Sasha Sagan
Appearances
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
It just feels like this, like amorphous, like joke. And it's also not like the magic is ruined when you find out that your mother put two dollars under your pillow. You know what I mean?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yeah. Yes. And it's the I mean, if you want to talk about strange customs, it is the weirdest thing ever. I mean, imagine if it was not like if we hadn't all grown up with it and you were reading in like an anthropology textbook about some distant place.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
tribe or island somewhere where when the children come of age and their teeth start falling out of their mouths they put it under their pillow and then like a mystical like spirit from the forest with wings comes and takes part of their body that has fallen out and leaves them the like you know, leaves the money, the currency, the local currency.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
I don't think it's, I mean, I have to do some research to tell you. We haven't done a full tooth fairy episode yet, but that is something I really want to do. But no, I think it's definitely Western culture. I don't think it's global. I'm going to look into it. This is a good question.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Well, thank you. I do. I mean, a lot of my work and definitely my worldview is based on my parents' work. So I feel like it's part of my identity.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Oh no, this is like my favorite thing to talk about. I know. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's 10 questions, but it's really one question. And so my perspective is in order to believe for me to believe something, I need evidence. I need real evidence. And so to say, when people say, do you believe in something? This is like,
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
The implication is, like, is it what you, like, your best guess, your hope, whatever. And my position is I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in anything, you know, in the air quotes, like, paranormal, because I... Without evidence, how can we possibly know what is just our hopes and our wishes and our confirmation bias or our fears and what is real?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
I mean, that is to say, also, we are getting more information. That's the magic of science. But if any of this were real... And there comes a day where it is proven true. It will be supported by some evidence. It will stand up to scrutiny, right? There are lots of things we didn't understand in human history that now we understand.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
I mean, if you said, like, a few, you know, millennia ago, like, I believe that the moon controls the ocean, controls the tides, right? That... Could be like something like a person.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yeah. Totally. What a witch would say. A hundred percent. But then once you get gravity and like Newton kind of works out how this could work, it becomes real. And what I think is sort of.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
The key is that can we still hold on to like the awe and enthusiasm and the sense of like, oh, my God, holy shit, this is amazing and stunning and exhilarating and spine tingling about the stuff that we have evidence for that is real. Yes. And hold out, just hold an open space for the stuff that could just be wishful thinking or fears or hopes or ancient rumors.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And I just think, you know, like the example I always give is. there is a secret code in your blood that connects you to your ancestors that can solve mysteries that we did not know about like a few decades ago, you know, 60, 70 years ago. And that it can like, is, is like the key to answering so many questions, reuniting lost family members, figuring out like what, All these, you know, history.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And, like, if you... By the time you're doing, like, your allele worksheets in middle school, DNA doesn't seem like this magical, mystical, thrilling thing. But I think it is. And so whatever...
