0:02 good afternoon and welcome to jigger's place I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every other Thursday at 5:00 pm Pacific time to talk about all those things except business and professions that I talk about on my shows the other days of the week great books life and Cocktails not necessarily in that order so today I'm going to be uh talking talking about a book that my daughter um meline asked me to read several months ago called flowers for alron it's a
0:39 classic book from uh I believe the early 1960s and she had heard about it and was fascinated by it and so we bought a couple of copies and uh you know wanting to be a good dad I you know I read it and I started reading it and I couldn't put it down it's it's a it's an absolutely wonderful book and so in in in honor of uh flowers for alron which where I think one of the central themes of the book is is virtue what is virtue how do
1:16 we attain a state of virtuousness um I I looked around for a cocktail that had something to do with virtue and could not find one um and and so I tried a little experiment I went on chat GPT and I said and I asked it to create a cocktail with the theme of virtue and it came up with something called The Virtue cocktail and uh you know I I've never tried it so this will be you know an experiment for us but the cocktail uh is
1:51 is made with one of my favorite um Spirits Jin this is this is the the rack gin that I keep it's it's happens to be Tang gray and it's just a great allaround Jin and um the Jin symbolizes uh transparency and Clarity and then the next ingredients is fresh lemon juice which you know lemons have a certain sharpness to them so there's a sharpness of judgment uh that that is part of being virtuous and then honey
2:27 syrup which um let's see it's okay so this is this is what chat GPT came up with which which I think is quite clever a sweet yet natural element symbolizing truth and simplicity now I I wasn't familiar with what honey syrup was and it turns out basically it's honey and uh very warm water mixed together so it makes it makes the honey more liquid um but very tasty I I will tell you not a big honey fan but really like the honey syrup and then a a dash of I'm I'm using
3:02 bitterman's Scarboro bitters as in you know are you going to Scarboro fair the famous song by um um garfinkle I Simon and Garfunkle um and and it brings this sort of calm peaceful peaceful Vibe of of the the 60s uh at least that part of the 60s of course the 60s had its vibe side as well just just a dash of like I say Scarboro bitters it's a it's a Savory herbal um uh
3:38 tasting Bitters and then it all gets put into a cocktail shaker I've already put the ice in the cocktail shaker uh to so we can so I can you know move this along a little bit more quickly and so we're going to start out with 2 oz of Jin one
4:17 two you know I I keep a a pretty pretty tight bar here so not not a lot of working space um next is an oun of fresh lemon juice and then 3/4 of an ounce of the honey syrup let me make sure I find it right
5:01 okay and a dash of the um scaros Scarboro bids oops we go okay and you know as as we've done on the other times we when we the idea is to just really not just kill their ingredients but mix them and um dilute them a little bit so
5:37 that the flavor of the different ingredients is opened up you can see it's already starting to get nice and frossy that's always a good sign let this for about another 10 seconds now to those of you who uh are Shoppers you may have you may recall um aart department store called Barney um it closed a few years ago um but many many many years ago got probably close to uh uh 35 years ago one of my clients
6:12 as a holiday gift um gave me a gift from Barney that I couldn't use and so I went there to exchange it and I got these lovely coups they're um several there I I have a dozen of them in in six different shades so we're going to strain this into the coupe there we go and let's let see if this is any good right it's going to be a little bit like a gimlet I
6:50 suppose well you know what chat GPT is a pretty good mixologist so I'm gonna move over now to the uh the sofa and I'll see you there in a moment
7:35 so here we are um at our normal Thursday afternoon spot this virtue cocktail is quite refreshing um I think if I made it again I'd use a little bit less lemon juice um because the the lemon is sort of overpowering everything else but uh it's very nice so by the way if if you want to get the
8:11 cocktail recipes in advance um all you have to do is is sign up for my email list just go to my website bol.com scroll all the way down to the bottom and you'll see a place where you just you just put in your email address and click I think it's subscribe or whatever it says I'm not I don't do heavy emails I do uh one email about about two hours before each of my broadcast just as a reminder uh for you know that that a show is coming up and and and maybe during the year a few others but I
8:46 you're not going to get bombed with the you know tons and tons of emails from me that that's just not what I do so okay so this is the book I've been talking about flowers for algeron um it's written by Daniel Keys you can see more than five million copies sold right there and um let see yeah the book was uh originally written in in 1959 okay so I was a little bit off on the the publishing date um and then I guess it must have been the copyright for some reason was renewed in 1966
