Remembering Diane Keaton with Fiona Zublin

0:05Hello and welcome to Sentimental Garbage, the podcast where we remember Diane Keaton for who we think she really was. My name is Karen O'Donoghue and I've never seen Book Club, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to and that I wasn't going to get around to it. And joining me is Grammy Hall herself. It's Fiona Zublin. Hello. Hi. Diane Keaton, who we think she really was, she was our moms. Yeah. Or like Aunt Diane. Let's skip to the end. She's our moms. And the reason why everybody has spent the last kind of week randomly tearing up on their phones because they've seen a clip from Baby Boom or First Wives Club or God forbid the Family Stone is because we have all in the last week, us all millennial ladies and I guess Gen X ladies as well have to be confronted with the idea that one day our moms will die and Diane Keaton feels like the first major symbol of that.

1:03Yeah. yeah i i had this idea that maybe part of the uh upsetness was that it felt like very soon after robert redford also like a symbol of sort of the same era but like i don't think anyone really thought robert redford was their dad okay so weirdly my dad used to get mistaken for robert redford and so i actually did kind of have a conniption when robert redford died Oh my God. He was just like a very tall blonde man during the seventies. And so it was like, yeah, that used to be like his calling card was like one time in New York, someone mistook me for Robert Redford. And so actually I, um, I sort of, yeah, went into one when Robert Redford died.

1:49So this is really a real one-two punch. There's a William Goldman anecdote about this where someone in comes up to him at a table and insists, oh, you are Robert Redford. I recognize you. but he's sitting at a table with Robert Redford, who is just like laughing helplessly. I assume what happened is someone was like, oh, Robert Redford's at that table. And that guy actually didn't know what he looked like. But, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, good detective work from you. Also, one of the major French newspapers, their obituary for Robert Redford started with, that was the American we liked.

2:23Sorry. Let's continue with Diane. Oh, my God. Because, of course, because of, no, wait. he was behind Sundance right not which is different to Cannes so really they just like him because they like him not because he's like they're like he's hot he likes independent film also hot god god bless the French um so usually Fiona um I kind of call you in whenever there's a kind of American girl in Paris or about Paris kind of news to cover you've done um Le Divorce in the past a book we both love and a film we both like uh and also you've also done uh Julie and Julia one of the great kind of American girls obsessed with Paris things but but here today we're talking about Diane Keaton um we're kind of this is the first time we've ever done a sentimental garbage that's like this where we just sort of hold space for somebody's whole career and what they meant to us and and trying to pick apart why they meant what they meant to us um and why don't you tell me why you you are my diane keaton expert of choice okay well it all starts with uh you doing a christmas episode about little women and me having the flu and listening to it uh you and ella were talking about little women and i formulated this like absolute crackpot theory which later in our voice notes we determined is 100 correct which is that the family stone and little women are the same um they are obviously the family stone is not an adaptation of Little Women, but all of the themes are the same.

3:52And I think this did start because I realized there are the two pieces of media I can think of where someone breaks up with somebody and then that person marries their sibling and like everyone's just kind of fine with it. And, you know, and then sort of looking at the parallels, I was like, all right, so we've got we've got an obvious Meg in that pregnant older sister who's always running around watching Judy Garland movies, very Meg coded. Um, there is a tragic death, you know, so we've got that. And, uh, and the message that I left you in my like flu addled state was like, I just don't understand because there's no Joe.

4:26Like, I don't see where the Joe is in this obvious little women, uh, parallel. And you responded with the absolutely correct take that Diane Keaton is Joe, Diane Keaton, the, you know, the mother figure who is obsessive about both being this like very independent, cool lady, but also about this possessiveness and protectiveness of her family that ultimately gives way to love and to like letting them be who they need to be. And yeah, okay, we're just going to start crying now, aren't we? it's I mean I know you're quoting me to me from a voice note sent by me three years ago but I really do think that's a good read for me but like the the you're so right the the family stone I mean I guess a good way to do this would be to sort of start with her later work and work our way backwards and I do think family stone you know family stone is one of those movies where it's almost like a case study for why this podcast exists at all.

5:36Because it is a movie that came out in the 2000s at the kind of like height of Sarah Jessica Parker's fame for Sex and the City. The height of like Rachel McAdams' sort of star rising because she was so beloved from The Notebook and from Mean Girls. And it was, I remember very clearly it being advertised as this Christmas family comedy. and the advertisement was all just people running from room to room in this big kind of like New England mansion house kind of thing. It felt like a grown-up home alone somehow. Like lots of people like running around with like aborted sort of casserole dishes of Strava, a dish that I still don't know what it is.

6:15It's some sort of egg monstrosity, I'm not sure. Right, right. And women sitting on the floor laughing with egg all over them. and then everyone went to go see it and it revealed itself to be this like very complex family drama of this uh eldest son who comes home to his very kind of liberal lefty npr sort of household um which is such a kind of a dream of both a like a cozy family home that we wish we could all come home to um that but it's not like it's sort of cozy and it's a matriarchy without being too traditional. It's like, we love our gay son and his partner. And we make jokes about like, oh, this is who our daughter lost her virginity to.

7:04And it's relaxed and it's easy. And about this son bringing his kind of uptight, sort of right-wing coded, conservative girlfriend home and trying to sort of convince his mother that she's the one he's gonna marry. and then the kind of the one-two punch of the movie being that this is this mother's kind of last Christmas with her family oh god um and um yeah something you said to me about this movie which really moved me was that it's it's kind of this struggle about a mother and her son of him trying to prove to her that he's gonna be okay after she's gone and her trying to prove to him like I know you're going to be okay because I raised you um but you don't need to be okay on the timeline of my sickness and you don't need to have everything dotted and crossed by the time I go and it's so emotional and so complex and even the ways in which Sarah Jessica Parker is politics which are frequently horrible are expressed still live within this realm of like naturalism and people hated this film.

8:13Like people really didn't like it. I think there's probably a few reasons for that. I mean, I think that it is like, it was probably marketed not very well. You know, they thought, oh, let's market it to people who think they're going to watch Something's Gotta Give and then actually it's not that at all. It's a lot more like sort of an Alexander Payne movie who directed Sideways and The Holdovers, which is another like really sort of offbeat, odd Christmas movie that I loved. But the other thing I was thinking about, The Family Stone last night, and the other movie that it really reminds me of in some ways is Stepmom, because both of them have this sort of first act that feels a bit like screwball comedy-ish.

