Episode 1: 20 Questions with Lalitha Vasudevan

• Play the racing game Nathan built!

• Read more from Haeny on Star Wars and early literacy, and Star Wars and inclusive classrooms!

• Learn more about Nathan’s ongoing work with Snow Day Learning Lab!

• Read Haeny’s writing challenging work/play binaries!

• Listen to the full 20 questions game (and view the full 20 questions game transcript)

[Music begins, then fades to background]

Lalitha: Hi everyone, welcome to a recording of the Teachers College podcast on play, Pop and Play. I'm Lalitha Vasudevan, Professor of Technology and Education at Teachers College. I'll be your host for this introductory episod,e and I get to introduce you to your co-hosts Haeny Yoon and Nathan Holbert. Haeny-

Haeny: Hi everyone, my name is Haeny Yoon and I'm an Associate Professor of early childhood in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching. Very excited to be here today.

Lalitha: Nathan-

Nathan: Hey Haeny, hey Lalitha. This ' Nathan Holbert. I am super excited to be here with you guys today to talk about play. I'm an Assistant Professor in the program of Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design. And I like to play games, and I like to talk about playing games and watching TV and doing fun stuff. So this is going to be great. I love it.

Lalitha: I want to ask you both, what do you do to play? How do you guys play? What does play look like for you personally?

Haeny: You know what's really interesting as I'm trying to answer this question, is I knew it was coming...

[Lalitha and Nathan laugh]

Haeny: ...and I'm still kind of like in my mind thinking about how I want to craft it. I think especially educators or community members or people who work with children all the time. I think we want to define play, right? We want it to be something that's recognizable so that we can say like, Oh, that's play. And that's not play. And I think about that in my own life where I'm trying to unpack like which parts of what I do are play. which parts of it are work and which parts of it are just like chores, or whatever it is. And do those lines sometimes blur, right like where, sometimes my work can become play. Like think about this, right, like, and, I think about during COVID, right like, I've been trying to do like little podcasts that are not even like podcasts. I'm like, trying to do them, like I'm trying to make these videos, and I realized that there's like an element of play, right? Because it's experimental. It's something that I'm not sure what the. I'm not sure what the product is going to look like 'cause it could look terrible, ha. Right, but that there's something about the process or what it does for me that really helps. And I wanted to start off with that, because everybody, you all know that my main way of playing is to engage with pop culture and to watch a lot of television, right. And I would hate for people to walk around walk out at this podcast thinking, oh that Haeny doesn't know anything, except watching TV.

Nathan: [laughs]

Haeny: [laughs] doing pop culture stuff, right.

Lalitha: You know what, that is very valuable.

[Haeny and Laltha laugh]

Haeny: Well, and I think a, and I think you and, Lalitha, you and I have talked about this once, where, you know I grew up in an immigrant family where my parents were out, work, like, there were mo-, like hours of time where I was home alone. Right, and so part of, like, TV was partly my teacher, right, and not just something that I learned from but something that I also got a lot of joy, out of. RIght, so I think that learning and joy don't necessarily have to be binaries or opposites, right. That they could be the same thing and that sometimes play and working and learning can also be sort of the same thing, too.

Nathan: Yeah, you know, again, having Haeny as a co-host is the best, cause she gave us a really thoughtful definition. She, she was concise and she was precise. And that lets people know that we're really serious scholars, here. And I think that's important.

Lalitha: And you like to balance that out, Nathan?

Nathan: And I don't -

Lalitha: With what you're gonna say?

Nathan: Yeah, I don't wanna do any of that.

[Lalitha laughs]

Nathan: I don't want to give you definitions-

[Lalitha and Haeny laugh]

Nathan: cause, that seems hard. And, like I said, I'm here for the play.

