Episode 706
Scaachi Koul and Emma Ruth Rundle
Slate writer Scaachi Koul unpacks her latest book of essays Sucker Punch, in which she delves into her unexpected birth, the dissolution of her marriage, and how her friends have come to know her as "the divorce doula." Multidisciplinary artist Emma Ruth Rundle explains how she crafted her debut poetry collection The Bella Vista—which touches on love lost, addiction, and discovering oneself—while traveling on tour, then performs “Blooms of Oblivion” from her album Engine of Hell.
Scaachi Koul
Writer and Podcaster
Scaachi Koul is a Senior Writer for Slate and the co-host of the Ambie Award-winning podcast, Scamfluencers. She co-hosted the Emmy-nominated Netflix series, Follow This, and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, This American Life, New York Magazine, and The Cut. You can also find her in documentaries like Quiet On Set and Pretty Baby. Her bestselling book, One Day We’ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. You can follow her on Instagram or on her Substack, Hater Nation.
Emma Ruth Rundle
Multi-Disciplinary Artist
Emma Ruth Rundle is an internationally recognized musician and a multi-disciplinary artist: a painter, director, and poet. She has released six full-length solo albums and collaborated with other artists such as Dylan Carlson of Earth, Chelsea Wolfe, Thou, and others. Her music has been described as a hybrid of folk, ambient noise, and metal; as well as “patiently haunting” (New York Times), “swelling with gothic drama” (Pitchfork), and “starkly beautiful” (The Guardian). She was the first female curator of the Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands and has performed extensively all over the western world. She has had two solo exhibitions of her artwork (On Dark Horses at Ars Memoria, Chicago 2018; Dowsing Voice at Lethal Amounts, Los Angeles 2022) and has published poetry in The Heartworm Reader and in Sad Happens, an anthology by Brandon Stosuy.
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Luke Burbank: This episode of Live Wire was originally recorded in May of 2025. We hope you enjoy it. Now let's get to the show.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire!
Elena Passarello: This week, writer Scaachi Koul.
Scaachi Koul: I mean, I was excited to like grow up and win a fight. I had never won a fight before. I was the youngest in my family. So like I was fighting, but I lost every single one. And then I got older and I was like, sweet, I'm gonna kill a man.
Elena Passarello: Poet and musician Emma Ruth Rundle.
Emma Ruth Rundle: I was reading too much Hemingway and it all started with that Ken Burns documentary and I was lonely and you know I was like this guy would be a great boyfriend for me.
Elena Passarello: And our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now, the host of Live Wire Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks everyone for tuning in to Live Wire from all across the country. We have a really fun and kind of varied show for you this week, which we like to do. First, though, of course, before we get to that, we've got to kick things off like we always like to. With the best news we heard all week. This, of course, is our little reminder that there is good news happening out there in the world. It just takes some digging sometimes, but we do that for you and we pass it along. Elena, what is the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Well, you're gonna have to do a little bit of digging in this story itself to find the good news, because we're gonna start with a fact that is anything but fun. Did you know, Luke Burbank, that according to NPR, snakes kill tens of thousands of people a year still, and 10 times that are severely injured by venomous snakes like paralysis, loss of limbs, blood clots. It's still very much a human issue.
Luke Burbank: I'm very afraid of a snake biting me, but I assume that was one of those things that you know They they would say like you're more likely to get hit by lightning than for a snake to bite you I would assume that my fear was overblown, but it sounds like it's the exact right amount of blown
Elena Passarello: Well, I mean, where you live, I know where you live. That's not a threat. I just know where you live. I think you're. I don't think there are a lot of venomous snakes. But in other parts of the world, like developing countries or the tropics, it's definitely more of an issue. But yeah, so wouldn't it be nice if there was some kind of an antidote like a vaccine? But so there's a problem with that dream. And that's that you need to have some materials. You need to some chemicals. Kind of, this is the sciency part, that computes with humans and computes with a human immune response. And really the only way to get those chemicals is to get them from a body that has survived a snake bite.
Luke Burbank: Oh no.
Elena Passarello: So the CEO of Centivax said his team was looking for, quote, a clumsy snake researcher. Someone who would fool me once, shame on the snake, fool me twice, drive me to the ER. But turns out that there is a lifelong snake enthusiast in Wisconsin named Tim Friede. And he's always loved snakes, and he's been letting snakes bite him for 24 years. Since 2001, because he sort of had a similar dream. He could kind of combine his love of venomous snakes and his interest in them as a species with helping the better good of the human population.
Luke Burbank: So just being a test case, this thing that like no other person would probably sign up for.
