole: Yes.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And there’s like vampire lore associated with this and everything.
Patricia: Totally. Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah. This is that story. This is the story, the true story of this woman and how some powerful and not so powerful men really ruined her name and her entire family. And it is fascinating.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: If you are, if you’re at all curious about true history of things like this.
Patricia: Yeah. Yeah. And we’ll of course link it in our bookshop.
Nicole: Yeah. What about you? What did you read recently?
Patricia: So in March, actually for Book Riot I ended up reading Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar and I loved that story collection so much that I actually wanted to read more of her stuff. And so I read, This Is How You Lose the Time War.
I know I’m way behind. I think this came out in like 2020. And by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It won multiple awards. It’s a sci-fi novella. Actually, it’s still so popular after what, like six years now, that the wait lists, like out of all our library cards are multiple weeks, still.
Nicole: Multiple weeks
Patricia: For the audio books.
Nicole: to months.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Some of them are like over two months long still.
Patricia: And you know what? It’s legit. It’s so good. It is so queer, but not in the stereotypical way. It’s told back and forth through messages between two warring kind of time factions, um, and their time travelers. There’s red and blue, and one of them is from like the more science technology faction that goes back and forth along the timelines and is tweaking time so that they win, controlling the end.
And then the other one is from like the garden nature natural faction that’s doing the same thing. Going, traveling through timelines and tweaking things so that they will get control in the end.
And they start leaving messages for each other. And first, like they’re really like, they’re trying to kill each other, right? Like they’re enemies. But over time, you know, as can happen through sending messages back and forth, they start to grow fond of each other and then more so. But the way these messages are left, like these aren’t just letters, these aren’t just handwritten letters, right.
These are just, I don’t even know how to describe it. Like, it’s like, oh, the letter was told to a bee and I went to this timeline and the bee stung me and the letter appeared to my mind or something. I don’t know, like I, it’s just. And that’s what’s queer about it. It’s just like, uh, so dramatic. So I really love this book. I see why it won so many awards. I see why it’s so popular.
I see why the wait lists are so long. I cannot wait, Nicole, until it’s your turn to get the book. I know you’re on a wait list with some library. And it’s just wonderful. Fantastic.
Nicole: Yeah. You have been excited about this book for a couple weeks now, and I am just stuck here in library limbo waiting for my copy to come in.
Okay. Patricia, what has been filling your cup lately?
Patricia: I mean, still New York. I feel like I have different homes for different parts of my body. And like New York is the home of my heart. The Bay Area is the home of my brain. Florence is the home of my body.
It’s places where I just like step off the plane or whatever and it’s like, yes, I just feel like I’m at home. New Orleans is the home of my spirit, and, and so I feel like I, I feel very fed by going to New York and my heart is very full, so I’m, I’m desperately trying to hold onto as much of that as, as I can.
Nicole, what’s filling your cup?
Nicole: Yeah. New York City filled me up in so many ways that I am desperately trying to hold onto. And really, I’m at a point where I’m trying not to feel too bad about having already poured out so much of that while still like trying to hold onto it.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: I, I don’t know. In some ways I feel like that, I dunno if you’ve seen that robot that’s like trying to like squeegee up its liquid while spilling it at the same time or something like, just like, no, my, my cup It ran over and I desperately need all of it still.
Patricia: Yeah. You, I mean like I look at the pictures we took of ourselves and just like, so happy.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So happy, so.
Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com, we’ll leave a link to that in our show notes.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our Bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing, Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at eedapod, and email us at eedapod at gmail dot com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
Nicole: We would also love it if you subscribed and rated us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts that allow for ratings. It really helps other people find us.
Patricia: We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support there is going to help us keep this show going, especially without ads. You can find patreon.com/eedapod.
In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book. We’ll be talking to you soon.
Nicole: I feel like if New York is your heart, the Bay Area is your mind.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: Florence is your body.
Patricia: Yep.
Nicole: And New Orleans is your soul. The only place I haven’t gone to is New Orleans, and I need to do that so I can collect the Patricia Infinity Stones.
Patricia: Well, it’s on our list maybe in a few years.