[Haeny laughs]

Nathan: No but I do- I agree with that, there is ways in which we play in our, in our jobs and in our professions all the time. I mean this, as we already said, is kind of an act of play for us, right. Trying out new ideas. To see, you know, how they work in some, some research context. Or imiagining and brainstorming new projects are certainly I think part of how I play, even though it's also part of my job, which is, you know, which I'm super fortunate to, to feel like I'm playin lots of times when I'm engaged in my work. I also like to play, you know, outside of my job. Though, though it's increasingly difficult for me to see the difference between the two, and I don't know if that's an indictment of academia or if that's an indictment of my inability to, to compartmentalize my life. [laughs] But, you know, I play lots of video games and board games and, and it's true that my research often is about game design. And so those are related. My, my wife likes to tell people that, that I got a PhD in video games. And so, you know, perhaps, that is also part of work, but I certainly see it as, as play for myself as well. You know, I was also thinking about, I have, I have two young kids, and sometimes I come home and I'm tired or I'm looking at the news and I'm stressed out, or whatever it is, and they start- My, my daughter started karate kicking me last night. And you know at first I'm like, ah, don't kick me and then, but then immediately it's like this is really fun. She's karate kicking me let's let's have a karate fight! And so, you know, wrestling with my kids is also, I think a, a really important way in which I find joy and, and, and playfulness as well.

Lalitha: For a lot of people who might listen to this, the conditions right now are, feel really in-ideal to play. Right, and then at the same time, sometimes the response is, the only thing I can do is play to kind of like make sense of this. And so, you know, Nathan, you and I both have kids who are [laughs] who don't, who are not shy about expressing their needs. And, being six months with them, without other outlets, really, it really does kind of raise interesting questions about, you know, at a time of national health crisis, you know, growing kinds of revelations around racial injustice. At a time of deep economic crisis, what role does play have and how do we keep play at the ready as an available frame through which to imagine, perceive and enact in our worlds? Is that even possible?

Nathan: I, I like to go there to a space of play. And so I'm always kind of looking for an opportunity to. And, and that can, you know, sometimes right now, especially, that can be so so so so hard. There's just so many things to worry about and and and be concerned by, and also, you know, so many things that we need to act... to address. So, you know, it sometimes it has to be very intentional. Sometimes it has to be like, you know, cooking a meal and instead of turning on the news, which is what I like to do lots of times, you know, turn on some ridiculous 80s music or something and, and  you know start laughing about the bad songs. So or, or you know, intentionally turning on a video game because I need to escape for a little bit and go to another place. Or, you know, you know, in the case of like the Kung Fu fight being able to sort of recognize that even though I'm tired, and even though I'm stressed, this will be a useful thing for me to engage in. So, so, so I guess what I'm trying to say is, some of it happens just because it happens, but sometimes it happens because we're very intentional about it.

Haeny: Yeah, I think just to go off of that, um, I think that relates a lot to what people have lately been saying about comedy. Right, and how comedy is almost like a genre or space where people have been trying to heal, right. Or trying to process and make sense of it. So while you're laughing and that act of laughing and the comic relief, you know that phrase we always hear, the comic relief, actually like helps people process. And I think during this time, like a lot of racial injustice. Right. And some of that may seem inappropriate but it could also be, how people are making sense of their feelings right, and their realities. But I also think the same thing about play, is I think that there is some, like healing effect that happens in play. And I think there's some parts of play that are really uncomfortable for adults, you know whether it's, teeters on the border of violence, or going, you know, like maybe it's a, it's not a normalized gender norm, or maybe it's racial, like I think there's a lot of things that make adults very uncomfortable about the play of young people. And maybe that discomfort is not necessarily, our reaction shouldn't be to just stop it immiediately. Because I think sometimes we like to do that, right. Sanction like what play is gonna be. And what kinds of behaviors are appropriate. But I think that, instead, what if we looked at it as like, how are poeple healing through this, right, like how are people making sense of things. I think about that with pop culture, right, like how people are like horror movies are terrible, right, or, I don't like this kind of comedy because it's like demeaning right, or whatever it is. Like, I think there's certain genres that also get put into this space. Right, but then, I think there's, it's a lot more complicated than that. Right. Like, I think Jordan Peele talks about that, right, like how horror is, for him like, speaking about the social ills that are happening around us and that he uses that genre as a way to talk about that. So not everybody has to, you know, write this prolific piece of poetry to talk about racism in a way that's palatable for us, but there's ways that might not be palatable.