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
things that we currently categorize as paranormal, you know, we have to just like hold an empty space until there's evidence because we humans are so inclined to fall into the traps of our own belief systems.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Sure. And like the thing that my parents always told me that's so magnificent about science is it has this error correcting mechanism, right? You're a better scientist if you prove that the conventional wisdom is wrong, if you can really prove it, like if you really, it can really stand up to scrutiny. And sometimes we believe things for centuries and then they end up being disproven.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
But like this system is our best bet because we're not that good at figuring out what's real and what's not historically. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Like, the universe, like, beyond Earth?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
You asked me about when people would come up to me and when I was a kid and people would come up to my dad. I mean, he would get in airports and restaurants like, Dr. Sagan, great to meet you. Do you believe in aliens? Aliens, where they at? Yeah, exactly. And people really wanted to know and they were genuinely, I mean, who wouldn't want to know? I mean, it was like genuine curiosity.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
You're a smart guy. I'm a moron. You tell me what you think.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And I mean, this is like before like social media or anything. And so you're just like, oh, my goodness, perfect person to ask this question. And he would say, I don't know. And they would say, oh, but what does your gut tell you? And he would say, well, I don't use my gut for this. I, you know, use my brain. And we just don't. And he would have a.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
loved, and I can't underscore this enough, he would have loved to have lived to see some evidence that there was life elsewhere in the universe. But he, like the quote that you just mentioned, he wanted, he didn't want to just fall back on his wishes and hopes. He wanted to really know. And so I think just like holding that space open for not knowing.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
But your question about like, is science uniformed?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
I think things would be entirely different, but I think that if we think about... I mean, science as like the nature, the way we understand nature, the way the physical laws of nature exist, it's not a set of like, it's not a list of like, things like figures and formulas. It's a method to understand. And whatever we were to encounter somewhere else, surely it would be like amazingly different.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
But whatever we were able to glean through evidence about what life or not life existence, inanimate existence, maybe there was would be science.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
No, I disagree, because it's the fact that we're like the goal is to constantly test it. And then when there's new information, change accordingly is kind of to me the opposite of faith gets used. Yes. Like sometimes faith gets used as like opposite. optimism or like pause, like having a good attitude. And like, I'm all for that. You know what I mean? If it's like, oh, things look terrible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And it's like, have some faith. I mean, like it could work out. That would be great. You know what I mean? Like that is a different thing than the idea that no matter what you're presented with, no matter what evidence is brought your way, you will not waver. That is a different thing. And I feel like that is antithetical to science.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Sure. Yes, totally. But if we could somehow, even with everything that we're used to from our planet and solar system, not working, if we can somehow then glean what's different, why it's different, what the like structure of it all is, that pursuit would still be science.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
I just also think it's like no matter what, like it's the when if we ever get to go out into the universe and get some new gases, as you say, or we got to get new gases. I'm sick of these old ass gases. That's the number one thing. I'm brewing some of my own right now. I think no matter what we find, but it will just underscore how precious and rare this planet is.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Oh, it's a wonderful treasure. I mean, I feel so lucky. I mean, both my parents, my mom, Andreanne, and my dad collaborated on books and essays on the original Cosmos series in the 80s, which my mom has written and produced and directed the new version of with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Oh, no, I know. I wrote about this in my book, and I've spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, and I have the same problem because people are like, what sign are you? And I'm like, I'm a Scorpio, but I don't believe that there is any evidence to support astrology.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yeah, totally. Start a huge argument about it. No, it's a huge problem, actually, that I mean. Is it a huge problem in the grand scheme of things? No. But I think, so no, astrology does not, it's not supported by evidence. And how would that even work if it were? How would, like, that's the kind of the crux of all of this. Like, how would what planets and stars were in what universe?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
like position above your, like above the hospital when you were born have any impact on your personality? Like how would that work? You know? And I think it's just, yes, no, I'm, I guess my personality changes with a head injury.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Maybe that could reveal your rising. thing that I really that I the thing about astrology that really gets me is I think the desire for it like the hunger for it and the hunger for like a lot of stuff in that genre like crystals and things like that is because we do have this desire to be, to feel like we're part of the universe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And we do have that desire to feel like connected to the earth and feel that like, and I think especially if people are not religious, there is that hunger to feel connected to one another and to the grandeur and majesty of the universe. And I think that that is valid, but I just don't think astrology or crystals are the road there.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yeah, open up just a science library instead. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Well, I do think the rise of... like I'm sort of normalizing a lack of religion. I do think that it can make more fanaticism because sometimes you dig your heels in deeper when you feel like there is a threat. And I think that, you know, we, listen, even the most devout, most
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
religious traditional person alive today is doing things very differently than their ancestors were doing a thousand years ago right nobody is like perfectly following this ancient thing we are all changing and adapting and pulling things out of ancient texts that seem important and letting other things that were maybe the headline fall by the wayside and sort of just um
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Like anything, traditions, rituals, religions, they have to mutate in order to survive. And so I think change is inevitable. And it's not so much a scale to me of more religious or less religious necessarily. It's that it's going to change over time. It's going to reflect the moment. What are the changes we want to make? What is the future that you want to...