8:59That's like, oh, you know, two women fighting. One of them is with a man, and the other one used to be with him. Although in The Family Stone's case, obviously it's the new girlfriend and the mom. Um, but then sort of it hits you near the end with the realization that, you know, this, this sort of is actually a movie about dying and about, uh, a family losing their mother and that person trying to make sure her family is going to be okay, but also like accepting that her family is going to be okay. and um I have a two-year-old daughter so I can no longer watch stepmom or the family stone in some cases because obviously that just uh you know makes me uh very morbidly think about my own death and what photos people will have up of me in their house um oh totally I mean my sister has kids and she also is a cancer survivor and I remember last Christmas I was going through a real oh my god I'm watching stepmom I'm having such a cleansing cry and she was like why don't you try fucking off like what did he try like not getting in my whatsapp with conversations about stepmom

10:18um i i do think that like the the family stone is one of diane keaton's great mother roles but it's also like specifically for me, mostly about her relationship with her son and that conversation that we talked about where, you know, she says, don't ruin your life trying to make your life the perfect thing you think I want to see or you think that I need to see before I'm not here anymore, but rather, you know, I need you to live the life that you should actually have, you know, to do the real work to make yourself happy instead of trying to make me happy. Um, because you being happy is what makes me happy, obviously.

11:01Oh my God. Um, but, but I, I think there's also so many of like Diane Keaton's mother roles are about her being the mother to a daughter, which I think is one of the things that's like the most important to her fan base, which is us. Um, and, and how Diane Keaton's relationship with her screen daughters and appearances on screen, like makes us think about our moms. But I think we should also talk about her relationship in this movie with Rachel McAdams, the youngest daughter, Amy. Again, with the little women, Amy. And sort of how she comes across in the family and how Diane Keaton relates to her.

11:43Because it's so good. It's so good. Do you want me to take over while you cry? Yeah, go ahead. I'm just going to cry. It was something. Yeah. I just, I got it. I love this movie so much. And there's this bit towards the very end where Sergis Coppocker, who I think at this point is the only person who doesn't know that Diane Keaton is dying. And she has like tried so hard with this woman and she has failed and she has made some stupendous like gaffes. And she found, she uncovers her Christmas present to the whole family, which is like sort of six identical framed pictures of their mother pregnant this beautiful photograph and these beautiful silver frames and she gives it and there's like this this is the second time we've had this conversation I'm still crying and there's this like silence in the room and like and it's almost like it's such a so brilliantly played because it's almost like Sarah Jessica Parker thinks she's made another gaffe like she thinks that she's done something wrong again and she's like did I do bad and they're like no you did really good and and then um and then uh Diane Keaton sort of nudges Rachel and McAdams Amy who's her youngest and says that's you and me kid referring to obviously her pregnancy and um it's something I relate to a lot as like the youngest of a big family because there's something about being the youngest of a big family where you're always aware of um proportionally speaking you are getting the least amount of time with your parents like you always have this sort of like sort of sort of bedrock of envy for like your older siblings because they got all this time that you didn't have before you were born and like they got all these memories these holidays that like get quoted in the lore that you never were present for because you didn't have the good sense to be born yet and um you kind and And then like when you're coming up, everybody else sort of, you know, your parents try and make you as much of a priority as they can.

13:54But when there's four of you or in this case, five, I think you're always sort of like begging for that little bit of extra time. And something about her sort of touching her youngest and being like, that's you and me in there is like that thing of like, oh, just because you're getting the least time doesn't mean that you aren't the most important. the way that everybody is the most important you know and like so much of how amy behaves in that movie just so reminds me of like myself going home like she's such like a fucking brat like such a like like she's probably normal in her normal life with her npr coat um but then she comes home and she just reverts back to being this like seven um and it's yeah it's just a there's just a great amount of care in that film and it just shines through our diane in such a lovely way it's so good um the other thing about that is just you know one of the one of the real themes in that movie because of course diane keaton i hope everyone who listens to this is seeing the family stone because otherwise we've just like spoiled quite a lot of it but you should still watch it um is is that you know this sort of rush of to to make sure that your mom is there for the big moments yeah not because you necessarily need her but because it would make her happy and that that's one of those things with um with the Rachel McAdams character she's also she's the youngest but she's also sort of like the the the least far along of the family I guess maybe except for the sort of arrested development Luke Wilson character but like you know a lot of her siblings have gotten married or have children or, you know, various, various, have hit those milestones that like their mom's been able to be there for.

15:47And I think she's realizing that like, you know, unless she does end up married to this random paramedic high school boyfriend character who's sort of introduced in the very, very end that her mom won't even ever meet the person that she marries, then she'll never meet her kids. And it's, there's such a loss in that, you know, no matter how complicated your relationship with your mother there's such a loss in in not having them there to see that um for them and for you I think is well a big part of the like the sort of Diane Keaton is my mom fantasy kind of thing like it's like I I I do think there are many things about her that just reminds us of like something kind of quintessential about women of that generation in general um which we'll get on to in a second because we've been reading her memoirs and we feel like we've been like really spending the week getting to know her as best as we can um but she is always playing these mothers who are like really on the side of their children you know and like it's like that fantasy and maybe it happens to people you know once or twice in their lives or whatever that that kind of fantasy where like you're called into the principal's office and uh you know, they call your mother and your mother believes you and not them kind of thing.

17:11And I think, I think everybody has at least one story from their childhood like that. Or they should. But the, like in something like, even father of the bride, it's like she sort of stands up for her daughter's right to have like a preposterously expensive wedding. Or in baby boom, she sort of like um she kind of got there's a scene where she kind of thinks she's going to give her uh newly inherited daughter up for adoption then she kind of storms back and gets her or in um first wives club the way she kind of stands up for her daughter as well and like I think that really comes to this head in the family stone where Sarah Jessica Parker probably commits her worst crime of the film where she says, Diane Keaton makes this joke about how she wished that she would, at least one of her sons would be gay.

18:08Which again is like something that's very well observed about that line. Like, of course it's positive, but there's also something that's kind of show-offy. It's tokenizing, it's showing off. It's like, oh, I'm so, God, I'm such a great mom. I'm so down with the gays. Like it is kind of embarrassing that she's like that. And I think it was embarrassing even then. But then Sérgio Parker's character says something to the effect of, I would hope that no one would wish for that. I would hope that you would want your child to be normal. And then she tries to recover lost ground, sort of being like, oh, I mean that, you know, for the child, you would want them to have as easy a time as possible.

