Hello, Puzzlers! AJ has a new book out! You can order "The Year of Living Constitutionally" right now!.
Puzzling with us today: award-winning journalist, podcaster, and author of the new book Selling The Dream, Jane Marie!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.
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Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
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Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the noise canceling headphones on your transatlantic puzzle flight. I am your host, A J. Jacobs, and I am here with today's guests, the great Jane Mrie. Jane Marie is the host of multiple podcasts. If you've heard of podcast, she probably hosted it. The ones that are happening now are The Dream and Dear Jane Marie. And The Dream has turned into a new book called Selling the Dream, and it's all about multi level marketing schemes. Am I allowed to call them schemes? Jane Mrie?
Absolutely?
Okay, legally all right, Well.
You didn't put the bad word in front of schemes.
Right, Well, I read that, and your wonderful that. Yes, you're not allowed to say pyramid because for legal reasons, so we will not say pyramid or any other triangle shapes.
But but otherwise they're very yes, they're very complicated schemes.
Well, we are delighted to have you. Congrats on the book. Thank you. You had a recent appearance on the Daily Show that people should check out and and you're a puzzler, I believe you, which is how we got to you. Because you wrote on Twitter that you might have been a little annoyed at the spelling Bee at one point.
I was very annoyed at the spelling Bee. But I was annoyed for two reasons. I wasn't just annoyed at the spelling Bee. I was annoyed at the world.
Because there was.
A word and this this is getting this like it's pretty biological, so it's it can be gross. But this is the thing when I had a baby that I didn't know existed, which you're so after you have a baby, you're the fluid that was filling your abdomen that the baby was living in. It takes a couple of weeks to come out of your body after you push the baby out. And that fluid has a name, and the name of that fluid is.
Lokia l O C H I A Y.
And I didn't learn about it until I was pregnant, and I was furious because I thought, why didn't I my mom. I'm the oldest of all of these kids, Like I didn't know my mom was like walking around for two weeks, like leaking or whatever. So when the midwives told me that that was going to happen, I was like okay, all right, and you know, I looked it up and read all about it, but it is the amniotic fluid essentially, but it's the amnatic fluid after the baby's gone and then it comes out and that has a name. And I put it into spelling Bee and spelling Bee was like that's not a word, and I was like.
Oh my yeah, because has never had a baby, right, but.
It double it like double little.
It irritated me because I thought I didn't know about this before getting pregnant. And then also now the world doesn't know about it and we only find out, you know, at the very last minute.
And then you're it's women's bodies are hard.
You're doing a public service because I I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know about it until just now, and you are educating us. So thank you taking the taboo away from Lokia. People should know it's just a bodily fluid. Yeah, what's wrong?
Ye?
Yeah, okay, put in Lokia, Sam Mazerski, Come on Sam next time.
There's also you know, lots of like slang terms and stuff that I get irritated are not in the spelling Bee. But that was that's like a real word right sif like you know, and it wasn't available, and I was just like, so the patriarchy, you.
Know, was there?
You go, Well, I hope we've made a difference with this fingers crossed. Well, I have a puzzle for you, I'm afraid. Also, it does not include any lochia or bodily fluids at all.
Okay, but it is probably still do it Okay, I still play, I'll still play.
Yes, But it is based on your name Jane Marie and your initials. Have you ever been I'm called aj have you have you ever been called JM? Anyone call you JM?
I do in brief sometimes people call me that, But I only went by this name. It is my name, my friends and middle names. But I I got married a couple of times, right, and I got sick of changing my name, and so I just I dropped the MA and I dropped the married's and I'm just Jane Marie now, which is a name that pretty much all name my close family used, and I think people now think of it as one name.
Right, that's sort of what? So should I call you Jane or Jane Marie?
I will either way?
I mean, they're both that's my name, so right, whichever one feels better in your mouth is fine to me. But yeah, that's it's like a newer kind of thing.
Well, I'm sticking for the purposes of this, I'm going to stick with JMA, and because the answers to all of these clues are going to be people or phrases with the initials j M. This is what you might call the contents of your spam folder.
Junk mail.
