In this episode Paula sits down with Ben Warren, a man who is genuinely the life and soul of every party. Ben is intelligent, kind, and a bloody good laugh. Which explains how he made our chat about paperwork bearable. Ben has so many beautiful insights into how travel enriches and challenges us, and I’m so excited to share them with you.
For a lot of millennials, travelling is basically a rite of passage. It is a gift to yourself in so many ways, but it’s not like the movies. Just because you travel across the world doesn’t mean you will find yourself, nor will it prevent your problems from following. What it will do is remove the distractions of everyday life and bring things that were floating out of sight into focus (which isn’t always picturesque). Perhaps that is the greatest gift of travel; giving ourselves the spaces and time to let the beautiful, scary things tugging at the corners to show themselves, and for us to sit with them. Mostly it’s the food though.

Keep well,

-Paula

 

P.S. This episode is a little longer than our usual ones, let us know what you think on Instagram! We’d love your feedback so we can keep refining the work to be more useful.

 

EPISODE NOTES:

 

Things We Mentioned

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Passports!

You can renew, apply for, or just read up on Australian passports here: https://www.passports.gov.au/

 

As with all bureaucracy, be prepared to do this more than once because they WILL find something wrong with it.

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The Verfremdungseffekt (hard to say and harder to spell) is also called the distancing effect, or the alienation effect. It’s the use of techniques (usually within the context of theatre) to bring attention to the artifice of theatre (highlighting the performativity) and emotionally distance audiences from what they were seeing. Brecht took inspiration from Viktor Shklovsky’s theory of ostranenie which means “making it strange,” or defamiliarization, and I think that might be what I was thinking of?

Read all about it here: https://www.britannica.com/art/alienation-effect

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English language teaching- maybe don’t just put your number up at universities, go through an actual organisation and do your research. I have read way too many horror stories of people being scammed.

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So turns out only Neapolitan pizza has codified rules and regulations, and the body that governs it is the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. And boy, are they particular; on shape, on diameter, on whether there are burnt spots. Mate, it’s a trip. You can find out more about them here:

https://www.pizzanapoletana.org/en/ricetta_pizza_napoletana

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Parisian bakeries, at least, are requisitioned by law to ensure a certain number of bakeries stay open to cater to the needs of their area’s locals. You can read more about it here in The Independent (which has a paywall, AND won’t let you view their articles while using an adblocker! Boo!) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/parisian-bakeries-requisitioned-law-protects-french-access-to-les-baguettes-during-summer-holidays-8762082.html

 

For this and more gloriously nerdy facts, check out Metropolis on Netflix. I highly recommend it!

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Heraclitus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher which means the stuff he said and thought is OLD. Like, PLATO quoted this guy. Not only that, scholars debate what the most correct reading of what he meant is, by looking at how philosophers like Plato read him. How trippy is that?

His most famous musings are on the “flux doctrine”, which is basically idea that the only constant is change. Here’s a cool and very academic read from Stanford University: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heraclitus/

Or some fun little youtube vids:

 

Three Minute Philosophy: Heraclitus & Parmenides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNjmPyHIoOc

King's College London: History of Philosophy's Greatest Hits: Heraclitushttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbu8AaCFIM

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You can find Ben here:

 

When I last spoke to Ben at the beginning July, he was in Lagos, Portugal. He’s on the move a lot though, so keep up with his travels on Instagram. Who knows, maybe his friendly face will pop up at a beach near you!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benjaminajwarren/

 

Alternatively, if you’re in London and know of jobs going, or would like to invite an Australian larrikin to have a beer with you, slide into his DMs! I can attest to his good table manners and excellent banter.

 

 

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Produced by That’s Not Canon Productions. Graphics by Claudia Piggott. Music by Jessica Fletcher.

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