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yes, absolutely. No, she's amazing. And both my parents, I mean, you know, in terms of like, is it a burden? It's really not. I feel so lucky. I lost, you know, my dad was amazing and he was a really fun, great dad. And I lost him when I was 14.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
to create for the next generation, whether you're secular or religious. And I think that if you're holding on like white knuckle, holding on to elements of a religion that divide, that belittle the people that are different, that cause violence, then you are not helping.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yes, feeding people who are hungry.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Including people who are outcasts. Yes. That stuff doesn't seem like it's so... Centered. That has not been the main headline in the Christian nationalist movement. And I have a bone to pick with them about that. Yeah, I agree with that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
We're not on the same page. No. Yeah. I mean, it's a mirror, right? Religion, like anything, it's a mirror. You want a reason to feed the poor. You want a reason to do, you know, acts of kindness to build a hospital. You can find it. You want a reason to feel like you're better. Your little group is the one good group and everybody else can just suffer. Then you can find that too.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And I just think more and more it's, well, maybe always, but I think I see a lot of it is about identity and not about theology. It is, I mean, right, people who, like, identify really strongly with a group, but maybe not Haven't done the reading. You know, I think that is it. And that goes back to something very ancient and very tribal.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And like that, you know, we maybe there was some evolutionary advantage tens of thousands of years ago to be like we live in a band of 20 or 30 people and we got to just survive and we can't trust anybody else.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Right. But now our village is 8 billion people and counting. And we got to start looking at it that way because the differences between the groups and like I said, like the set design and the script and the costume is superficial and it is totally unimportant. And that is the greatest...
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And so when I meet people who have questions about him or read his work, like, you know, started reading his work a couple years ago when or even weren't even born in 1996. I feel this immense joy and gratitude that in this way, in this totally secular, real way, he is living on. And no, I love talking about it. And my book is partly about growing up in that household and growing up
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
gift of the cosmic perspective is when we get to zoom out and we're not down here seeing where the world feels really big and the differences feel really extreme. But when we can look at the image of the Earth from space and we see that all these borders are artificial and that if anyone were to show up from anywhere else, we would be indistinguishable, one group to another.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And that I think that we have to just, you know, use this amazing gift that science has given us to see ourselves as on this lifeboat together in this vast ocean to realize that the little things that people are willing to kill each other over are
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Right. But also that's such a reveal because it's saying I would like be a serial killer if I wasn't worried that somebody was watching. You know, that's the really scary thing about that argument to me is because it's like. The idea of getting caught or getting in trouble or getting your, like, comeuppance later on is the reason you're not doing, like, really bad things.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And then about all the little other things that they don't like, all the little sexual infractions that are, like, between consenting adults or by yourself or, like, all the things that they don't like. It's like, well, then if no one's...