18:55you know kind of she keeps trying to recoup and and the both their the parents both Diane Keaton and I can't remember who plays her husband are just like shut up like you just need to shut like we've entertained you long enough you just need to shut the fuck up right now and and there's such an impulse I think in uh in women of that generation to kind of make it okay you know smooth things over be like oh you're a guest like like kind of just yeah just uh exist in silence rather than kind of taking a stand and the fact that they take a stand at that moment and instead of just sort of letting there be an awkward silence letting the you know their their gay son kind of twist in the wind knowing that this woman has just said this they stand up for him in this way that is just like it's what you would want your parents to do for you you know you know even even if they they are embarrassing you you want them to never shrink back for from how much they love you and that it's their job to be on your side yeah and just like the way the scene is played is because they're they're they're gay their gay son is also their deaf son and it's and I feel like even the movie kind of knows what the movie is smart enough to know what it's doing it's like yes the gay son is also the deaf son and his partner is also black it's like kind of this kind of idea of a liberal fantasy yeah that is is quite interesting um and I get and I guess part of what Sergis Kupaka's role in it is being like this family does have this liberal fantasy and we're going to throw in this person to sort of twist like kind of expose the ways in which actually they can be quite intolerant yeah and but but they the sort of son just sort of looks down into his plate and is so so hurt by this attack that his own sort of family Christmas and kind of won't sort of pay attention to anybody and then diane keaton does this thing where she just she's trying to get his attention and then she throws she throws her cutlery or she throws a fork across the table and she's like hey you know she's like won't she won't like let him disappear into himself um and she won't let him sit with that and she sort of signs to him like you are more normal to me than any asshole kind of pointing at her and she just yeah tells him that she loves him and then you're like oh yeah maybe it is embarrassing and tokenistic and sort of cringe when a woman says I wish I had a gay son or I prayed for a gay son or whatever but actually do you know what sometimes those women are also very equipped to have gay sons yeah and I just thought I've I've seen so many men I follow on social media this week posting that clip and being like this is like we all wish that we had this you know this is this was a fantasy yeah yeah

22:04but like before we get into the other movies I think we should talk briefly about um Diane is a memoirist yeah well she's got like four memoirs and then she's got some collections of art books including a clown paintings one I didn't look at that one um I do she got around man she did things just to do them she did I I will confess I have a bit of a uh like a reaction when someone is either too obsessed with clowns or afraid of clowns it feels like a personality characteristic that you like read about once and not something that anyone actually has I'm actually I am with you I've never thought about this before but I am 100 % with you on that like if they're making too big a deal about clowns you're like listen we're not in 1812 like clowns are not a big part of the furniture you know yeah yeah socially yeah um very very odd but um uh but yeah she's she's got a memoir about her siblings I think which I did not read and then a book of essays called let's just say it wasn't pretty that uh I think neither of us really connected with no neither of us connected with it I think but I think we should pause on that for a second before we get to the really good memoir because let's just say it wasn't pretty appears I mean I only read the first sort of four or five essays they're quite short and then I was like this is a bummer and I don't want to think of this recently dead woman this way and the reason why it was a bummer is because it's essentially her relationship to beauty standards well yeah and yeah she just talks she just has this litany of things she hates about herself you know she talks about hating her her the way she looked when she was young and and hating her the bulb of her nose and, and, you know, how hard it is that her hair is thinning and, and that she always wore hats because her hair was thinning, that she wears scarves because she has scars, like, like all these things.

23:54And, you know, I think one of, well, this is part of, I guess, like Diane Keaton, the real person and Diane Keaton, the image in our minds. But like one of the things that people keep bringing up about Diane Keaton this week about, you know, why she was so iconic and so culturally important is it just kind of seemed like she didn't give a shit. She did what she wanted. And it turns out she gave a huge amount of a shit. Like she gave so much shit about, you know, the fact that she had these small imperfections and that was all that she could see. And, and that's so depressing, but it's also so true to life.

24:29I mean, I think that like so many women of that generation were raised to have this kind of self-doubt and this kind of judgment on that front and even if you know they went through the 70s and 80s or whatever and they sort of know it in a way that like they don't need to have that you know Diane Keaton doesn't need to have perfect natural hair um but I'm sure that there's a part of them that just can't has trouble getting over it you know they can't get out of it I was thinking I've been thinking a lot about this this week and and how you know there there's no getting out of being a woman alive in a sense without having some like oh I mean there's no getting out of being anyone alive let's just let's just start there but there's no getting out of being a woman without like having some like incredibly like complicated relationship to your appearance to your body to how the world sort of um digests your appearance and body and i think for our generation i mean obviously my phone is just stacked with uh 22 year olds with lip filler and that is the saddest thing in the world to me but i also feel like um there has been a kind of an event horizon with you you and i i mean i i'm pretty sure you and i feel this way and i imagine many of the women who listen to this podcast feel this way of like listen I have been confronted with this world of like dangerous invasive like products and projects that I could do to myself for everything from like you know dieting and detoxing to injectables and lipos whatever and I have to just make a decision to be okay with how I look on some level and just get on with the rest of my personality and the rest of my skill set because I am going to actively lose time like by studying like how far my eyes are apart or whatever.

26:24And I have enough options available to me that I can just like, you know, be a podcaster and never show my face to anyone ever, for example, to pick a random example. But then we, and I think, you know, we obviously do carry the insecurities of that, but we also have to make it, we've sort of made a big choice on that as well. And I think the ways in which women of Diane's generation often suffered is that they were brought up in these post-war 1950s homes that were like well there really aren't that many options for you outside of your appearance and like how attractive you are and how amenable you are in a room directly affects the quality of like marriage that you may have like the more beautiful you are the more likely you are to marry a nice rich lawyer or a nice rich doctor and then that means that you'll be taken care of for your whole life at the very least financially and so I know we're doing very feminism 101 here but like I think you can't read a memoir written by a woman who was born between like 1930 and 1970 that doesn't have a chapter that's like and then my father told me I was too flat-chested and men would never love me well and I think one thing that like is I mean I know that that we came up sort of during the like early 2000s, like hideous, like toxic, thin culture and stuff.