Elena Passarello: He has been bitten by dozens upon dozens upon dozens of snakes. We're talking black mambas. We're talkin' two cobras that sent him to the ER. We're talkin' water snakes. We're takin' snakes with names that I can't even pronounce. And these two forces, this super body and this company have been working together and a study was just published in Cell Magazine that says they are getting closer. To actually having this kind of universal, remote snake bite cure, thanks to the sacrifices of Tim Friede and the work of modern science, which is pretty cool, right?
Luke Burbank: Wow. Well that is incredible. Shout out to Tim and all the people doing that research for getting ever closer to this universal vaccine. I don't know if you are a marathoner or a half marathoner, or a fun runner, Elena. [Elena: No.] Have you been out though? How about this? Do you, have you attended events where there are people of all genders and you've noted that the line for the women's restroom is longer than for the men's restroom and that's...
Elena Passarello: Ani DeFranco concert, yeah.
Luke Burbank: It's a particularly noticeable if you've ever been to like a race because, you know, right before you're about to go on a marathon or a half marathon or whatever it might be, sometimes you've got a little bit of nervous energy. You feel like you've gotta go. Well, there is a company in the UK called PEEQUAL and their whole thing is to build these urinals that are specifically designed and just for, uh, female runners and, uh and that this means that first of all, the way it's designed. Is much faster for someone with that physical body, just the interior of this urinal. And the fact that it's just dedicated to women runners means that they have a place they can go. They don't have to wait in some interminable line before the race. So these PEEQUAL urinals have been a big hit, right? But now they're taking it to another level. They're working with some folks over in the UK for this upcoming London marathon to take all of the urine that goes through those PEEQUAL. Uh, urinals and actually use it to fertilize wheat growth. And they think that the thousand liters of urine that they're going to harvest from this can grow, wait for it, Elena, 200 loaves of bread. Now, if they were able to harvest the urine from all like 5,800 people finish who finished the London marathon on a typical year, that would be. 3,142 loaves of bread. [Elena: Oh my God.] Now listen, I know that this, I can hear in your voice the suspicion, Elena, this is maybe not bread that sounds particularly appetizing to you.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, no. I mean, it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I would not like to eat.
Luke Burbank: But I guess it's the principle of the matter, right? It's this idea that we can lower our sort of footprint in a lot of different areas and that, by the way, there are many people cited in this article who seem really ready to try this bread out when it's all done. They're very excited about it. I thought I would present to you maybe the most British sentence I've ever seen. A runner who's gonna be participating in the London Marathon named Susan Farrell. Said quote, it's brilliant to think that the nervous wheeze of thousands of women are helping a good cause. That is very British. Anyway, people having a more convenient way to relieve themselves and some good coming from it at the London marathon. That is the best news I heard all week. All right, our first guest is a senior writer at Slate and the co-host of the hit podcast, Scamfluencers. Her first book was the bestseller, One Day We'll All Be Dead, and None of This Will Matter, which feels somehow, sadly, even more relevant as a title here in this year than it was back when it was written. That book covered, among other things, her marriage. Now her latest book of essays, which is called Sucker Punch, covers, you guessed it, the end of that marriage and also what it's like to reconstitute yourself after. Like an essential fact about your life has changed forever. Scaachi Koul joined us at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon, to talk about all of this. Take a listen.
Scaachi Koul: Hi, oh my god. I haven't been to Portland in eight years. It's so nice to be back. [Luke: Welcome back.] [Elena: Glad to have you.] [Luke: Nice to have ya here.] I love Portland. I love the Portland audience. This is the only city where I can get this many white people to listen to me at once, so I like love being here.
Luke Burbank: It's one of our core competencies here in Portland is white people showing up for things. [Scaachi: Yeah, it's really nice.] Here's what I'm curious about. Your childhood in Calgary, what was your experience? Were you a happy kid? Were you anxious? What was the scene for you growing up?
Scaachi Koul: I grew up in a really white area with loud, argumentative South Asian parents, so I learned really fast that that temperament does not take outside of my family dynamic. But I was raised by lunatics, proudly.
Luke Burbank: But you write in the book that, like, your family was having a lot of pretty loud arguments, but that was also just how you communicated. It didn't mean what other people thought it meant.
Scaachi Koul: Yeah, I think, and I think this is somewhat cultural, there are differences in how certain white people fight and how all brown people fight. So when we argue, like that's just like tea. Like we're just, that's what we're having a conversation. We're having coffee, we're a little snack, like it's nothing. So rarely in my family did fights have any consequences for anybody, that was just how we communicated. And so then when I grew up and I married a white guy, Then I was like, oh, he's not good at this. And I'm so good at it. And I realized pretty fast that that wasn't going to work.
Luke Burbank: Right, like that was a sort of a muscle that you had been exercising.