9:22 so the book is essentially about a young man named Charlie Gordon and he um is um what they you know what was called at the time um mentally slow so he was functional in that he could um he could he could work at a job and and and all those kind of things but um you know he didn't have real strong um intellectual capacity in fact he had um
9:58 reduced intellect ual capacity and he's asked to be the subject of a scientific experiment where he's given um um a drug basically that will enhance his intelligence now Alon is a mouse and you can see this this is alron right a white mouse which was you know sort of the common um uh uh you know animal to use for Sci or the sort of classic animal to use for
10:33 scientific research so um aleron was was test was tested with the um with the drug first and and you know became much more intelligent than the other mice and so then the the follow-on test is to try it on a human and so Charley Gordon is the one selected to do that he agrees to the experiment now now there's there's kind of a hitch to the experiment and that is the the um the drug the impact of the drug will not be
11:10 permanent um nonetheless he he's intrigued by the idea of being smart because um I mean he's he knows he's not a particularly smart um young man um but and he sees smart people around him uh whom who he really respects and and he thinks i' I'd like to be like those people so um in the in the course of the book um he goes through this Arc of increasing intellectual
11:47 intelligence um while at the same time experiencing um the impact of that on his life more more broadly and there's an Awakening that takes place in him as he starts to discover or he starts to in essence remember things that have happened to him when he was younger that either he had just sort of pushed into his subconscious or he didn't really understand uh clearly what was happening
12:25 at the time that now that he's become ually aware he's able to interpret in what you know we as the readers would would probably consider to be a in a more accurate way uh so look as I'm sure you can appreciate uh you know historically um people who were mentally slow often times were were were were teased were harassed and and the fact of the matter is Charlie
13:02 didn't realize that that's how he had been treated during his life because he just he he just didn't have the capacity to understand that but as he gets more intellectually Advanced he comes to realize um how these people who had said they were his friends had in essence mistreated him and and as well one of the things he notices is that although he's he or one well one of the things we notice is although he's
13:38 becoming intellectually more intelligent he's not necess he's not really becoming more emotionally intelligent so his his emotional growth does not at all keep Pace with his intellectual growth he's still he he's he's very naive um especially for a young man his age his interactions with women for example are are difficult for him to understand um both emotionally and intellectually because much of the understanding of
14:15 interpersonal relationships is not is a combination of the two right so I mean if if you think about um the show The Big Bang Theory right the the sort of central character Sheldon right he's clearly the smartest person in the group or well the smartest person let me say he's he's the um most intellectually intelligent member of the group if if for another reason that he has an identic memory um and yet emotionally he's the most
14:51 immature of the group right so so the two do not go in concert at all they're really two different parts of of our growth as as individuals and so he um you know as the story progresses Charlie really struggles with a lot of the um a lot of the things that happen in his life that that have emotional Dimensions that he is not mature enough to understand to to Really to deal with
15:28 and that's that's that's part of that that's one of the themes of of the book another theme of the book is the way in which um disabled people or people with disabilities are are treated so as I mentioned a few minutes ago Charlie in the beginning you well while before he becomes more intellectually um aware he doesn't realize how um his his co-workers for example are
16:03 are the that the way they're treating him they're not actually treating him like like a peer friend they treat him almost like a mascot you know and in some cases even abuse him and and that was again not uncommon um not uncommon a way for mentally ill people or or mentally slow people to be treated at the time um if you've ever seen the the play um or the movie a cuckoo's nest uh it's it's that that that's I I think the the the play
16:40 is earlier than flowers for algon but the movie came is is I think it came out again in not again I think it came out in the 60s if I remember correctly um just as a side note when I was in high school um we did that show um acko nness I played Dr scandin it was my you know big theater debut in high school um and part of the theme of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the the the the way in
17:15 which um mentally ill disabled mentally deficient people are treated in this in in one flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest these are people who are institutionalized and it gives an insight into this that um at the time I think a lot of people they didn't know about it so unless you happen to have someone in your family um who was who was in a mental institution you probably had no idea what what the conditions were like so again the the the um the the path