I don't look at that. That was so fast. No, no, it's good. It's good. I think it's good. I think I gave you some confidence and it was great. All right. How about let me try another one out on you. How about Yoda or Obi wan Kenobi might be known as a I know the j part, Yes, okay, say it. I think Jedi, Jedi exactly, and they are the highest level of Jedi, so they are masters exactly. Jedi master. Nailed it, all right? What about this is a singer songwriter known for Big Yellow Taxi and both Sides of.
Oh and Carrie. Yes, you know Carrie.
That's my very favorite song of hers, and I know how to play it on the guitar and how to single with my dad Shall I answer.
Please or Mitchell, yeah, Joni Mitchell exactly. I will say this person is not quite as beloved I would imagine. He is a Cold War era politician associated with the Red Scare. He almost had. He has his own adjective. His first name is similar to the actor Blank Gordon Levitt.
Or Joseph McCarthy.
Jonsean McCarthy exactly did it? That? Was it beautiful? All right?
Those are the kinds of names you don't want to keep in your head.
Right, you were doing you were sort of modeling that we should be moving on from that, so thank you, thank you for that. All right, Well, let's stick with politics for one more. This was a man, an Arizona senator who nominated Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential candidate.
John McCain exactly. Okay, you got it.
I was I like the sort of the the tension.
Yeah, it's.
All right.
Well this one I don't think I would have gotten this one. This one was written by our associate puzzler, Andrea Schomberg. And I know this phrase and I've heard it many times, so I don't think I could come up with it. You're ready. This is the genre of the Broadway shows, Mama Mia or Moulain Rouge or Jersey Boys. What ah, okay, so you're on my side.
Right yeah?
Wait a genre of musical A genre?
Oh I just did I say musical? I don't think I said musical.
Ya okay, So it's something musical. It's look at that.
You already solved half of it. You were baffled and you solved half of it. Look at that. So the first the jay is refers to the fact that it's a lot of songs. So they take the work of abba and they write the music about it. So if you were in a diner, maybe a happy day's diner, and this is where you would put your career box juke box, so put it together.
Jukebox musical is a thing, exactly.
Jukebox musical is a thing. I did not know that you, Tommy Lokia, I'm teaching a jukebox musical.
Perfect.
All right, Well, let's just do one more, uh, and then we'll do the extra credit. How about what do you think of?
Oh?
Well, this one, this one you'll have to figure out. It'll be a journey. But I think this is this is what a part of the body that might ache after chewing gum for a long time. Oh I, oh you do already?
Oh go ahead, well is it? Oh it has to go in the direction it has to go j and.
Then m right it does.
What were you thinking mandibular joint?
Well, you are smarter than me, that is, because this one is much more much is not a medical term? Oh okay, this is just I mean the medical term is actually we have that. It's medial terragoid or lateral terragoid, which is or some pronunciation similar to that. But it is you're chewing with your oh yes, jaw exactly.
And then and it's the pain you said after chewing gum. Jaw.
It's the body part that might ache after chewing gum. So you got the jaw and the thing that powers the jaw.
A muscle. That's it.
Oh, you can say it with confidence. Jaw muscle. You got it exactly.
I'm like jumping ahead. My father's a dentist. I'm jumping to like temporal mandibular jointness function, like thinking, no, you.
You blew us away exactly. Well there you go. We started medically, we ended medically. Thank you you did great. Oh and people once more can listen to your great podcasts and buy your new book, which is all.
About selling the dream about multi level marketing. Slash something schemes not palmzy people get it confused a lot. It's not ponzy schemes.
Got it is the other one, the one in Egypt. Yes, okay, good to know. Well people listen and read. And the extra credit for the puzzlers at home. This US president was five foot four inches, but he had a huge impact on our constitution. And also, if you have thirty seconds, we would love it if you would rate the Puzzler on your favorite podcast platform because it really helps people find us. And we will meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that will puzzle you puzzling.
Hello, puzzlers, this is your chief puzzle Officer, Greg Pliska here with the extra credit answer from our previous episode. AJ quized me on a whole bunch of atomati poetic sports, the sounds of sporting events, and your extra credit clue wash whush, whosh bang bang bang. And that of course is the winter Olympic sport of biathlon where you cross country ski and then you shoot at targets. It's a Norwegian actually comes from a Norwegian military training. I believe because if you're a Norway military person, you got to ski a lot. I guess up in Norway anyway. I hope you enjoyed, and I hope you come back for some more Norwegian military sports tomorrow on the Puzzler