Scaachi Koul: Since in utero.
Luke Burbank: Right.
Scaachi Koul: Listening to my mother scream at anybody I was like this is music.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, I think you write in the book that like these things that you develop thinking they're going to really be great in adulthood and be really useful turn out to really not be that helpful.
Scaachi Koul: I mean, I was excited to like grow up and win a fight. I had never won a fight before. I was the youngest in my family. So like I was fighting, but I lost every single one. And then I got older and I was like, sweet, I'm gonna kill a man. It's tough on a marriage when you want to destroy the other person I find. He's fine, he's fine first of all. Everybody relax.
Luke Burbank: You write, I think, sort of jokingly, but not that your dad is a menace to society.
Scaachi Koul: That's a hundred percent accurate, do you know how many times he's had his credit card compromised this month? He keeps buying fake furniture from Facebook and then calling me and being like, I saw these two armchairs, they were $70, two arm chairs for $70?
Luke Burbank: On the TikTok shop.
Scaachi Koul: If he finds out what TikTok is, I'm going to kill myself. Like, I don't have it in me to manage that. I'm white-knuckling it with the iPhone. That's bad enough.
Luke Burbank: Now, what's your mom's deal exactly? What's like their dynamic and sort of, would you go to one or the other as a kid if you needed, you know, I don't know, sort of friendship?
Scaachi Koul: Yeah, we went to mom for everything. Our mom did everything, she cooked, she cleaned, she was the person you talk to if you had a problem, she was a person you cry to, she's still around, I don't know why I'm talking about her, like she's dead, she is very much alive. I have received several text messages from her today. But my dad was just like comedic relief, I would say, and that was also the dynamic that I understood, that's how families worked, right? Women managed everything, they did all of the real work. And then men would swoop in and be like, do you want to go to the mall? And I wanted to go to the mall.
Luke Burbank: I want to talk after the break about the very miracle of your existence, the fact that you in the book, right? You probably shouldn't even be here, right. How's that for a four-word promotion? It's Live Wire Radio. We're talking to Scaachi Koul about her new book, it's Sucker Punch. We'll be back with much more Live Wire in just a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank. We are at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon. This week, we're talking to Scaachi Koul about her new book, Sucker Punch. You write in the book that your mother will not admit to this, but in fact, it's fairly miraculous that you're here because your mother was going in to the doctor for one sort of thing and found out that a different sort of thing was going on.
Scaachi Koul: This is my favorite story. This is a testament to my fortitude, I think. My mom got pregnant with me pretty late. She had a bunch of miscarriages after my brother. My brother's 12 years older than me. My brother was born in India, so they emigrated to Canada in the late 70s and the early 80s. So my parents tried to have another kid and they couldn't do it. They couldn't. But she went to the doctor. She was supposed to get a hysterectomy and they did her checkup and they're like, well, we can't the surgery unless you want us to terminate.
Luke Burbank: So they canceled this rectum because there was a child in there, you.
Scaachi Koul: She'd already had one fallopian tube removed. So, my father, disgusting, somehow managed to get one by, which fills me with a, like a rectitude I can't even approach. But I really think it is about me, not about…
Luke Burbank: I believe they call that high motility.
Scaachi Koul: I don't need to know that.
Luke Burbank: That's the medical term.
Scaachi Koul: I don't need that information. Good for you.
Luke Burbank: But in the movie version, Scaachi, in the movie version of your life, every day is now a gift.
Scaachi Koul: Oh, shut up! No, it's not. Like, what do you mean?
Luke Burbank: Because you weren't even supposed to be here and now it's just like all.
Scaachi Koul: You're right. I had such a close call to not be around for this. I can't believe I missed it. I could have not been alive for this phase of history. That would have been fine. I wouldn't have known. This is all in hindsight now.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, that's a good point, actually. You mentioned something in passing in the book that I don't think is further unpacked, but you talked about not liking the moon.
Scaachi Koul: I don't like the moon.
Luke Burbank: What is your problem with the moon?
Scaachi Koul: I think the moon is always, it impacts, first of all, it's so bossy. I don't like that it tells me what's gonna happen to the ocean. I don't like, I think it does something to my period. I don't know what. I don 't like the moon, I just, there's something onerous and ominous about it and when it's full, I don't like looking at it and I think, it gets upset and that's when things go wrong.
Luke Burbank: That is an interesting
Scaachi Koul: You can see why the publisher was like, let's not unpack that.
Luke Burbank: Let's just, and you're like, you're, like.
Scaachi Koul: Just say it and then go.
Luke Burbank: But you're like, I'm fighting for at least to get a mention.