17:50 that um that Charlie Gordon takes through the story shows us how he becomes aware of his mistreatment and and he becomes increasingly incensed about it uh you know as be as he become and justifiably so by the way as he becomes more aware of it so another theme of the book is this the the ethics of Science and and experimentation so the the the lead scientist considers himself a very very ethical practitioner and and you know he he gets
18:28 what we would might call inor informed consent on on Charlie's part to do this and yet at the same time there seems to be somewhat of a lack of appreciation for what this whole exper for how this whole experiment is is impacting Charlie not as the subject of an experiment but as a human being and you know if you if you were if you know know anything about uh the requirements for using human subjects in research today they're very much much
19:06 much more stringent than they were in the in the 1950s and 60s there are boards that have to vet projects all kinds of things that go on to screen what researchers and scientists um are planning to do of course none of this or or or virtually none of it existed back in the 1950s and my my feeling is is is that there's a certain almost coldness to the the way the lead
19:42 scientist approaches this even as he I I believe thinks of himself as being a very kind aware individual and a very caring individual it's it's a it's a very interesting dichotomy that Daniel Keys writes into that role so there's also there's a a female scientist who who also is involved in the experiment and and she becomes much more emotionally and in and involved with with Charlie again through the Arc
20:17 of the story and she begins I think to be troubled by this question of what are we doing to Charlie as a young man as a human being as opposed to someone who's volunteered to be uh the you know the subject of this scientific experiment EXC me you have to have a little more cocktail right so another theme of the book is
20:52 the nature of Happiness so I think even today there's somehow a belief that the smarter we get the happier we'll be I don't think that's ever been true I don't know that intellectual ability and emotions have any connection per se and certainly the the that that somebody is particularly em intellectually developed says nothing
21:29 about whether they're a happy person a sad person a kind person uh a a a a a person uh you know somewhat devoid of human feeling the the two have no correlation even though I think it's very popular in our society to consider that there are conect the smarter the person is the more emotionally intelligent they are the Kinder they are because they understand how important kindness is no I no I I have not
22:05 observed that in life uh i' I've never can't I I've never looked for a study on this but I've never seen a study that shows a correlation let alone a causation between intellectual intelligence and emotional uh emotional uh intelligence so um the the you know Flowers for Algernon it explores that question and perhaps this is one of the reasons why I like the book so much I think it it shows that there is not a
22:42 connection or a correlation between the two necessarily these are two different aspects of of of human beings and and each needs to be uh cultivated in in their in its own way way so that if if it is good to to be more intellectually developed that's one thing if it and and if it is good and I believe it is to be uh more emotionally developed that also happens in its own
23:17 way and there isn't much of any sort of cross-pollination between those two now by the way you might have noticed that I I I asked the question is intellectual growth a good thing and and I asked the same question about emotional growth and and but I answered it that time I think emotional growth is a good thing I think we all should strive for emotional growth I think intellectual growth may be a good thing I think it depends why are we pursuing it how are we pursuing
23:54 it um some people I think pursue intellectual growth in order to Lord it over other people and on a certain level I think that person might be better off being less intellectually developed the last thing we need is more people doing this to us because they think they're smarter than we are uh on the other hand if we pursue intellectual growth in order to gain greater insight into uh such things as human history in order to gain ins it into how the world
24:29 Works perhaps on a scientific level or on a spiritual level so the these are these are good things because while they're not the same thing as emotional growth I think they are working on a somewhat parallel track with our emotional growth because there's meaning behind there's there's an emotional meaning when I say emotional mean I maybe I should say a a humanistic meaning behind the St ding for intellectual growth um
25:04 whereas inherent in striving for emotional growth is the the humanist um Mandate of being able to better understand better relate to better help our our fellow human beings as well as all of of of God's creation so so again nature of Happiness that's that's another theme in the book um another one I'm just gonna I'm just GNA do two more
25:39 um is the the aspect of of of alienation and isolation that Charlie Gordon experiences the more intellectually the more he grows intellectually it's it's almost as if it it it becomes harder for him to relate to other people so his intelligence becomes a barrier to what it it seems like he really wants which is true friendships the ability