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
hurt, like, or two people getting married and just because they have the same parts, you know, like, it's like, well, then we don't need, you don't need to not do that. Like, if no one's being hurt, then it's okay. And if someone, and if someone is being hurt, you should have another method, another system internally that says this is bad besides, you
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Being, you know, on the, you know, CCTV of the universe.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Well, I just, I mean, I think there is like, I mean, I do think there is community. And like, I think that when we can look at ourselves as belonging to us,
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
the planet, I think we can, you know, and the thing that I really admire about religion, even though I'm not religious and I'm critical of it in a lot of ways, is the sense of community and the sense of belonging and having a group that comes together when, you know, times are tough and celebrates when things are going well.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And I think for those of us who are not religious, like we have to build that for ourselves. And I think being in one of the best ways to get that feeling is being involved in
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
causes that you believe in and volunteering and like you know social justice doing things to make things more how you hope them to be and it sort of also fills that need of like okay this is my group and we go with like stuff envelopes together or whatever canvas and I think there's something really to be said for that because we do want to feel like we're part of something but you know it just it shouldn't be something that is we're part of something that makes us superior to everybody else
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
with the worldview of, you know, that science is the pathway to not just understanding and like, not just to like reality, but to awe and wonder and joy and that spine tingling feeling that we are a part of something larger than ourselves.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And you can do it more than an hour a week. Oh, yeah. Look at me now. All I do is yap. Yeah.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
So my understanding, and you'll have to tell me if I'm wrong, is that it is a subversive belief system. I feel like one of the things that I know most about the Satanists is the ways in which they have really worked within the legal system to sort of counteract some of the Christian nationalist beliefs. Oh, well, then can we go to the public school and hand out our flyers, too?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And sort of leading us to question the ways in which our society favors one belief system over the others. And I don't know, I heard someone say, like, you know, that Satanists don't really believe in Satan. They don't.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
I am very nearly 42 years old, so I don't think I'm allowed on tick tock.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Okay. No, but I am on Instagram. I'm Sasha Sagan on Instagram. And I just had the best time talking to you both. Thank you.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
No, I'm on a little break right now. But I want to come back to it. Yeah, I really enjoy doing it. I like... I like asking people questions about why they feel like really strongly about, you know, April Fool's Day.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Why would he do such a thing? No, I feel like I mean, I feel like the it's interesting because I think there is this correlation between, you know, the conspiracy theories and so much of the history of religion, because we are so uncomfortable not knowing it is torture for us. The future is so unrelenting with its, you know, our inability to predict it. It's miserable.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And I mean, right now, as we are, I don't know when this is going to air, but as we are in the lead up to the election. I mean, it's like- What's happening? What's going on right now? Oh God, you're going to want to have a seat because it's really intense.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
But I think that like just this discomfort with not knowing the answer to small and deep, profound questions, we humans, you know, we fill stuff in because even if it's something bad, even if it's something disturbing, we somehow are more comfortable with that than just the open space of a question.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Exactly. And I think that if you're raised with the worldview that there is someone, a man in charge who makes decisions that you cannot possibly understand, and it seems like it's a bad thing, but maybe there's a good reason and you're not allowed to ask any questions and you just have to agree. It sets you up for all kinds of other ideologies.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yes. Well, I think it's a combination of two things.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Like, so like if you were to take like, so part of the reason I'm interested in this is because when I was a kid, my dad would like love to do these thought experiments about like, how would I, like, if I were to meet someone from, you know, another planet, how would I explain what we were doing and why we were doing it?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And it was great because also when you're a child, you are kind of like, you know, you're new on earth and you're still getting a hang of all these norms. And it's very easy once you become an adult to become very blasé about, well, that's just the way we do things. But when you're a child, you're like, well, why do we... say something after someone sneezes, but not after they burp.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And then parents sometimes get very annoyed with the long list of why questions, because then they have to ask themselves these. And so I loved always looking at the things we do from the outside. And so that's sort of the impetus for the Strange Customs podcast. Like if you were an anthropologist from somewhere else, how would you explain
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
you know, marriage, anything from like marriage and, you know, rituals around birth to like April Fool's Day or, you know, I mean, Halloween is a perfect example. I think it's that. And I'm also really interested in customs and traditions because as a non-religious person, I still want to mark time and process change. And I still...