Scaachi Koul: Yeah, yeah, yeah
Luke Burbank: Speaking of your writing and your style of writing, one of the things that I thought was really interesting in this book is talking about the kind of journalism that you've done and the kind of memoir you've written in the past where we are at a moment where a lot of writers, their life is like also their content. And as you write in the book, that can become complicated when your life takes unexpected turns. Did you realize at some point, kind of early in your career when you're writing a lot of personal essays and a lot of things through your perspective that you're like, okay, I'm pretty much locking in on this career path where I am myself a product in a way.
Scaachi Koul: Yeah, no, I didn't think about it, I was 22. I was just happy to like pay my rent. And at the time, you know, I'm 34 now, so you know 10, 12 years ago at the time that was like all digital media was producing. Like they were so intent on getting young women to engage in confessional work. And some of us wanted to do it, I wanted to it, that was my choice. And I wrote this whole book about my life and what I thought my life was and the theory I had on my own existence. And then the book came out, and a couple years after that, I realized everything that I thought I knew about my marriage, about myself, about my sense of self, about my family was false. And they were these stories I had told myself because they were safe. It was safe to be in those stories that my husband loved me and that my family was rigid. There was safety in that, even though the rigidity was frustrating to me. It still felt safer to accept, well, I have to stay in this marriage because my parents will never get their heads around the divorce. I'm the only divorced person in my family ever. So, you know, my grandmother got married when she was 14. She was arranged. My mom got married at 24. She was arranged, but with consent. I am 34. It is a hard won battle to die alone in my apartment at this age. I've earned it.
Scaachi Koul: But the bartender in the back clapping, hey buddy, I see you. You and me, white-knuckling it. We pay him in free books at the end of the show. You can have two sucker punches for that thumbs-up. But I had these ideas and they were so deeply entrenched even though I couldn't identify that they were and it took all of it dismantling it, everything falling apart. I moved to the United States at the beginning of 2019. In 2020, the pandemic started. I was stuck here because I was waiting for my paperwork. While I was in the pandemic, I found out a bunch about my ex-husband that turned out to not be what I thought I knew. My marriage ended. I lost my job. My mom got cancer. Everybody's fine. I got a new job. My mom's in remission and I'm divorced. It's pretty sick.
Luke Burbank: Something that you say in the book, which, as a person who has been divorced twice, so you know, dare to dream, Scaachi.
Scaachi Koul: I kind of feel like you're gonna do it twice you should do it 40 times. Yes, like it's either one or a hundred I don't I'm not like call that
Luke Burbank: They call that the Elizabeth Taylor principle.
Scaachi Koul: Literally, literally. Like there's no point.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, there's no more half steps. This comes as tough news to my girlfriend who is in the audience tonight. No, but here's what you said in the book is that getting divorced is really embarrassing. And that's what we don't talk about. It's just embarrassing to have to go around to the people who came to your wedding and all the people, and in your case, you wrote an entire book about it, and then did you have to walk that back?
Scaachi Koul: It's hella embarrassing. It's mortifying. Can you imagine, okay I'm gonna throw this party about this ludicrous concept, this like risk. I'm throwing a party about a bet. Can you come? Can you buy me a toaster for the bet please? And all these people are gonna show up and they're gonna talk to you as if you are making the last choice of your life. There will never be a choice after this. That's how people talk about you when you get married.
Luke Burbank: Well, they feel like they have to, right?
Scaachi Koul: They feel like they have to, because no one wants to come to your wedding and be like, this will be good for now. Yeah. I think you guys are going to have a great three to eight years.
Luke Burbank: Although didn't your mom kind of do that?
Scaachi Koul: I, when I called my parents to tell them I was leaving my ex-husband, I facetimed them. My dad picked up the phone, he's the least perceptive person in the world, he had no idea what was going on. He's like, you're crying, why? And I was sobbing on the phone and my mother was not in the room, she was in the kitchen and she heard just whatever choke sob happened in my throat. And she yelled out, oh, are they getting a divorce? She could have told me, I didn't know. I had no idea it was that bad. Everybody knew. I was the last person who knew my marriage was over. Everybody else had an idea. There was not one person I called to say, hey, I know you came to that really expensive four-day wedding, bad news. Every single person was like, oh, yeah.
Scaachi Koul: So, what else is new?
Luke Burbank: I don't want to be glib, but I was wondering if in the sort of worst of it for you with the divorce, did you have a thought, well, this will be something to write about?
Scaachi Koul: It was the first thing I thought.
Luke Burbank: I kind of.