Nathan: That's such a good point, Haeny. I mean when we talk about play we sometimes talk about it as if it's always this kind of fun activity that is separate from the world, and, and your point is, is, is really important that, play can very much be part of how we, not just deal with the world, or not just escape the world but also how we act in the world. I think sometimes with social media or memes, or, or, you know, there's all these different ways in which people are, you know, TikToks and whatnot. What the, whatever the kids do, you know, now, it is always some way in which we are, tryng to deal with and trying to respond to and trying to kind of force a conversation, and oftentimes the ways in which we do that are most effective whenever we do them in kind of a playful format or playful structure.

Lalitha: When we were having a planning meeting about this, we were talking about Viet Thanh Nguyen's concept of narrative plentitude, and, he specifically is using it to refer to the ways in which we need more stories, not fewer, not narrower, particularly about minoritized communities' experiences. And it was, for me it, our conversation suggested that we actually need that same kind of plenitude about play. Right, and, and one of the things that came up when we were talking had to do with the narrowing that's happened. The, the sort of need or the impulse to define, once again, in the image of school. In the image of a kind of formal set of educational expectations. And so I wonder, what are your motivations for thinking about creating this kind of space to engage in thinking about play? To kind of create narrative plenitude of play, if you will?

Nathan: I think one thing in particular is this idea about, the sort of correctness or incorrectness of, of play. I think that label, partly, perhaps because we come at this from the, the field of education, but I think this label of kind of whether or not something is, is worthwhile or correct or productive, too often becomes the, the way in which we look at everything in the world. When you define learning as needing to look a certain way, you often miss the fact that there's all this other really cool and interesting things being encountered and explored and, and learned. Because you're too focused on, you know, this thing that you came in with preconceptions as,as needing to see. And so, so I'm you know, it's certainly a interested in kind of continuing to explore what, in what ways people, young people, adults make sense of their world through play and how can we be open to the different ways in which that, that unfolds.

Haeny: Yeah, I mean I would love for adults to start thinking about the ways they play like the question that you asked us. Lalitha, and just what that does for us. 'Cause I think sometimes as we grow up, we kind of forget what that feeling is or what it does for us in general, and I think that's why we don't value it when we see it in young people. Because it's not really a valued thing in our own lives. Right, and so I think I've been kind of starting to think about, like, how do I get adults to think about their own play or engage in play, or maybe it's been a while since you played and perhaps that might be impacting or influencing how you're seeing young people. Right and the cultural things that they do, because we kind of forget what that means. Maybe that's why we're, we like to save things like, oh kids these days, blah, blah, blah. Right. Because we don't understand it, right? And when we don't understand something, we like to regulate it.

Nathan: Are you suggesting. I don't understand TikTok?

Lalitha: [laughs] Yes, yes, yes, we are

[Haeny and Lalitha laugh]

Nathan: It's, it's, it's true.

Haeny: None of us do here. [laughs]

Nathan: It's true.

Lalitha: It's true. A hundred percent. What, so that's why we're going to wax poetic and be all expert-y about it.

[all laugh]

Lalitha: So I wondered if you could just take a minute to think about, you know either a moment from your research. I'm gonna stop myself from giving those examples myself right now, 'cause I do love and appreciate both of your research with young people. But I wonder if you could give an example of a moment where you either witnessed or observed this kind of learning happening either in sanctioned or unsanctioned play - something to kind of bring to life some of the things we've been talking about from your own observations and your research.

Haeny: So I'm going to talk about why I became obsessed with Star Wars, because I'm not like necessarily a Star Wars fan. I probably watched like two of them. And

Nathan: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Haeny: I know. I know, I know, I know. Okay, prior to COVID. [laughs] and so-

Lalitha: You're, you're about to get some homework Haeny.