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
you know, want to grieve when someone dies and I got married and had a wedding. And like when the seasons change, I want to have a celebration, but I don't have the infrastructure of religion. So how do we do that?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
No, I don't think we must, but I think that it gives us sometimes, depending on the ritual, it's either the illusion of control, if it's a ritual that we believe changes something, makes something happen, or it's about processing change, right? Like, Someone's alive and then they are not alive. The thing, whatever this is, goes away. How do we make sense of that? How do we process this change?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Or if you think about all the coming of age rituals around the world, right? Someone is a child and then like, oh, all these chemicals come in and their voice changes and there's hair and then they're in a weird mood and everything's different suddenly. And then they're an adult. And like that threshold, we have to acknowledge that.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And I think that, you know, when we sort of look at so many rituals around the world, when you peel back the first layer of like the local set design and costumes and script, we are almost always celebrating the same things. And they are so often scientific phenomenon, like puberty is like a biological change, right? The changing of the seasons is
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
It has to do with the biology of the plants and it has to do with the axial tilts of the earth, right? And all these holidays that fall around the solstices and equinoxes. It's because we're all, you know, we sometimes make up a different backstory, but we're all trying to process the same patterns and make sense of them and find the beauty in them and alleviate our fears.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Those are the only two options.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
It's co-opted from the winter solstice Roman stuff.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yes, that's right. Yes. I mean, my ancestors, when I do a DNA test, it's like 100. I think they can only say like 99.9%. But it's like Ashkenazi Jew. And I'm like, I know.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
I do everything. So we do Hanukkah as a kind of like historical reenactment. You know, like we do it in this way to say to our children, like, this is what your ancestors were doing for thousands of years. And see this thematic through line about the light and the darkness. The days are short in the Northern Hemisphere. And so we do this.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And then my husband's family, my husband's also secular, but his family is historically Christian. And, you know... And my mother-in-law does a lot of fun Christmas stuff. And we do that stuff too. And again, in the context of like, this is a way to honor our ancestors. And, you know, also because Christmas is so... I mean, it's so ubiquitous.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
It's like, you have to really make a choice to not celebrate it, you know?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Well, they have to deal with... And then it makes it more attractive.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Yeah. Totally. And I mean, it's not like I mean, it wouldn't be fair just because, you know, my husband did grow up with Christmas. So it's like if I'm allowed to do my secular Hanukkah thing, we got to do that, too. And then the other thing that we do is the winter solstice. And it's not in like a witchy way, although I have a lot of, you know, no shade about that, but in a way of saying, OK.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Tomorrow, no matter what, the days are going to start getting longer again. And right now it gets dark very early and that is unpleasant. But because of the axial tilt of the earth and the way it goes around the sun, tomorrow, I promise you, little by little, we will have more sunlight and eventually return to summer. And we do like, you know, a dinner and we celebrate that too.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
And I just think all the cultural stuff I love, you know, but I think getting to the part that is irrefutable and real and good that like the days are going to start getting longer and that's amazing is worth celebrating.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
No, we do not do any Santa, I should say. We do gifts on Christmas, usually, with my husband's family.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Santa drives me crazy. No middleman.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
You can do that anytime. No, I feel, so on Strange Customs, we did an episode about Santa and it's called The Conspiracy and it's with Nicole Richie, actually, and it's really funny. And, you know, this idea that like, it is like, I mean, don't, that maybe also sets children up to believe in conspiracies because it is a, I mean, the idea that NORAD is like in on this lie is incredible.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
dollars are spent i mean it's amazing how much effort we all collectively put in and it's like almost this like one of the most taboo things is to like blow that up for children and like don't worry i don't go around being like you know that's bullshit like when i pick my daughter up from second grade um don't worry
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
Hello, it's so nice to be with you both. Thanks for that hilarious and charming introduction.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
She's going to have to start taking the bus home if you insist on showing up at pick up.
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
No, I say that everyone eventually finds out. I'm not going to ever lie to you, but it's not for us to tell other children because their parents have a plan for when they're going to find out. And you know, what's funny though, is there's another fictional character who I did kind of, I mean, luckily my daughter's really skeptical. So it's now like this running joke, open secret, but
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
I don't feel as strongly about like the tooth fairy as I do about Santa. Why is that?
Last Podcast On The Left
Strange Customs: An Interview with Sasha Sagan
It's interesting because it's like so the scholar that we interviewed about this on my podcast was saying that one of the big differences is everybody can picture Santa. But the tooth fairy is like very open to interpretation. And it's like not like a singular creature that like everybody agrees on. So it's sort of more it doesn't feel like this lie.