Scaachi Koul: I think it's really disingenuous when some people who make creative work and make public work, or they write or whatever they do, and they're like, me? Attention for baby? Yeah, that's what you're here for. What do you mean? Of course I was gonna turn it into something. Then I would have nothing. I was going to be divorced and not at least have a couple of good butt jokes to sell for profit. Okay, well then why? But I should have something out of it, but it was my first thought. It was the only thing I carried out of my marriage. The only thing that I brought out of was the story of it. I did not take a dime, I took a weird bed that I don't think I have anymore and the writing chair that I use to write my stories in. That's all I took. The only things I had after my marriage ended was the stories of how it ended. It was only thing was I was able to carry. I was not willing to relinquish that even though it did feel like I was walking deeper into this door that spooks me and it's weird to give up a lot of intimacy with strangers but it's a it's a deal I'm willing to make because it makes me feel less lonely but I was not going to leave it there because I had I had gotten nothing already it felt I felt robbed
Elena Passarello: When you leave and you say, I have this story, is there a question that's attached to it that starts you writing? Or is it just, I wanna retell the story again and see what comes from the telling?
Scaachi Koul: It's rage. Huh, I was so mad. I was mad.
Luke Burbank: Is that why they're brass knuckles with a wedding ring embedded on the cover of the book?
Scaachi Koul: I think it's a subtle metaphor. I'm trying to figure out what my lawyer would like me to say about the matter.
Luke Burbank: What surprised you about being divorced? Like what were you not expecting about that version of your life?
Scaachi Koul: I wasn't expecting how many women in particular would treat you like it's contagious. And I didn't expect to agree that, yeah, it is contagious.
Luke Burbank: Oh, yeah.
Scaachi Koul: Like, you should be worried if you spend time with me.
Luke Burbank: Your patient zero.
Scaachi Koul: I will get you divorced in 45 minutes. Like, I started to gain a reputation amongst my friends as a divorce doula. Every couple of months, ol' snacky ghoul got a phone call from someone being like, I think I hate my husband. I'm like, I bet. Come here. Like, it is contagious. As soon as you start to see that there is a possibility to leave, to exit, to make a different choice, to blow your life up and things will still be okay, you'll still go to the doctor and have your friends and build a life and you'll be fine, but you can make another choice. As soon other people see that you can do that, they don't like that. Because then they have to think about their own choices. I've lost a lot of friends because I just hate their husbands now.
Luke Burbank: Mm-hmm. And you're done putting up with it.
Scaachi Koul: Yeah, he sucks like it's it was I wish sometimes that I could go back to my delusion. It was safe there. I was really comfortable. I had a nice life but it wasn't worth it. And once I could see it It was impossible for me to return and it has become pretty challenging for me To accommodate other people's delusions about their own lives as well
Luke Burbank: So it's changed your personality overall, or at least you're...
Scaachi Koul: Yeah, I'm a tough hang, like I'm the tough hang. No one's denying it. I'm hard at a party, like, I am a rough first date. But, you know, it's okay. People invite me to go on the radio, so that's what I do.
Luke Burbank: A message of hope from Scaachi Koul from her new book, Sucker Punch. Scaachi, thank you so much for coming on Live Wire. That was the writer Scaachi Koul here on Live Wire. Her latest book of essays, Sucker Punch, is available right now for you to read. Live Wire is brought to you by Powell's Books, a Portland institution since 1971. Powell's offers a selection of new and used books in stores and online at powells.com. This here is Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank, along with Elena Pasarello. Each week we like to ask the Live Wire audience a question. This week inspired by Scaachi Koul's new book, Sucker Punch and the kind of topic of like a relationship sort of falling apart. We thought we would ask the audience what question, Elena.
Elena Passarello: To tell us about a red flag that you have seen in someone else's relationship. So you don't have to divulge your own red flag issues. You get to point it outward.
Luke Burbank: Someone else landed on a proxy case somewhere that you can pretend is not your life. No, we actually did talk to some of our real audience members at a Live Wire taping recently. Here's what we heard from Kelsey talking about a red flag that Kelsey had observed in a relationship.
Kelsey: Whenever somebody says that they made their partner do something. So like, I made them change their clothes, or I made them go get me XYZ.
Luke Burbank: So that was a red flag that Kelsey has observed. This idea of trying to force somebody to do something different than they would normally, somebody who is, let's say, your partner.
Elena Passarello: Right, the whole I can change him sort of mentality.
Luke Burbank: Yes, I have responded poorly to that historically in my relationships. Now, ironically, the other people really had a point. Like I did, I had a lot and I still do have a lot that I should change. It's not even that they were wrong. It's that usually it's difficult if you're the person who is being encouraged in the direction of change to fully embrace that.
Elena Passarello: You're a cat, you're just, cats can't be made to do things. They just have to be convinced that they've come up with some really great ideas that they receive a lot of treats for. And then all of a sudden their behavior changes. Is this why?