[Lalitha and Haeny laugh]

Haeny: I know, I know. So, I, so basically what happened was that I had all this, like, I do a lot of research in like K through 2 classrooms and usually look at, try to look at spaces of play or spaces of literacy. And most of the times the intersection of those two things. And so I'm sitting in a kindergarten classroom for this year-long project. And just like taking notes, talking to kids about play and this one kid who's very obsessed with Star Wars, actually the whole classroom kind of was, but this particular child was very much an expert in it. And he would like talk to me for 30 minutes about like Star Wars stuff, would draw things, would create like little scenarios, would like make his, like he would talk about it like how it's shooting through the paper, and he would shoot through the paper somehow. Like it was just a very interesting act of play, and I found myself not really understanding like half of it, [laughs] because [Nathan and Lalitha laugh] I, you know, I'm like, I know, I know Princess Leia. I know Chewbacca. Right. I know like the, the basics right. I know Yoda. [laughs] But there's like a lot of things that I'm just assuming, right, or that I think is like kind of general cultural knowledge about Star Wars that I think I know that I'm applying to this thing that he's doing that is completely wrong. Right. So now I go back and look at that data and it's so different, because now I'm like watching the episodes I got like interview notes from kids about like what order I should watch the Star Wars episodes. [Nathan laughs] Like which one should be in the middle of things, and which ones I should watch first and last. [ind]

Nathan: I'll send you. I'll send you my order after this.

Haeny: Okay, yes. Because I'm sure everybody has a different order. [Nathan laughs] But then I've been taking notes, and I kid you not, like after each episode that I finished, I was like, oh my god, that thing now makes sense. [Laughs] Now, I'm like that's what he was talking about or now that's different. And so now I go back and look at these pictures that he's drawn, I'm like oh my god, I recognize this thing. Right, this is, this is a tie fighter and that's different from a tie bomber and that's different from this thing [laughing], right. And, like you just notice these nuances that happen in play when you actually engage in it. Right. And so it's like something that you didn't think was that interesting that you suddenly like start to find, I don't know, you start to find a lot of cultural affinity to that. Right. And so I think that's like the, that's like, I don't know. I've just, I feel like there's been so many rabbit holes that I've gone down when I start to understand that play is so complicated, and especially play with pop culture, has like such a very complex background, right that spans across a lot of time. And if you think about something like Star Wars. Right. Like it's spanned like 40 years. Right. And so there's a lot of historical context that plays into what kids are doing in contemporary times. And then if you take like how Star Wars has evolved to like other things like Star Wars Rebels, or this, you know, there's like different iterations of it that make it a different kind of play.

Lalitha: I love that you took play seriously enough and that you respected children enough to try to understand the things that they were making intellectual connections with rather than imposing your own kinds of frames that might have suggested, this is crazy or you don't know what you're talking about. Or you're being too fantastical. And, people talk about, you know, student centered learning a lot. People talk about creating opportunities for the young peoples' funds of knowledge to surface. And where I see people stopping short is to actually be the learner in kind of partnership with the, the student, right? To, to really see the student as having something to offer you, that you take the time to learn what they give you. And, I, I really think that that's so, for me it's, it's a really wonderful example of honoring play as a, as almost like a scaffold for your own apprenticeship.

Haeny: Oh I love that.

Lalitha: Nathan, do you have an example? That stands out to you?

Nathan: Yeah, I mean, sure. Here's, here's one. I made a game a number of years ago. This was actually part of my dissertation work. So it's been it's been a, it's been quite a while, and it was one of the first games that I built. And it was a racing game, and my research was around kind of how kids make sense of the relationship between acceleration and velocity. I was very much kind of in this, this sort of physical sciences space. And I built this game where it was kinda like, if you can imagine a race track, but you're seeing it, you know, from a bird's eye view. And you, there's a, there's a full race track you can see. You can see the car there. And in my game that was kind of like a finger painting game so you, you, you could choose different colors. It was on an i, a tablet, and you could use your finger to sort of paint out onto the track these different colors. And the different colors correspondend to different velocities that the car would travel at. And so the idea behind the game was that you would, that players would kind of think about how the car should accelerate, you know, or decelerate around the different turns. And that they would kind of enact this, this idea that they have in their head by painting the track these different colors. Okay, so that's, you know, that's the setup. And that's me; I'm a young researcher. I'm trying to kind of make sense of, of how this young kid that I'm, that I'm studying at this particular moment is thinking about acceleration and velocity. And he's painting the track. And he's been playing for a while now, so he's kind of got, he's kind of got the idea of how the game works and he's getting better at it. But, at one point, I noticed though, he's just like painting. He's very intentionally painting different stripes on the, on the track and it's like a, you know, like a, you know, blue, red, yellow, blue, red, yellow, blue, red, yell- like that kind of a thing. Right. And then, and then he'd kind of add maybe some like zigzag to it so it kind of looked like little lightning bolts, like lightning bolt stripes across the track. And, and I'm, and I'm observing and I'm, and I'm, you know, asking them questions to do some think aloud kind of protocols and I, and I asked the kid, I'm like, hey, so what do you, what do you think's gonna happen here? Like, how do you think the car's, you know, going to go on the track. And he's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it's probably gonna work. But like, what's the point of racing if the track doesn't look awesome.

