Here's some answers to some questions that you asked.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It being a holiday week here in America,
we thought we would do something a little bit different
and make a Q&A video, which we haven't made in about a year.
So I took to social media and asked you for your questions.
And you sent them via Twitter and Facebook
and Tumblr and Reddit.
So yeah, we're going to answer as many of them
as is reasonable to answer.
But before we do that, I just want to say,
since it's Thanksgiving, thanks to everybody who
watches the show, who has great conversations,
asks awesome questions.
Idea Channel would not exist and would not be the thing
that it is without you.
So in the spirit of giving thanks, hey, thanks.
OK, so now that that is done, let's answer some questions.
To aqissiaq, for breakfast, I'm a yogurt and granola guy.
I also drink a lot of coffee.
There was a joke a while back when Brady was on the set
that I smelled strongly of coffee.
You all watching this on YouTube,
you probably don't realize this.
Mike really smells of coffee.
I'm just saying.
That was not a joke.
I actually do just smell like coffee.
My blood is mostly coffee.
StringEpsilon wants to know my least favorite book that I have
read for at least 30 pages.
And I have two answers to this question.
The first is I have read-- there have been two books written
by this man called Andrew Keen.
And I have read both of them.
And I hated every single page of every single one of them.
And for anybody who knows Andrew Keen,
you will probably know why.
For anybody who doesn't know Andrew Keen.
I recommend you keep it that way.
The other is, and I'm going to make some enemies
for this, "The Hunger Games."
But I have read every single "Hunger Games" book
from beginning to end.
And it's-- the reason I read them is because I think that
the books are better screenplays than they are books.
And I think that the movies are so good
and such a great adaptation of the ideas in the books.
But the book itself is just-- god, it's awful.
But the experience of reading it and then-- and I
always read them right before-- or re-read them right
before the movies come out.
And it's just ah, it's such a strange experience
to read something and be like, oh, god this is so bad,
and then go and watch the movie, and it's so much better
than the book was.
I know that's weird.
Cryptobum wants to know the books which
have influenced my worldview.
And this is a little bit of a difficult question
to answer because for Idea Channel,
every week I'm reading something that is influencing
and changing my worldview.
It's one of the things that is great about making
this show that I am always expanding my understanding
of the world and culture.
Specifically, there are two things, though,
that come right to mind.
Most books by Edward Tufte.
But specifically "Envisioning Information"
and "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information"
are two books that, when I first read them, really
changed the way that I viewed the world,
I think because they show how the proper display
of information that exists in the world
can so readily and easily and powerfully impact
our understanding of it.
And I think that it was when I first read those books that I
started to become interested in the way ideas
and information is communicated to an audience.
So those two books, yeah, huge impact.
And as far as fiction is concerned,
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
No question about it.
It made me who I am.
Stormygeddon, do you not know that a man is not dead
while his name is still being spoken,
I think is what Terry Pratchett said.
Piwikiwi, yes, I do really want to make more episodes that
are in a playlist format or like a lean back where
we introduce ideas between each of the videos.
There are a couple in the works.
I don't want to spoil any surprises.
But yeah.
I also in general really want to figure out
ways for Idea Channel to use more of YouTube's technology
in weird ways.
Tower07, favorite board games.
I really love Space Alert.
I also really like Pandemic, Mansions of Madness, Eclipse,
and Cosmic Encounter.
AveyReynolds, what have I been listening to?
So I'm always listening to a ton of things.
And if you want to keep up-to-date on what
I'm interested in and listening to,
Twitter is the best way to do that.
But today, the things I listened to
were the new Eli Kessler record, which is great.
It's a collaboration with Oren Ambarchi.
The new Deerhoof record, which I really, really like.
And I have been slowly working my way
through the Pauline Oliveros 12-CD set
from Important Records, which is just consistently blowing
my mind.
Oh, it's so good.
HighlyAnalytical, each of these questions
deserves its own 10-minute-long video as a response.
But to just give you a semblance of an answer for each.
One, one of my favorite things to think about
is what would happen in the world
if all borders were to disappear and passports
were to become something of a relic
of a past and unsophisticated age.