Luke Burbank: Is this why some of my exes had to put tin foil on a lot of surfaces that I wasn't supposed to jump on? Alright, here's another red flag that Laura, who attended our live show, has observed.
Laura: If somebody is dating somebody who's like never single, like they're just a serial dater, and it's a sign that they can't be alone, and they might have codependency issues, that's a red flag.
Luke Burbank: Strike two. I think I've been single for 20 minutes of my adult life. [Elena: Really?] Yeah, it's weird though, because this was not supposed to turn into a therapy session, but. [Elena: Yeah, this is interesting, where we're going with this.] Whenever you have these sort of, I don't know, behavioral traits or things that, if you looked at it from 30,000 feet, you might say, well, that's something to really consider. You don't realize when you're doing it that you're going, you know what I mean?
Elena Passarello: Right, right, right. Well, I mean, if a good one comes along and it's only been 20 minutes, you get
Luke Burbank: I mean, that's, I guess, been my approach. I mean currently it's working out. I'm very happy about that. Okay, listen. Yes. We have a final entrant here. It's Scott, who was at a show recently and was talking about red flags. If you're having more fun with their partner than they are, that is a red flag. I mean that is an issue. If you are hanging out as a group and it feels like that person is having more fun interacting with you than they came with.
Elena Passarello: I call that the everybody loves Raymond factor. I feel like everyone in that TV show had no interest in being with anyone else, except for the tall, sweet brother. Like, they all just seemed really, like, really not interested in it. They were so mad at each other all the time.
Luke Burbank: I think that might be why I never got into that show because, you know, I was like, I'm living this in my own marriage. Why am I watching it on television? Why am spending by this one wild life to see Ray Romano have a relationship that doesn't seem to be working out.
Elena Passarello: This has been a really fruitful audience card situation, Luke.
Luke Burbank: I do want to say thank you to the brave souls who responded to our audience question. We really do appreciate it. This is Live Wire. Our next guest is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and musician who has a brand new debut poetry collection out. It's called The Bella Vista. It's described as a concept album, an addiction memoir, a family tree, and a love letter kind of all at once. Alongside all of that hard hitting stuff, she's also released music that blends folk and ambient noise and metal into something in the New York Times calls patiently haunting. Uh... With NPR warning that her songs will pierce your chest and keep on going you know sometimes artist so good that you need medical attention afterwards uh... And sorry we don't make the rules, we're just reporting what we've seen here Emma Ruth Rundle joined us at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon take a listen Hello. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Were you always writing poetry, but maybe mostly funneling it towards your music?
Emma Ruth Rundle: I was not, I became interested in poetry. The last full length album I put out was called Engine of Hell. And I wanted to do something very stripped back with no effects and not a lot of instrumentation. It was gonna be laid bare and the lyrics would feature heavily for that reason. So I thought I need to do some studying. Who can I turn to? And I started getting really invested in poetry then. So in 2019, 2020, and then I. I kept pulling things back further and further until there was no music at all and I was just writing poems.
Luke Burbank: And then if you're writing poetry that isn't gonna have music, because I mean, I think a lot of us think of the lyrics to a song as being a form of poetry, but when you're you're, writing it and there's not gonna be any music accompanying it, are you coming at it differently? Does it feel different to create it?
Emma Ruth Rundle: Yeah, we can't rely on musical cues to direct emotion. And there is a visual art form to poetry on the page and reading it also, which I don't think I really fully realized that that would be something I would end up doing when I started writing this. So it is, they're cousins, I think, but they are very much their own.
Luke Burbank: You were writing this book of poetry on the road while you were touring your music. What was the schedule like? Would you go back to the hotel and get out your notepad, or how did it go?
Emma Ruth Rundle: Well, the notepad is sort of just, it's omnipresent, you know.
Luke Burbank: Attached at the hip.
Emma Ruth Rundle: Yeah, and in the routine of traveling and performing for months at a time, it gives you this interesting perspective, being in motion. And so working on poetry, as someone once said to me, is a very slow art. So it's like I could chip away at the lines in a waiting room, waiting backstage after a show in a van. And another reason for it is that it's very inconvenient to try to be working on a song on an airplane. I don't think, you know, pulling out my guitar and singing.
Luke Burbank: That'll get the attention of a sky marshal.
Emma Ruth Rundle: Yeah, so it was a way to stay active in my creative practice also while traveling.
Luke Burbank: Well, can we hear a poem from the book? Sure. Can you also describe for the radio audience what the process is here? Because this is a kind of a multimedia presentation, I guess.
Emma Ruth Rundle: Yeah, so the book did come with this album, which is improvised piano music. And it's inspired by Harold Budd's album of the same name, The Bella Vista. And so I brought my record player from home. Even though music is my life, I just carry this pretty cheap record player around and I'm going to put the music on while I read the poem.