27:49But man, it was, it was bad for our mom. It was wild out there. It was, it was bad, but like for our mom's generation, so much worse. And, and I, you know, something that, that I've talked with, uh, to other, uh, parents, especially of daughters that I know is like how much that comes out and, and how that's something that specifically all of us have this like really crazy reaction to. Like if our parents say anything that, that smacks of body shaming to like a two or three year old, you know, that we have to just be like, no, no. And we're never saying anything like that again. And also please don't say it about yourself in front of anyone who might be listening you know like like trying to to stop that cycle in a way like but it also you know expecting them to have stopped that cycle when it was actively being visited on them their entire childhoods is is unreasonable right and there's just like again no one's getting out of being a woman alive no one's getting out of being a parent alive like I have a friend who who her she grew up in a house where um her mother had been shamed about food her whole life so then her mother um had this approach where like you're allowed to eat whatever you want we have junk food I am demystifying junk food for you and then my friend spent a a good chunk of her 20s with an eating disorder because she felt like she was over allowed and her mom didn't sort of prepare her correctly enough for the you know so and actually diane writes about this because diane um through her 20s suffered with bulimia and she writes about it really beautifully and it's it's very sad and like she she didn't kind of come as quote unquote come out about being bulimic until this memoir that she wrote in the kind of early 2010s when she was in her 60s and um and something that she kind of really points out is like I have read so many um you know justifications for why young women take solace in eating disorders and like so much of it comes back to the mother and she's very much like I want to say right now my mother is not the reason I have an eating disorder you know yeah and I I think that I mean a friend someone said to me recently they were like I think attachment theory is a load of shit there's a because it basically boils down there are three reasons you are the way you are your mother your mother and your mother but then for like a I mean, I will be the first person to complain for literal hours about how somehow ever not, you know, from a child's perspective, but from a sort of societal perspective, like everything that can be wrong with a kid is somehow the fault of something that their mother did or did not do.

30:40But I think maybe this is a good time to talk about like Diane's memoir about her mother. Yeah. If we're all ready to cry again. It's called Then Again. And strong recommendation. please pick it up um it's so beautiful and it's something that you know she she talks about I think it's in then again she says you know I wish everyone could write a memoir and in my mind I was like I don't like I don't know I don't know that that's necessary but she writes about her mother just so incredibly using her her own words and her own kind of memories not just of her mother when she was a child and Diane was so connected to her, but throughout her life and through to her death from Alzheimer's, but she also has this incredible treasure trove of journals and memoir from her mom that she includes.

31:40So it's sort of a joint memoir. Yeah. And it allows her to bring her mother out to the world and say like, look, no, it was my mom who was really special to me. And I think a lot of us feel that way about our moms too, like, you know, cause we have this, like, I think, I mean, I think children are just generally kind of obsessed with their parents, but they find them so interesting, especially when, when we're really young. And then again, when we become adults and we realize more about who they are as real people and the way that she talks about her mother and her mother's artistic output of collage and the way she's able to to see her mother's feelings toward her and relationship with her own father who I believe was like kind of abusive but like they had this like very complicated relationship um it's just extraordinary it's an extraordinary book it really and I can I I can feel, because sometimes when I hear that a celebrity has written a memoir and like, oh, it's really about their family member or it's really about something else.

32:52I'm like, don't care. I would rather hear about what was happening behind the scenes at, say, Annie Hall or whatever, you know. Or I want to know what was happening behind the scenes with Warren Beatty. um and actually I I was really proven wrong by this book um because yeah because in general I don't find people's childhoods very interesting like I'm like I kind of want most memoirs to start when somebody's like 22 years old and out on their own for the first time and I want like three sentences about the kind of familial makeup that they had and then I want us to move on about the adventures of adult life um that's just a preference for me I generally find childhood boring um and but there's something about the way she weaves in her um mother's relationship particularly to her fame that I found so beautiful and so heartbreaking because actually I think people who are who are experiencing fame and or have lived the bulk of their life as a famous person the way Diane Keaton did because she was um cast in hair the kind of famous 70s sort of groundbreaking musical when she was like 21 and then from that day forward she just kind of was a famous person and like the she like I think they actually have less of a good perspective on what that experience is and so she at one point she digs open she's kind of talking about the first sort of five or six years of her career she digs open this scrapbook that her mom was keeping about her fame.

34:29And it was, and the scrapbook was just called Diane. And the mom had like just millions and millions of scrapbooks, like, and, and it was all, um, it's reviews, but it's also, um, interviews that her parents were giving. Cause the parents are like Los Angeles locals, right? They're like, they're not Hollywood people, but they do live in Los Angeles. So they are kind of tangential to sort of like, sort of high LA society. Like it's very, I don't know what the exact sort of like terminology is, but you know what I mean? It's kind of, it's Rotary Club. It feels very Rotary Club, you know? And them sort of like, like, like clippings from the local paper of it's like, well, Jack and Dorothy Keaton are not shy speaking about their daughter.

35:18and like they're so proud she's become a star and they, Diane has inherited her father's like wit and her mother's beauty and it's this thing where her fame is being sort of translated through the kind of ambitions and ego of her parents which I think is common and normal but it's like Diane dealing with like I'm kind of, I'm sort of disgusted by how much my parents sort of fell for this but I also love that they loved me enough to track it and to keep it and to like, and they were so proud of me. And it's like, it's such a beautiful and complicated portrayal of that, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it really is.

35:58And, you know, I guess people who became famous in that time, there's all sorts of like odd parental stories from like, you know, Marilyn Monroe's mother to like the sort of classic stage mothers to, um yeah you know grace kelly's patrician family hating the fact that she would do something so gross as to become a movie star um but like i've never heard anyone like write with as much nuance and like understanding about yeah their parents relationship to them just inhabiting this whole different world as diane keaton does in her book uh she really is so committed to understanding her mother as a person and like what she wanted, what she cared about and, and really doing it non-judgmentally, which is something that I think you and I have talked about this week as well with relation to, to Diane Keaton.

37:01It's not, it's not, there's nothing that we judge Diane Keaton for. Although I do think she's a bit Teflon in terms of like Hollywood scandals. It's not that she hasn't had any, it's that they don't stick. Everyone still loves Diane Keaton kind of no matter what she says and I I think there is something about her that like

37:24both like allows us to to have a relationship to the the older women that we know that is less judgmental and like hopefully makes us that makes them a little bit less judgmental toward themselves if that makes any sense I mean I it does because Diane Keaton obviously has a lot of self-judgment but also women of her generation admire her so much for the life that she lives and that she does what she wants to do and I think that that's also quite special because you can see sometimes I don't know maybe maybe this is just the boomer woman I know But I have talked to a lot of boomer women who are very judgmental about people that they see as kind of like shrugging off societal whatever, you know, like what makes them think they're so special to escape all of these traps that I found myself falling into.

38:19And Diane Keaton escaped those traps and they love Diane Keaton for that. And, you know, it's crazy. It's like, yeah, she was never married. She adopted two children in her 50s. Yep. she kind of um she yeah was always kind of committed to this sort of masculine style that like almost feels like proto non-binary style now that you look at it yeah yeah absolutely yeah she says what she wants she uh you know like is famous like the movies the movie that made her truly famous that she won her oscar for that made her like a cultural icon was written by her boyfriend at the time they shot and I guess her ex-boyfriend by the time she won her Oscar but it's about her it is an attempt to capture her personality and like for a generation of women that was taught to be like the you know the woman behind the man like she is the woman in front of the man and that's amazing and and people just love her for it and I love that we should love her for it and everyone should love themselves for that tendency in themselves, you know?