[Haeny laughs]

Nathan: And I loved that because he was so exactly right. You know, like, I built this generative space that, that could look pretty and, and stuff but, but I was like, so in tune to like his, [deep formal voice] his understanding of acceleration and velocity and how are they related and and the mental models, [end deep formal voice] and, and he was just like, I'm just trying to make something look really cool. Because that, that matters right now. That sounds fun to me. And, you know, that ended up becoming an important part of how I thought about what could happen in these spaces that, you know, you know, when I, when I engage in design work now, I think a lot about not only how do the mechanics that we design, the interfaces, the, the, the opportunities for interaction with the tool and with people and the, and the and the, and the learner, how do those things contribute to how we think. But also, how do they, how do they become spaces for people to engage in expression, and, and to make things that they care about, and that they're passionate about. And sometimes the thing that they're gonna make and the thing that they're gonna be passionate about is not at all what I'm interested in studying, or what I think I'm interested in studying. But it's part of how they make sense of the space, and it's part of their experimentation. It's part of their reasoning. And it matters. And it's, it's just as much a part of their thinking process as when they say the exact right words that I'm like, listening for, right. And so, you know, for me, that was an early moment in my, in my research where I realized that I really needed to widen my view of what was happening in these spaces, because play is happening in all sorts of different ways, and it's intimately part of, of their thinking and their learning.

Lalitha: I really appreciate the ways that both of you have talked about but also shared lots of examples of how play has kind of infused your ways of being, not just ways of seeing.

[theme music comes in, then fades under narration]

Haeny: Hi listeners - this is Haeny. Each week on Pop and Play we’re going to try to play something with our guests. This time, Lalitha and Nathan learned I have never played twenty questions, so we decided we should give it a try. Twenty questions is the kind of game people play on a long car ride, where one person thinks of a word, and then everyone else takes turns asking only Yes or No questions and tries to guess the word in twenty questions or less. We’re just going to play a couple of short clips. However, if you really want to hear the whole game, go to tc.edu/popandplay - and while you’re there, you can see some of the work on play that Nathan and I discuss in this episode.

[music fades out under Lalitha's voice]

Lalitha: So Nathan and Haeny, I am thinking of something.

Nathan: Is it, is it a person, place or a thing. Question one.

Lalitha: Now this is one of these rules where, in Nathan's version-

[Nathan laughs]

Lalitha: I'm supposed to give him the, the, I'm supposed to say it's a person, a place or a thing. But I'm gonna go with Lalitha's rules.

Nathan: Oh, no!

Lalitha: And it's just yes or no, Nathan.

Nathan: Okay.

Lalitha: I'm setting the rules of this game. [Laughs]

Nathan: Alright.

Haeny: Is it a person?

Lalitha: No.

Nathan: Is it a place?

Lalitha: No. [laughing]

Nathan: [whispering] That means it's a thing, Haeny.

[Lalitha laughs]

Haeny: [whispering] I think so, too.

[Nathan laughs]

Haeny: It might be, but...

Lalitha: two questions [laughs]

Haeny:...she might be playing a game with us. It might be something else.

[Lalitha laughs]

Nathan: Aaahhhh, ummm-

[short theme music break]

Haeny: Is it a toy?

Lalitha: Hmm... ye-es. Seven.

Nathan: Hmm. Lot of shrugs with that. It, it makes [Lalitha laughs] me think this is still an edge case.