Luke Burbank: Okay, great. And what is the name of the poem that we're going to hear?
Emma Ruth Rundle: Well, I'll read the star maker for you first. The Star Maker. Sweet boy, unsure man, line of a man, the most hidden being, you've not yet been discovered, not even unto yourself. What thoughts are you trying to keep out when you build your pillow fortress and lord in the citadel of sleeplessness? Whose little army will not let you rest? The Lord God, the Father God. The doings of men who've done and been done to them as children, as brothers, as sons, three generations of war, an old song you once loved and are now tortured by, drowning the unsavory dreamer, or the fear of wakening again into the faithless destroyer of world's world in which we really live. I never want to waken. As lovers, only sometimes our eyes meet in the morning bed and I well up because of your indescribables, the directness to your lineage of sorrows and so short-lived a moment it is. You do not hold my gaze, but you will hold my hand. I am waiting at the gate. I am sitting at the edge of the water there. In case the poet does descend, when the star maker is free and the moon is fed. In case you might make the crossing unburdened and without fear of me. I have stilled the morning chorus. I've warned the birds not to sing. I do not eat, but drink on silence and lacrimosa. I open my mouth to become the vessel of nothingness and cast the vacuum like a long-held note of shadow all around your tower. No creature hears stirs. No creature here dares stir, that we may behold you, most rare one, my dweller on the threshold.
Luke Burbank: That's Emma Ruth Rundle reading from The Bella Vista here on Live Wire. Do you remember the circumstances around writing that particular poem or at least maybe the major sections of it, like what was going on for you?
Emma Ruth Rundle: Well, this poem, it's after Remedios Varro, who is a surrealist painter, and she had this painting that I became, like, sort of get fixated on images or films or songs and they kind of guide my creative process. And in this picture, this painting, there's a tower up and you can see its sort of sections that you can see inside and there's a woman feeding a caged moon, a moon in a bird cage, spoonful of stardust. And we don't know how long this is going on, but the painting is called The Star Maker. And so I was heartbroken for a lot of the time I was writing this book. And, you know, I don't for some reason that painting held significance for me.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, I was wondering about that because reading the book, it's definitely get a sense of you in motion and also grieving and, you know, I've read that this is a book also about addiction that you were dealing with. Do you feel comfortable talking about what that sort of looked like for you? And also were you sober when you were writing these poems?
Emma Ruth Rundle: Yeah, I was. I'll have five years this year. Hey, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, the managing addiction. It's something that never ends, you know?
Luke Burbank: You were writing this looking back on a time when you weren't sober. And did you get in the process, like, insights into those parts of your life, like kind of looking back, observing it from now, a somewhat safe distance?
Emma Ruth Rundle: Writing, art, music, it's always, for me, a great way to take experience outside of yourself, put it into something with form, and then you can examine it and kind of reintegrate it in a different way.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Emma Ruth Rundle about her new book, The Bella Vista, here on Live Wire from PRX. I am a noted literalist when it comes to interpreting poetry and things. And I noticed, Emma, that you have two different poems in the book. One is, I read too much Hemingway, and then one is called Too Much Hemingways. Were you, in fact, reading too much Hemingway?
Elena Passarello: And how much is too much Hemingway.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, and when do you know it's too much heavy weight?
Emma Ruth Rundle: OK, well, this is a yes, I was reading Too Much Hemingway, and it all started with that Ken Burns documentary.
Luke Burbank: Sure, that'll do it.
Emma Ruth Rundle: And I was lonely, and you know, I was like, I think this guy would be a great boyfriend for me.
Luke Burbank: Whoa, that's really interesting.
Emma Ruth Rundle: Well, he's not living, so, you know, we can't get too close.
Luke Burbank: We can't get too close. 2025 Hemingway.
Emma Ruth Rundle: Yeah, so I just kind of went through a really intense Hemingway phase. I got I was into the watching the Ken Burns. I was really into Ken Burns documentaries for a while and then started reading the books. And and then I thought it was kind of a funny title. You know, it's just it was humorous. And then one thing I learned about writing poems or writing a collection is that when you have something generative and self-referential within the book, it helps to pull the whole thing together and feel cohesive. And so I tagged on the second one a bit later, yeah.
Luke Burbank: Can we hear another poem from the book?
Emma Ruth Rundle: We're going to hear the title track, The Bella Vista.
Luke Burbank: All right, this is Emma Ruth Rundle here on Live Wire.