26:16 pardon me the ability to really connect with other people those two are fighting each other and part of that may be because Charlie's desire for intellectual growth isn't anything more than the desire for intellectual growth there is no human sense behind it as to how is this going to serve me to make me a better
26:52 human being so interestingly and that's that's where his lack of of or his his emotional immaturity I think really uh is is a um it holds it holds back the usefulness of his intellectual growth because he he he doesn't understand that intellectual growth for its own sake often times if not always does not
27:27 get us where we really want to go quite to the contrary in Charlie's case it causes causes him to feel ever more isolated from other people ever ever more alienated even from the people that he does know from for example his former work colleagues from the the the the the female scientist with whom he interacts and and so he he as much as he feels he's gaining an aspect of himself through his intellectual growth you can see that
28:03 he's he's also feeling he's losing part of himself as his ability to to connect with other people gets more tenuous and more tenuous and more tenuous drives him farther and farther apart and finally as as he sees what happens to aleron as the re as as the result of of taking the drug how it's essentially destroying Algernon Charlie comes to the realization that you know even though he
28:38 was told the the change would not be permanent really what that means so as as his as as he starts to hit the ner of of his intellectual level and it starts to decline he he he retains enough of it to realize he's losing something um and he feels the
29:13 loss and yet because he's power powerless I should say power lless to stop it and to stop him becoming essential or to stop what's happening to him uh in the same way that you know that happened to algeron there there's a desperation is probably too strong a word but there there's there's true tragedy there we're so used to saying oh you know this happened it's such a tragedy tragedy is deeper than something bad or something sorrowful
29:50 sorrowful tragedy is is almost the the understanding of of a bad thing happening as it's happening and the realization that loss is coming it the loss is building there's there's a true pathos there so if you've ever read the Greek tragedies they they of course capture that that that the essence of tragedy so well so there is there is somewhat now that I think about it and mention it there is somewhat of of that sense of sort of Greek tragedy in flowers for
30:26 algeron as this as the story comes to to to to a you know to a close so I I've mentioned several things that I I really loved about the book um one of them of course is is doing something you know that my daughter asked me to do that um you know she loves to read I love to read so it was kind of you know connecting on a on a on
31:04 a shared passion that that was certainly one that was certainly one reason why I I love the book um the second reason I love the book is I do like um literature that has had that has stood the test of time so I love uh Charles Dickens Jane Austin uh Thomas Hardy um Dean Howell so Mo most of the literature I read by the way is from the
31:39 19th century I I don't read a whole lot of 20th century literature most of what I read from the 20th century for those of you who saw my my show on the maltes Falcon so you know mostly sort of detective and and and and you know crime fiction from from the 20th centur especially kind of the the the F the first half of the 20th century so um there there is a a a quality to the writing that um is different than contemporary
32:15 fiction so there were there were certain rules of writing they weren't written down but there was there was an idea that you you want you you were required to use um complex language to convey ideas and and and not to clobber your reader over the head with those ideas but to bring your the reader along and
32:50 see if you could sort of sway the reader to your point of view that that is really a a part of literature through certainly the early 20th century and for many writers even into the middle of the 20th century that um from the literature I've read of the second half of the 20th century is is it's it's not there as much it it it's it's somewhat there for example in Kurt vaget for example although his his novels are are much more hard-hitting um you know in terms of a
33:27 latter half of the 20th century Kurt vaget is probably the one I've read the most of and he has his books are wonderful but they don't have the same uh literary quality that uh 19th and early 20th century literature has so that's another aspect of the book that that I I really enjoyed and the third aspect that I really enjoyed is all of these themes so the they were interwoven they were complex and they were not
34:03 resolved so they gave me as the reader an opportunity to explore them and to a large extent come to my own conclusions about the various issu that I've mentioned intellectual growth versus emotional growth um the treatment of the mentally disabled the the the ethics of science the nature of Happiness Etc the various things that I I've talked about um during the show
34:38 it it it it gave me the opportunity to explore them and draw my own conclusions without essentially putting on me the burden of what the author thought were the right conclusions and and I would argue by the way that that's the sign of a very confident writer because he didn't need me to come to the same conclusions that he came to and and I I think that shows a tremendous amount