Haeny: Yeah, that yes, yeah that yes [Lalitha laughing] went upwards a little bit.

[Lalitha and Nathan laugh]

Nathan: Yeah. This is an edge case.

Lalitha: We...

Nathan: [ovr] It's kind of a toy.

Haeny: yeah

Lalitha: ...we can debrief and deconstruct at the end of the ques- [laughs]

Haeny: That sounds like...

Nathan: It could be a toy.

Haeny: That sounds like toy in quotes.

[Lalitha laughing]

Nathan: Yeah. Exactly. [Haeny and Lalitha laughing] Uh, you're killin' me.

Lalitha: Alright, enough with the semiotic readings of my responses.

[Haeny and Nathan laugh]

[short theme music break]

Nathan: ...killin' me.

Lalitha: [laughs] So Haeny, that was your first time playing Twenty questions, will you be playing that every day now?

Haeny: Nnno.

[all laugh]

Nathan: Not a game to keep.

Haeny: No, I think I could've watched, a, I could've watched an episode of something [laughing] in that amount of time.

[all laugh]

Nathan: That was, that was a long game.

[Theme music fades in and continues under Lalitha's voice.]

Lalitha: So we're now we're gonna go to a segment that is also gonna be something we do every week on Pop and Play. And that is a segment that I will let Haeny introduce.

[Music fades out under Haeny's voice]

Haeny: I mean I don't know if there's that much to introduce but we decided to call this Pop and Play because we also wanted to include pop culture. And so, our last question to all of us, is what's poppin'? Meaning, what has excited you or interested you lately in pop culture that you want to talk about or tell, tell the kind folks out there about. So Nathan-

Nathan: What's poppin? I, you know, ummm. Oh well I recently played The Last of Us Two. It's not really poppin' because it came out like, many months ago [laughing].

Lalitha: It's alright.

[Haeny laughs]

Nathan: But, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was horrifying and terrifying, and, and it was heart wrenching and I, could, could only play it with the lights on, cause I got, would get very scared. And I couldn't play it when my kids ' around, because it's too scary for them and. An' it was emotionally exhausting, but it was such a, a, a, a interesting and enjoyable experience.

Lalitha: What was it called?

Haeny: Cool.

Nathan: The Last of Us Two.

Haeny: Lalitha, what's, what's on your radar?

Lalitha: You know, I am not gonna complicate this.

Nathan: What's poppin'?

Lalitha: I'm not [laughs]

Haeny: What's poppin'?

Nathan: What's poppin'?

Haeny: Yes.

Lalitha: For me, it's been a long time kinda thing. As Haeny probab- has, knows, 'cause I've been talking to her about this. I have been slowly making my way through all twelve seasons of Murder She Wrote. [Nathan laughs] And let me tell you something. That Angela Lansberry. Is, just, she's just phenomenal. And I recently-

Nathan: She's a treasure.

Lalitha: What's that?

Nathan: She's a treasure.

Lalitha: She's a treasure. And I recently saw an interview with her and she was delightful in her nineties. That show holds up. Now, people will argue with me. It's fine, but, as I've been telling anybody who will listen, they predicted the financial crisis. The show was very prescient. I especially love Jessica Fletcher's wardrobe, and selection of pantsuits. And leather briefcases. And there is a season where she teaches in New York City. And so, it's been really fun to imagine while I'm slogging through reviews that I have to write or chapters I owe people that I too am writing murder mysteries. [Haeny and Lalitha laugh] on my, word processing device. So I'm, I'm gonna just stick with that one. I'm not gonna try to overcomplicate it. I love it. I'm in the end of season nine. I'm takin' my time. I'm savoring it. Murder She Wrote is what's poppin' for me.

Nathan: I just wanna say that I am so thankful that the choice that Lalitha has, has, [Lalitha laughs] has brought to us about the thing that's poppin' for her is SO much older [Lalitha and Haeny laugh] than the things that I mentioned [Lalitha and Haeny laugh] that I still look at least kinda hip.

Lalitha: Um, vintage.

Nathan: Compared to her.

Lalitha: Nathan, [Haeny laughs] vintage.