Emma Ruth Rundle: Rip up this book, my love. I wrote it for you. So that crumpled pages of refuse worthy thinking might lift from the floor and bloom. Peony and chrysanthemum rightfully placed upon your shoulders. Words and thoughts aren't enough. They aren't even close to right. I wish I'd never known any language at all other than the giving of simple gifts. Thank you.
Luke Burbank: That was Emma Ruth Rundle recorded live at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon. We're not done though, hanging out with Emma Ruth-Rundle just yet. After we take a quick break, she is going to be performing one of her songs for us. So do not go anywhere. Welcome back to Live Wire Radio from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay, it is once again, time for one of my favorite parts of the show. And that is when we play a little station, location, identification, examination, here's how this works. I quiz Elena Passarello about a place in America, which also happens to be a place Live Wire is on the radio and Elena tries to guess the place that I am talking about. Here's hint number one. This town was the subject of the Middletown studies; sociological research is first conducted in the 1920s. The name Middletown was meant to suggest the average or typical American small city. Now, in fact, there are a lot of places in the U S named Middleton, but the researchers were interested in an idealized conceptual American type. And so they actually concealed the identity of this city by referring to it by Middletown. Sometime after the publication, the residents of this city began to guess. That the research was about their own town, that the book was about them.
Elena Passarello: So it's a smart.
Luke Burbank: It's a smart town. It's also the birthplace of the comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. [Elena: Ooh. Is it Madison, Wisconsin?] It starts with an M and it's in the Midwest, but we're looking more Indiana. How about Go Eagles?
Elena Passarello: Oh, that's Go. It's Muncie, Indiana!
Luke Burbank: That's right, it's Muncie! I was gonna throw a little Dave Letterman in there, but I knew that would just be. That's right, yeah. That'd be too easy for you. Yes, it's Muncie, Indiana, where we're on WBST-FM.
Elena Passarello: Fall State. Fall State, where they have the David Letterman School of Communications and the cornerstone says from David Letterman, dedicated to C students everywhere.
Luke Burbank: That's my kind of broadcaster. Shout out to everybody tuning in in Indiana on WBST-FM. Before we hear a song from Emma Ruth Rundle, here's a little preview of next week's episode. Friend of the show, John Hodgman will make his triumphant return to the program. You might know John as an author and humorist. His work has appeared like everywhere. I'm talking from The New Yorker to Mad Magazine. He's also the author of books like Vacationland. And Medallion Status. Plus, he's the co-host of the hit podcast, Judge John Hodgman. Now John joined us to chat about the rules of his Judge John Hodgman court, plus his days as a cheese monger, his part-time home in Maine. He's even going to read us a selection from Moby Dick in his finest Maine accent. Plus, he's gonna give us some hot takes on the state of Maine, including their state flower, which is a pine cone. Which doesn't really seem like a flower, does it? Then we've got some fabulous music and some vocal styling from China Forbes, the lead singer of a little orchestra you may have heard of known as Pink Martini. So that is the plan for next week. It's gonna be an incredible show. You don't wanna miss it. Okay, let's get back to this week's musical guest. Shall we? Now, before the break, we were talking to Emma Ruth Rundle, who was sharing some of her poetry with us and a little bit of the process of writing that poetry, but she's also a well-regarded musician and was nice enough to play us some of that music as well at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon. So here is some of that take a listen. We were hoping to hear a song. Could we hear some of your music as well?
Emma Ruth Rundle: So the song I'm gonna play is called Blooms of Oblivion and it's from that record, a very stripped down stuff that was heavy lyrics and yeah, it's a real uplifting number for you.
Luke Burbank: This is Emma Ruth Rundle on Live Wire.
Emma Ruth Rundle: [Emma Ruth Rundle performs "Blooms of Oblivion"]
Luke Burbank: That was Emma Ruth Rundle right here on Live Wire performing her song, Blooms of Oblivion from her 2021 album, Engine of Hell. And that, my friends, is going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests, Scaachi Koul and Emma Ruth Rundle.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather de Michele is our Executive Director, and our Producer and Editor is Melanie Sevcenko Our Technical Director is Eben Hoffer, Haziq Bin Ahmad Farid is our Assistant Editor, and our House Sound is by D. Neil Blake. Ashley Park is our Production Fellow.
Luke Burbank: Valentine Keck is our operations manager, Andrea Castro-Martinez is our marketing associate, and Ezra Veenstra runs our front of house. Our house band is Sam Pinkerton, Ethan Fox Tucker, Ayal Alves, and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This week's episode was mixed by Eben Hoffer and Haziq Bin Ahmad Farid.
Elena Passarello: Additional funding provided by The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week, we'd like to thank member Justin Olson of North Plains, Oregon.
Luke Burbank: For more information about our show or how you can tune into our podcast at your leisure, visit LiveWireRadio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.
PRX.