39:31And she has this sort of like really recognizable, you know, all that self-doubt that comes off as like in some ways in her roles and in her interviews a little bit kind of blithering or like she doesn't answer questions because she doesn't think people like want to know about her, even though she's been famous since she was 19 or something you know and but also she just she seems really happy and doing what she wants yeah yeah yeah like it's interesting I keep thinking of it as like a magic trick because exactly what you said it's like that thing of so many of the things that she did in her life are the kinds of things that women of her generation are generally mocked or ridiculed for because they're breaking the mold in such visible ways.

40:25And you're right. She, she was Hollywood Teflon. Like, like, I know, I'm sure, I mean, we're taking her, her life as a whole. I'm sure there were, there were weeks when it was really hard to be Diane Keaton or she said something terrible or something, or like, you know, people piled in on her. I'm sure those weeks happened, but on the whole, like very much Hollywood Teflon um and I I do think it's like you know she she gives this delivery in her both her performance and in her interviews that's like oh um oh I don't know uh well you know well the thing is well you know what and that's me so bye and and and then all the whole time while she's doing that she's sort of hiding the balls she's sort of like working a lot and also working a lot within a framework of like like highlighting the sexuality of women over the age of 60 like we what we something we forget about something's gotta give which is a wonderful movie um is that she does basically a nude scene in it like you see a lot of diane keaton like and and that is like i i i don't know very many mainstream rom-coms directed by nancy myers in which you see that much of a woman and like it's not it's never a joke it's just like wow she looks fucking hot like it's and that's the whole message of the scene is like wow she looks really hot and and the same in like like okay as I said at the top of the podcast I have not seen book club um but what I believe book club is about based on my watching of the trailer this morning is about like a group of women who read Fifty Shades of Grey and then are like sectionally awoken to the idea of more interesting sex and more interesting desire.

42:14And like these movies, like, yes, they're very much what we call in the UK, they're for the grey pound. You know, they're for the... They're made for an audience of seniors who are also the only demographic that are going to the cinema with any regularity. And they did very well. Do you know what I mean? And like the, it's kind of like she, it's so strange. We keep talking about her in relation to her being this kind of oor mother and similar to a kind of an oor mother figure is that like she's this person who we value deeply, but also whose text messages we've been avoiding for the last five years.

42:55And by text messages, I mean cinematic body of work. Oh, yeah. So we have looked a little bit into the last five, ten years of her movies. And, I mean, I watched some trailers. And they're all, they all kind of feel like the plot was generated by ChatGPT. there's one about finding the elixir of youth and like she and her friends all become like young briefly yeah um there's one where she is actually a young woman who uh due to a roadside shaman wakes up as her 70 year old self it's like a freaky friday body switch movie oh like Howl's Living Castle. Yeah. And then there's one where she and her friends go to like a summer camp reunion and have to confront their teenage bullies who are now plastic surgeons.

43:54So we're sensing a theme. Yeah. There's a lot of, you know, the interplay between youth and age and, you know, appreciating where you are, I guess, is probably where these movies all come down. I haven't seen them. maybe they end in explosions, but I'm going to guess that they come down to like allowing yourself to be who you are and appreciating the stage of life that you're in. What, what, daring guess. I know. You never have guessed. It is kind of fascinating though, that like the, yeah, the, the, the outpouring of grief versus the lack of general knowledge or interest in someone's last few years.

44:39And I'm not judging anyone for that because I haven't watched those movies either, but it is interesting in the way it mimics a parental relationship. Yes. Yes, exactly. I mean, Diane Keaton definitely is the one sending us the text being like, why are you working? And you're like, it's Tuesday afternoon.

45:02um should we go through some of her movies uh yeah let's do that we watched annie hall so let's talk about that so my relationship to annie hall was always that it was the movie that i would watch in boys bedrooms before before we ended up either having sex or not having sex um it's the movie that a boy lures you back to his room with because to show you that he understands ladies um and it's great because it's incredibly funny um and she's so charming in it and you can't watch that movie as a young woman um and not want to be Annie Hall like from the the the outfits to like that kind of I mean did any teenage girl watch Annie Hall and then not trial saying in her life trying to make it seem like that's just a thing that she says and has always said and then like I I watched it I hadn't watched it for years I watched it again um the other night and it really struck me that like um the the the movie is a lot more different to what I thought it was in that like it's still incredibly enjoyable and like this isn't this is a a memorial podcast house for Diane Keaton I am not going to get waylaid by like the the various uh alleged crimes of Woody Allen let's just say Annie Hall's a Diane Keaton movie and like we can leave it there we can leave it there um but yeah I mean you can't separate her body of work from his body of work and also it's worth saying that she she loved him forever like she never um she she defended him all the way through to the last few years yeah so it kind of well you don't want to define her by him it would also be remiss to not include him um so in any hall the first time we see here so we're introduced to the character of albie first and we we understand that he is like a very famous comedian um and like famous enough that he's being recognized on the street and he's on tv a lot and he's like working for like major political candidates so we are you know we're to understand as famous as say Woody Allen was during that time.

47:12And then he meets Annie at a mixed doubles game with his friend who, I know the friend isn't called Max, but the friend always calls Albie Max. So therefore I think of the friend's name as being Max. The two girls are like on the court waiting for these two guys to come in and they're all kind of excited and sort of jumpy and they play tennis. And then afterwards we just get Albie and he is like doing up his tennis bag and getting ready to leave. and Diane Keaton, to Annie, comes out of the dressing room and she is wearing her amazing clothes and she is acting so insane in a way that like, of course, of course teenage girls love Annie Hall because she acts like a teenage girl does.

47:54She's like, she's making none of her dialogue make sense. She's just like, oh, well, you know, and he's like, oh, do you need a lift? And she's like, oh, do you have a car? And he's like, no. and she's like oh I have a car it's so like beautiful and nuts and like I only kind of realized on this viewing that actually what the story of Annie Hall is like yes it's a rom-com that's played out of sync and out of order but what it is it's about like an ordinary girl who meets a very famous man like she's reacting to him as a very famous man who she's just randomly played tennis with and so the kind of equivalent would be like what if you randomly had a mixed doubles with John Mulaney or something.

48:37And then afterwards you sort of hung around long enough and convinced him to get into your car and then took him on the, like the worst drive of his life. And then afterwards, like dragged him up to your apartment and spoke to him about your photographs and also told a kind of anti-Semitic story. And in this version, John Mulaney is Jewish. And then, and then like, just sort of like bullied him into being your boyfriend. and then he gets completely obsessed with you and tries to turn you into a version of him and eventually you reject that and leave him for Paul Simon.