As far as capitalism, I think that when
you become reflexively uncritical
of any system of any kind, it starts
to do more harm than good.
And I wonder whether or not we have
lapsed into that reflex with capitalism.
And as far as urbanization goes, I
think there are benefits and detriments clearly.
I also wonder whether or not it is
a thing that is essentially unavoidable for weird economic
and just subconscious reasons.
I do, however, despair to think of a point in the future
where the East Coast becomes like the mega cities from Judge
Dredd.
No.
Max Sommerfeld, Hogwarts house, Ravenclaw,
though I am probably the least competitive person
that you have ever met.
So not academically competitive in the same way
Ravenclaws might stereotypically be.
Linda Peterson, I'm assuming that you are asking what
my actual, in-real-life superpower
is and not if I could choose any fantastic superpower, which
would I choose.
So my actual, real-life superpower
is that I can recognize actors when
they are doing voiceover for commercials or in animated
films.
I can tell you who is speaking even though you
can't see their face.
It's a very strange superpower.
It comes in handy more than you'd guess.
Nicolas, it has been about 15 years since I have seriously
played Magic the Gathering, but black and red
were the colors that I always played with, I think,
because I thought those were the cool colors.
Are those still the cool colors?
Are there cool colors?
Clearly, I'm out of touch.
Shelby [INAUDIBLE], I get recognized
on a street maybe once or twice a month,
so not very often, but definitely
more often than before I made Idea Channel.
And everybody who stops me on the street is very, very nice
and is super cool.
And this is a thing that my friends actually point out
that after I have an interaction with someone who stopped me
on the street, they're like, your fans
are so nice and interesting.
And then, I beam at them like an idiot.
And I say, I know, right?
Holly from Philosophy Tube asks if I have a favorite play.
And this is a little bit difficult
to answer because I've done a lot of work
in theater, but mostly in experimental theater,
so things that don't have scripts in a way
that you would normally think theater
would so they don't travel well, I guess.
But if I had to answer, I would say I have a couple answers.
"The Tempest" is my favorite Shakespeare play,
which I realize is a strange, maybe unpopular answer.
I really liked "Woyzeck."
Big "Einstein on the Beach" fan, Philip Glass and Robert Wilson.
And I think my favorite piece of performance that I've ever seen
is this show that this theater company Elevator Repair Service
theater did called "Gatz," G-A-T-Z.
And it's a six-hour long performance where one
of the performers reads "The Great Gatsby"
from beginning to end.
And as this character is reading "The Great Gatsby"
word-for-word, beginning to end, the characters
in the office, the players, are mirroring
or in some way responding to the things that are happening
in "The Great Gatsby."
And seeing this was a hugely formative experience for me
to see that theater could be this intense, durationally
extreme a thing that was built on the pre-existing culture
and could react to culture in that way.
And it was just-- man, yeah, I have nothing
but great memories of "Gatz."
Love the show.
That might be my favorite.
I don't know if that's a play.
Anonymous wonders if Idea Channel
is anything like what I expected I would
be doing when I was in college.
And the answer is no, not even a little.
I moved to New York and thought that I
would write music and work in theater
as technician, as a sound designer and composer, which
is what I was doing it before I started making Idea Channel.
I was also making performance art.
So I thought I would be involved in theater and performance,
but never, ever considered myself
on camera personality, which is a thing that I still
have a really hard time with, that when people call me--
when people refer to me as talent--
you're like, oh the talent-- that is so strange to me.
I'm just a guy who sometimes says things
to Morgan, who is standing behind the camera.
Yeah, so-- [LAUGHS] No, no, that being said,
I'm having a great time and love making Idea Channel.
So no problem.
That's OK.
OK.
So that is, I think, a sufficient number of questions
to have answered.
We will be back next week with a regular episode
and comment responses to the Too Many Cooks video.
If it is a holiday week for you, I hope it is a great one.
And if it isn't, I hope it's a great one anyways.
Why should you be only having great weeks
when it's a holiday?
Everybody have a great week.
We'll see you soon.
[MUSIC PLAYING]