35:13 of maturity on the part of the writer right and and this is a dis this is a discussion I I had several times with my daughter that as a as her father who loves her I don't require her I don't need her to agree with me really on on on much of anything in order for me to love her um what I require is if if if if I can use that word is a relationship with her and and and in order to have that be you
35:49 know built into an adult relationship she needs the space to be able to figure out who she is is um unburdened by expectations about that that that she may be drawing from me and and that by the way that's different than saying um I you know I'm non-judgmental um that is not the case so uh my daughter clearly knows what I think is is is right and
36:25 wrong what she also knows is that I'm open to a discussion that would potentially challenge my beliefs and that I will engage in that discussion with her and if she draws a different conclusion that I do that doesn't mean that therefore you know our our relationship is is is over uh quite to the contrary my My Hope Is that we will have a lifelong conversation about these issues and and
37:02 perhaps most especially about the issues with which we disagree um because we'll be informed by each other's disagreement and perhaps gain ever more clarity about our own perspective on these issues and and in the end um that's what I think let me make get the get the the light out there that's what I think flowers for alron gives us the opportunity to do so by reading and rereading this book we
37:38 can have a a lifelong in in essence a conversation with Daniel keys with Charlie Gordon and the other characters about these various themes and they will stand as a a touchstone for us as we hopefully gain ever greater emotional growth that will serve us through our lives so that's that that's why I I you know recommend flowers for alron to you
38:13 um I will put a link to it in the show notes of course and like like all the links in my show notes they are affiliate links I think I get you know like three cents if you use the you know affiliate link to uh you know to click through and buy the book book um I I don't put the I don't put the links in there to get the three cents I put them in there to uh allow you to get the book but why not you know as as we say in yish N the gelf I'll take the three cents so um I I I I really do encourage you to read the book and and if and if you take me up on my recommendation I'd
38:48 love to hear your thoughts um share them in um my social media the social media for the show all of those links will be in the show notes as well after it posts on YouTube and um tell me where you agree with my conclusions where you disagree with my conclusions um maybe we'll start what will become a lifelong dialogue that will help both of us grow uh intellectually um and and and and in the end um that's that's a lot of what
39:23 jigger's place is about um I I I you know you may say well wait I thought it was about cocktails well I think that you know a cocktail helps us relax and it opens us up to maybe some emotional growth that we might not have been uh open to uh previously and and and that's really what what part of what life is about to develop ourselves as individuals so that we can interact with our our fellow human beings in in a in a more enriching way so uh I can't take a final of my drink well maybe I can there
40:00 you go just a little bit final sip of the cocktail thank you for joining me this afternoon and this is uh my last show for this week so I I'll wish you a wonderful evening and a wonderful windup to the week and and just a a couple of reminders next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m. is my show trust and Estates weekly and I'm going to be talking about the um the the the power relationships between
40:35 the different parties involved in the administration of an estate this is a a topic that I become much more aware of um in my practice and and uh so I hope you'll join me for that if if you're involved in trust probates Estates um I would particularly love to hear your thoughts about about what I say on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. is my show U business lessons from the military let's see if I can remember what the show is going to be about uh oh yes so it's
41:13 going to be about um how Persian approach to battle changed from when he was involved in the Border skirmishes against Ponch SOA versus how he conducted the American expeditionary force during World War I and there are there are lessons to for us to learn from that and then on Wednesday at 10: a. is my show people making money and I'm I'm going to be talking about another wonderful book it's called The Power of Habit by Charles DG and excuse
41:50 me one of one of the things we can do to most help ourselves in life is to develop routine that are just embedded in how we do things that support us toward gaining success so I think I'm I think I titled the the show routines for success or something like that so that'll be on Wednesday people making money again all the times 10: am uh Pacific time so once again thank you so much for joining me this this afternoon this evening uh
42:25 wishing you all the best going forward and signing off as I always do Marie darling you really are my bell courage at all times my friend