49:14I think there is something, like you said, how much this movie appeals to teenage girls and that's absolutely true and I think there is so much appeal in the idea that you could be your like awkward, blithering self and someone would just find it mesmerizing. Yeah. I mean, that's the fantasy, right? And that they do what to many teenage girls, I think is the most romantic possible thing, which is try to turn you into them. And then you would be strong enough to reject that and be yourself instead. Oh man. Wow. That really is like, there really is a reason this is the teenage girl movie. There's something so, I mean, I know we just said, oh, this is a Diane Keaton movie and let's not say any more about it.

49:59But one of the things that I found out about sort of the making of Annie Hall is that the screenplay changed quite a lot while they were editing the film. And that originally there was a lot more in the film that was about, you know, Alvey's other relationships and his ex-wives and stuff. And it's sort of all that stuff got trimmed and trimmed and trimmed away because it became clear that like the heart of the film and what made the film great was Annie Hall, which is obviously Diane Keaton. And her real name is Diane Hall. And she was called Dianne as a kid. Like, it's just about her. And also that the original title of the film was Anne Hedonio, which is the inability to have fun.

50:40And everyone was like, well, that sucks. And then they ended up naming it after the most important character in it. Because the whole point is her, you know. And then the film wins Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Actress.

50:57crazy like crazy side note i'm sorry but we need to say this which is that at the time annie hall was nominated for oscars and diane keaton won she was then dating warren beatty which like talk about a swing from like woody allen to warren beatty i mean wow um and they go to the oscars and in her book that includes a lot of her mother's writings her mother is writing about this and she's worried because Diane and Warren Beatty are going together and Warren Beatty's sister Shirley MacLaine is also nominated for best actress and she's not sure that he's gonna be able to root against his sister and for Diane um there was no resolution to that but uh Diane does win so good for her man yeah and like yeah it's just fascinating to me that like she hits this pinnacle of her career so early on and becomes this icon of like 70s femininity so early on yeah and like it's kind of like where do you where do you go from there and I guess where there is Warren Beatty I sorry he's one of those names where I say it differently every time I say it depending on what words are in that sentence how it's pronounced correctly I assume he's like George Takei George Takei who any way you pronounce it he himself will correct you to the other way just to mess with you um so i think we can say however we want um and then we go from that to um i mean we don't go directly to that but the the other kind of big movie that happens about you know like five or six years later is baby boom which um i i kind of rather unfairly describe to you as being the kind of the disney channel tv movie version of working girl but it's very though we have working girl at home and the working girl we have at home is baby boom yeah yeah yeah listen it's an early nancy myers movie so on that level very interesting it's kind of um it's a real take on those kind of great katherine hepburn movies of the 1930s and 40s like woman of the year um and i and like diane keaton like she's very much always been in conversation with Catherine Hepburn in terms of her kind of like sort of tomboyish edge and her kind of very unique delivery.

53:11And she's kind of modeling herself on Catherine Hepburn. So it feels that, but like, it's also just so long. And there are so many parts of the movie where you're like, I'm pretty sure this is child abuse. As in like to, to the, the twin actresses who played that baby. Like there are so many scenes where it's just Diane Keaton, like holding this baby under her arm like a Christmas ham and like you just watch you watch this baby's like perplexed face like bobbing away in New York traffic as she's held on her side and it's like so upsetting I so I wasn't able to find an actual uh version of the film to watch but I watched a bunch of clips about on YouTube and maybe this is just the like person who has a toddler in me but like one of the things that I find so funny and ridiculous about it is like how completely impossible it is for her to like obviously parenting a baby is very difficult specific baby tasks are not that hard including changing a baby's diaper and she just struggles with this so insanely much like she's reading the instructions and she can't handle I guess like the concept of sticky tape like there's all sorts of i'm just like this seems like something where like a man would claim he didn't know how to change a diaper in the 50s and then he'd do this bad of a job so he'd never be asked to do it again um which i guess is kind of what they're parodying i guess i guess it is i mean something that nancy myers says about this movie is um that she she could she always wanted to make something about this about how like a woman unprepared for motherhood but like the 80s because there was such a fascination with like women in the workforce and shoulder pads and like corner offices and wow I'll get that to you right away Mr.

55:00Zinger or whatever the um the it was the first time where you could make a movie about a woman being genuinely unprepared for motherhood and have audiences buy it which I find really fascinating from almost like an anthropological standpoint oh my god let's talk about um the first wives club yes well actually i wondered if maybe we could uh go from there into father of the bride because that's another movie that sort of has this like like it almost feels like the remake of father of the bride came too late because by the time they made that movie in what 1991 i think it probably was a little bit insane for uh you know 20 year old girl to come home and be like, I've been dating this man for three months and I met him in Rome and we're getting married and it's going to cost$50 ,000 and destroy your lives.

55:53And that's perfectly reasonable. Like you can see why when that movie was made in the fifties with Elizabeth Taylor, that that was just how things were done. And of course she's 18 and getting married. But in, uh, the nineties father of the bride, I mean, Steve Martin is really portrayed as being like quite unreasonable for thinking that like maybe a 20 year old should not be getting married. Sort of how, I don't know, Cameron, people, uh, act like Cameron Diaz is perfectly reasonable for wanting to get married in my best friend's wedding at 19. And as a viewer, you're just like, no, finish your architecture degree, man.

56:22Like, no, stop it. But maybe it's an art history degree. I can't remember. Maybe it's architecture in Father of the Bride. Anyway, but Diane Keaton in Father of the Bride is so iconic and their relationship is so incredible and I honestly was shocked when I found out that like Diane Keaton had never been married when she was in Father of the Bride because she's such an icon and an example to so many women of her age that I know who are wives and moms specifically because of that movie specifically because of the relationship that she and Steve Martin create and like the kind of mother that she's able to be in that film um and I I think I've said this to you before but the the the only thing that makes it make sense that the 19 year old wants to get married is that she's seen her parents be in love every single day for her whole life you know and she she's like well that's what I want and why wouldn't you want that this okay this is my favorite Steve Martin movie and I know for other people, I know that like, I know there are bigger comedies that he's been in and that people love like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels or whatever, which I also like, but like there's something about Steve Martin balancing that like unbelievably hilarious, like I mean, I think one of my favorite scenes in all of comedy is like him taking the hot dog buns out of the bag in that supermarket and he's like, George Banks is saying no.