Nathan: [laughs] Ahhh-

Lalitha: Awww haha.

Nathan: That's right. It's so old it's cool again. Ahh.

[Lalitha and Haeny laugh]

Haeny: Oh my god.

Nathan: You're like the kids who are just now discovering friends. [Lalitha laughs] You know, it's like oh...

Haeny: Oh, yeah.

Nathan: ...friends is cool, have you heard of it? I'm like, uh, yeah I've heard of it. Geez, come on.

[all laugh]

Lalitha: Lord. Mmhmm.

Haeny: Oh my god.

Lalitha: Mmhmm. Good times.

Nathan: Oh.

Lalitha: Haeny what's poppin' for you?

Haeny: Okay, so, I'm inspired by your vintage train, so I'll go down that road, because I feel like there's a whole bunch of them that I could choose right now, but I decided I'll choose the vintage one. So, I have started to re-watch Golden Girls, and. [laughing]

Nathan: Knew it, I knew it. [laughs]

Haeny: [laughing] You knew I was gonna say that?

Nathan: I knew it, when I was thinking of, when I was gonna make the Friends joke I thought, I could make the Golden Girls joke. [Nathan and Haeny laugh] I made the Friends joke instead. Come on, Haeny.

Haeny: Okay...

Nathan: It's a, it's good. It's a good.

Haeny: ...but I also feel like the reason why I started doing that [Nathan and Lalitha laughing] is I do feel like there's been a resurgence of Golden Girls memes...

Nathan: Yeah.

Haeny: ...in the pop culture landscape, right.

Nathan: For sure.

Lalitha: Yes.

Haeny: So I'm like, I'm gonna re-watch that, starting with season one...

Lalitha: Brilliant.

Haeny: ... to see if it holds up, and it holds up. It is so funny. [laughing] I can't, like, I'm like laughing right before...

Lalitha: Did you go to the Golden Girls cafe when it was here?

Haeny: No, but you told me about it.

Nathan: Cool.

Lalitha: Oh my god, it was so good.

Haeny: I, I wish I did.

Lalitha: Please tell me-

Haeny: So the other thing that I've been doing [Lalitha and Nathan laughing] is I did go to the, the webinar where they did a table read that Lena Waithe hosted...

Lalitha: Ahhhhh

Haeny: ...where she, where they re-imagined Golden Girls as Black women.

Lalitha: No, that's awesome.

Haeny: And so like, Regina King plays a par-

Lalitha: Yeh-

Haeny: Like, it's just everybody that they chose, like for the, you know, Rose, Blanche...

Lalitha: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Haeny: ...Dorothy, Sophia, like it was just like a really great casting. The only person that I feel like they should've put on there was Jasmine Guy. I think she would make a... [laughing]

Lalitha: [gasps]

Haeny: ...very good Blanche.

[Haeny and Nathan laugh]

Lalitha: Oh, I'm with you. That would be great.

Haeny: So, you heard it here first, folks. The next table read it should be Jasmine Guy playing the role of Blanche.

Lalitha: Good, s-

Haeny: Anyway.

Lalitha: Good poppin.' Yeah. That was fun.

Haeny: Yeah.

Nathan: This, this has been what's poppin.'

Lalitha: I know. [laughs]

Haeny: uhuh.

Lalitha: Well. That, this has been great. We will have lots more to come on this season of Pop and Play. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for listening. Nathan and Haeny, I'm excited to see where you take this. We will...

Nathan: Yes.

Lalitha: ...see you all next time.

Nathan: Can't wait. See ya.

Haeny: Byyyye.

[Theme music fades in, then lowers and continues under credits]

Nathan: Thanks for listening to Pop and Play, and thanks to Lalitha for hosting our first episode! Pop and Play is produced by Haeny Yoon, Lalitha Vasudevan and Joe Riina-Ferrie, and myself, Nathan Holbert at Teachers College, Columbia University with the Digital Futures Institute. This episode was edited by Joe Riina-Ferrie. For a transcript and to learn more, visit tc.edu/popandplay. Our music is selections from Leafeaters by Podington Bear, used here under a creative commons attribution non-commercial license. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time!   

[Music fades out]