57:59So I think it's just the funniest thing in the world. like I just so good um but like the reason why I prefer it so much because it's like there's so many movies where he's just kind of an off-the-wall character and he's so grounded by Diane Keaton in it and it's funny because like she in in in First Wives Club and in Father of the Bride she very much plays the straight woman in that like you know Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler are like quite outsized characters and they get all these great lines really really really funny lines and really Diane Keaton is the character that is supposed to hold all the heart and the pathos of the movie and in um father of the bride too like I mean because the father of the bride that daughter is not holding any pathos because the one the one moment that we're supposed to like really feel for her is when George Banks like he sees that she's asleep on the couch and she's um holding a magazine article that says like ways to make your wedding more affordable and it's like oh consider me consider making your own wedding cake on your own party favors and he's and then it pans to his face and he's like the horror but like that my daughter would even consider doing some work with her own hands on her own wedding is disgusting and so you're like um no um and so that therefore it all falls to first of all that teeny tiny culkin and second of all diane keaton i know that teeny tiny culkin i can't remember which one but he's practicing his like altar walk is it good for him when he's practicing his little altar walk on the landing it's so lovely and there's this bit as well where like there's a bit where diane keaton goes to like bail george out of jail because he's had this meltdown at the supermarket and she sort of makes him do his vows over and over again and he's like I George Banks will not sort of like destroy my daughter's wedding through the bars and so that's like one of her big moments in the movie but then the next big moment is actually there's no dialogue at all because it's her just walking down the stairs on the morning of the wedding and she's wearing this kind of gold outfit and like she looks lovely she looks so lovely but the way that Steve Martin looks at her you'd swear she was Rita Hayworth do you know what I mean it's like the most like you are the most like I am so in love with you and you are so beautiful to me and it's just like kind of the most perfect representation of long-term love in cinema and it's in Father of the Bride.

1:00:40Oh, it's so good. It's so good. It's not that I'm recommending Father of the Bride 2, but I have seen Father of the Bride 2 several times. It's okay. Yeah, I think I've told you that when I was pregnant with my daughter, I was really interested in movies about pregnant women where they didn't come to any peril, which really are very few and far between. And Father of the Bride 2 is really good for that. oh did you find anything else i mean i read the rachel incident not to not to uh you know big you up on your own podcast but like i was not fishing no i know but but but because because the narrator in the rachel incident is pregnant but is talking about peril that happened a long time ago I was like oh this is so nice this is so great we can just have little like pregnancy interludes and no one's going to be rushed to a hospital or like have to have like a scary blood test that's so nice that you know what that is nice yeah I think you should use this as a marketing tool I think you should uh you should put it in OBGYN's offices like they like they put Lexapro you know do you know what I'm gonna like suggest they do like a uh like a trim down version where it's just the bits where she's peacefully pregnant and like like cut out all the cork in 2010 bits and just be like no it's just her and then it fast forwards to her having a healthy child and for some reason having a confrontation with the woman you've never met oh my god it's like the opposite of when they they put out all those editions of like Wuthering heights and pride and prejudice with interpolated sex scenes um what yes oh yeah oh we'll talk about this later this could this could be a patreon special or something the whole other thing oh my god yeah um anyway uh yeah no you should have a book club of like just uh uh things about pregnant people but you cut out all the scary bits and they have no plot anymore you'd make a million dollars it's an idea yeah um i feel like okay so do we have any of the movies that we have oh we still want to talk about there are a billion movies but we should yeah we still want to talk about father of the bride i think or not father of the bride sorry first wives club um yeah so uh i recently re-watched it a couple of days ago and and yeah i mean she she does come off as as the straight woman in a way but like there is this like very particular Diane Keaton straight woman character which I think you also actually see in Something's Gotta Give where like she holds it together so well and she's so all about attending to everybody else's needs and then she goes absolutely fucking insane and then she just has to take care of herself for a minute.

1:03:32She has these like meltdowns she has one in Father of the Bride where her friends are fighting and she can't take it and she melts down and freaks out. And the fact that she's gone nuts makes her friends realize that they have to make up and stop drinking and stop sniping at each other and go back and get her and bring her back in because they need her. And I think it's something's got to give. It's like Diane Keaton's big freak out is when she's writing her play and it's literally just like 20 minutes of her crying at a typewriter. It's so bizarre. It's such a bizarre directorial choice. I think it's because watching someone type is very boring and watching someone like write is very boring.

1:04:14But maybe if they're crying, it's not so boring. It's such a wild, wild choice because everything about that movie is so elegant and well judged. And then you just have 20 minutes of Diane Keaton crying on a screen. It's so bizarre. I think, Caroline, that when you next sit down to write, you should try just like sobbing the whole time and see if what happens is great. Like, it might be the trick. It might be the secret. Maybe it is. I mean, her plays were pretty successful in the world of that movie, so... They got Keanu Reeves on board. I mean, you should try this and then see if Keanu Reeves reads her book and calls.

1:04:54Not really. Gavin, I was joking. That's not true. She shouldn't do that. Like, Gavin listens to this. If I get a phone call from Gavin, And it's like, what do you mean, Keanu Reeves? What do you mean, Keanu Reeves? Something you pointed out when we were reading this memoir was that so much of Diane Keaton's life is like, because she got famous so young, is like, oh, all these boys who I was obsessed with, like Warren Beatty and everything. And Sam Shepard, I then got to either go out with them or kiss them on screen. Like, how great is my life, basically? and then what's so funny is that like i like i bet keanu reeves is the exact kind of boy who grew up like watching annie hall and like then he got to kiss diane keaton on screen which i love for him that's so great oh yeah there's there's a whole thing with this actually because you know one of her first roles is is in the godfather with al pacino and then they like don't hang out and then when she's directing a film like years and years and years later she runs into him while she's like running from pillar to post editing it.

1:06:03And they're just like two scrappy, you know, indie filmmakers together. And then obviously they get together. And apparently it, well, she wants to get married. He doesn't want to get married. That's the name of that tune. But yeah, she has a lot to say about Al Pacino. That's the name of that tune. Isn't that a funny thing to say? Annie Hall style, I'm going to try and put that into my vocabulary. And that's the name of that tune. and that's the name of that tune I know you're not like a godfather girl um and I'm not really either but like I I have seen it and I think what's interesting is that like her her character is like um I always forget the name of the Corleone's but like basically the main Corleone that has to take over the family business because everybody else gets shot Michael I think Michael Corleone she's his um sort of uh wife like girlfriend and then wife that he meets while he's trying to escape the family while he's trying to sort of have a normal life that has nothing to do with them and then eventually he's brought in and he becomes the new godfather and the kind of the last scene of that movie is Diane Keaton's character sort of watching the door close as like Like the man that she loves, who she thought was just a normal Italian-American guy, recedes into this room, this like leather room full of important murderous men.

1:07:28And like that's, and we hear that iconic music and it's like, bye. And I think, and it's like, it's like her, the look on her face is like, oh, I, I have only now just realized what I've got myself into. And that like, I will be in love with this man who is like got the secret life I will never know. And that's my lot in life now. and like I think it's like it's such an interesting choice to have casted her because like I think you're thinking mobster movie you sort of think like I don't know like not to not to play into Diane's own insecurities like big brassy beautiful girl kind of thing like you know but like she's so kind of waspy and gentle she's so perfect and she has that exact thing of like oh of course this is a lady who would like marry someone and then realize after that she had married them that oh they're they're the head of a crime ring do you know what i mean it's funny because like i'm sure she's very good in in the godfather which i have never seen but like every time i've seen like a clip or a still from it it just it barely looks like diane keaton it's i mean she's so young but also it's like very self-focused she's got this like sort of you know wispy hair and all this stuff and it's like seeing the difference between that which i believe she did before Annie Hall and Annie Hall is like you it's it's it's like her being an actress in someone else's movie and then someone like realizing who she was yeah and making a movie for her you know and and so many of the Nancy Meyers movies I'm like this person is making a movie for her yeah I'm sure they could have made something's got to give with you know Susan Sarandon in it or something but it wouldn't it wouldn't be something's got to give and and and And so many movies are built around like who's her persona, who she comes off as in this like beautiful way.

1:09:16You know, she wasn't really meant to play the, the, the wife of the, the big guy. She's meant to be the big guy. And also kind of, you know, a little ridiculous and a little bit silly and really forgiving and kind, but maybe she shouldn't be forgiving the mobsters. I don't know. I assume what happens in that movie is a lot of death. There's a horse death, I think. Yeah, there is. Yes. Great horse death. Which honestly seems like a lot of work. Like if you're going to like put an animal head in a bed, like pick a different animal, surely. It's because he loves his race horse. Yeah, but I'm sure he loves his dog too.

1:09:55Sorry, don't listen to this song. Dogs far easier to kill and far easier to sever. Yeah. But before we get far down that road, I am aware that you have things to do, a job to have, and a child to raise, as per Diane in Baby Boom. I mean, she's at a French daycare eating a plate of linguine with shaved Parmesan over it, which is presented as ridiculous in Baby Boom, which I did not understand, because that's just what French toddlers eat. I want to raise a baby in France. Sounds really nice. It's great. Yesterday she was eating pasta and twirling her little tiny fork. I was just, isn't she like two?

1:10:34Mm hmm. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's so great that even if you guys don't live in Paris forever, that like, she'll always have this like interesting thing about herself that she's like, Oh, well, of course I was raised in Paris. Yes, of course I was, I was born in Paris and, uh, you know, God, that's so instantly cool. I know. But, um, anyway, you, you have to do things, but I, I can't let you go without you reading one of our favorite passages from Diane's memoir. oh yes of course where she speaks about um i mean very aptly about missing her mom uh oh okay sorry this is not the one that you want i'm just also gonna read this one because it's so sad yeah because i feel she says did you ever pat yourself on the back for your greatest gift just being you i'm sorry the small rewards weren't enough i understand great expectations oh mom mom you are such a game gal in so many ways i wish i could have made the disappointment of your unfulfilled longings magically disappear with the memory of our Wednesday evening adventures now lost in time and I just like I feel like so many of us have had that feeling about our own moms like I'm sorry that you have not had everything that you wanted I hope that like having someone who loves you makes that makes that enough a little bit better you know like helps you love yourself yeah and there's this like very beautiful sorry we'll get to the second thing in a minute but like the beautiful passage from the beginning of the book where diane talks about her earliest memories being that her mom um was the winner of the like mrs los angeles page yeah whatever yeah it's this kind of like you know content beauty contest for married women and how first she won the local heat and then she won the regional heat and then it was like she was going up for Miss California or Mrs.

1:12:26California and how there was this time in their lives where she was making the same chocolate and walnut cake again and again and again and again so she could get it perfect and everyone got kind of tired and bored of it and and like also there was this feeling in the family like they didn't want to share her with the world and they that she was theirs and and and then and then she loses and like it's almost something that Diane feels guilty about like even though she was only four or five when this all happened she feels kind of guilty that her mom was clearly trying within the kind of margins of what was acceptable for a woman in the 1950s to just show the world who she was and that she didn't have the tools to support her.

1:13:06And then so it's like almost this whole book is like a corrective surgery of like, look how wonderful she was, you know? Yeah. God, if you want to know a woman, just ask her about her mom. You know what I mean? Just ask her about her mom. may we have the final extract Fiona yeah of course October 31st 2009 would have been her 88th birthday last Halloween she'd been dead for six weeks this year it's been 409 days and nights without my mother I thought time was supposed to heal all wounds as I wait for Dexter that's Diane's daughter to come out of swim practice in my Tahoe hybrid parked at the top of Santa Monica City College overlooking the local graveyard I can still see Daphne Merkin's plaintive face in the polo lounge this morning, whispering, Diane, don't you think they'll come back to us?

1:13:57Don't you think they're coming back? Our mothers? Daphne, I wish. I wish they would. All of them. All the mothers. Oh my gosh. I know. Oh, gosh. I just know my mother is going to listen to this and being like, why were you crying on a podcast about my prospective death? That's so grim. I mean, to be fair, we were also briefly crying on the podcast about our own perspective deaths. So, you know, she's in good company. Hi, Caroline's mom. Hi, Caroline's mom.

1:14:38Oh, my God. Fiona, this has been such a joy and it felt very cleansing or something. I'm so glad we finally got to do this after three years of talking about it. And I'm so sad that this is the occasion that brought us together for it. But, you know, thanks, Diane. Right? Like, yeah. You know, because like so many of the podcasts on it, like, anytime you listen to an episode of Sentimental Garbage, you are listening to like the thin end of the wedge of like episodes I actually got off my ass and did after like, when there are so many more episode ideas that I have with people like you, where we're just like trading voice notes for years at a time, and then we just never get around to it.

1:15:18And I think now was the right time. Now was the right time. Okay, Fiona. Do you want to promote anything or do you want to just stew in the memory of Diane? I keep thinking, oh, yeah, one day I'll start a sub stack before I go on Caroline's podcast. But today's not that day. Okay, Fiona. Thanks for having me again. Yeah, I love you too. Bye. Thank you for this. Bye.

1:15:49You