831: Lists!!!
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaten ed in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, this american life at org, the people's omand act, came out in the midst thousand nine hundred and seventies. It's hard to imagine a more eccentric best solar.

Over fourteen hundred pages long, I read like the psychopathy written by an excited and precocious fifteen year old who have all the obscurity, details of all the knowledge in all the world. The are sections on the greatest man made disasters ever, and also on the greatest prize fighters, a guide to bury treasure in the united states, biography of famous and infamous scientists, a history of advertising going back to increase. And also a chapter is about a minister who took over a newspaper for a week in the year one hundred. I made all editorial decisions, who was on the front page with they covered, based on what he believed jesus would have done, if you is, are gone to the newspaper game. And at the end of the book was an address and know when the authors asking for suggestions for future editions and asking readers to tell them what parts of the book .

they liked and disliked. So we eventually receive thousands of litters, each of which I read.

David, well, a ginseng. I was one of the authors .

of the people's omonia c. And because of that, I was able to determine that the most popular chapter in the people's ormont was was .

list lists of all .

the knowledge .

in the world, people most loved to twenty five pages out of the fourteen page book that had some lists, some of these lists. We're boring stuff like the world's fifteen biggest cities and ten towel buildings and ten longest rivers. But there were weird lists, twenty historical figures who are born as a legitimate children, fifteen people who had an absurd number of spouses.

And this one, there may be a little more edge in one thousand nine and seventy five, when this was published, twenty celebrities who've been psychoanalyzed. But my letter I got, well, chancy says that they are going. That one quest that readers really loved was things.

people who never existed but but live today, like shera homes, superman, wonder woman, scrut make duck.

scree duck like technical a person, but you get the idea.

And the most popular list was nine breeds of dog that bite the most. So based on that, we decided to do the first book of list.

The first book of list was an even bigger, even more ridiculously huge best seller, a pop culture phenomenon. It's sold over three million copies, have four sequels, a shortly of TV spent off in a board game. I was a teenager in the one thousand nine hundred seventies.

I had no interest in this kind of thing, what soever, but I remember being one of those you big with this books that you could not help and know about. And looking back on and now reading the book of list today, I think that accidently figured out how to give the pleasure of scrolling the internet way before the internet existed. Basically, he was a way to leave through impossibly random stuff to something catchy grabs your eye.

We have different kinds of lists, and people were responding. All of them. We had the celebrity list, you know, where we would ask ronal rag and water the vents in history you wish you could have witnessed. Then there was a straight list. There was statistical, you know, what were the worst airlines in the world based on depth per mile flown? And then my favorite kind, what we call the annotated list, where you'd actually have to do some research and then put a paragraph describing the entry no .

is popular with, they never did, was like that. And before I tell you what this list was, I went, you please listen for a second to some of the list that I had to beat out to be the most popular quest. Okay.

we go.

Fifteen famous events that happened in the bathtub. Sixteen names, the things that you never knew had names. Eighteen famous brains and what they waited.

Fourteen men who became units of measurement and the units named after them, Benjamin in Frankland. Eight reasons to marry an old woman. A lot of competition there. So what is in the most .

popular st. Six sexual positions in order popularity. And then the advantages and disadvantages of each one. Decades later, people still tell me, thank you so much for that list. I learned so much.

and but maybe this is obviously its face, but just let out why that would be such a big deal. In the seventies.

I think IT was a big deal because nobody talked about IT. He wasn't in print. And I think a lot of people, I only thought there was one sexual position.

No.

yeah, oh yeah. You know, I mean, there were people like that, and a lot of the people who would tell me about how I affected them, that they read IT at a time when they were teenagers.

I mean, since just I just opening up to that page in the book and these are so basic, like a is just like which person is on top yeah and whether the kind of like sitting stand in each position gets five sentences maybe know like a sentence of a manager, sentence of disadventure, it's very turns its two pages total yeah .

yeah yeah it's not the commercial.

The book of, and the success of the book of this demonstrates tes so clearly. Are putting something in a list have such a power you can reach people? But of course, most of the listen or gives are the ones we write for ourselves. That's interesting. People put all kinds of things on them.

Oh my god, I feel nervous.

What do you nervous?

Because I was just looking through my list, and I just feel like a freak, this vivid current field.

a produce search show here. And I weren't, but the very personal and idiots and critical is the g keeps and a staff meeting where I talked about, well, chin ski and different kinds of this. And at the meeting of weave was started .

talking about heroes. And so I was offering this kind of, assuming everyone I would like start saying my lisson than everyone else of the guy, I, me too, then they would share their lisson would be kind .

of like the best moment.

And that's not what happened at all. What happened is that I sit named like a couple of my more recent less, and then everyone started laughing and was like, what the hell, in fact, lora or coworker message in the chat, a vivers brain with like seven examination points. And I felt like a little, I mean, IT was all in good spirits, but I felt a little embarrassin.

If you that does keep some list that lots of people keep practical stuff like book he wants to read or give ideas for people who loves. But then on the notes up of a phone, there's a whole bunch of list that have no practical purpose at all. But I really just a sort of organizing the stuff that is rattling around in my head.

So a list that is just like organizing my brain is um let me look things .

that .

are off brand for me or common things i've never done or times strangers have involved me in their business for unclear reasons like illustrator said, why that happens to me all the time OK.

So then let's dive into those less things that are off grand for me. Read me that list.

okay? I'm bad at jumping. I'm inconsistent with my .

birth control your pillow every day. You should no, why is that off brand?

Because i'm organized. I was embarrassing about reading these lisses that there are so private. But whatever have to care. I can't roller blade. I hate Peter. Even though is vegan for a year in vegetarian for a bunch of years, I just really don't like them and I don't love bollen. That's a new addition. The last one I really don't want na share, but well but bridged pollution bond radio because that makes me seem really psychotic, which is that i've never kissed anyone famous and I just seemed I would fine .

now because your hold .

thirty and see .

you kiss a bunch people yeah.

time. And the most famous person i've ever kissed is the captain of the belgian field hockey team, which is not famous.

not famous?

No, yeah. This was jay.

This list, but the list common things have never done, which, by the way, when we has two items on IT, cariole and going to costco with the list where I feel the emotions that I feel all my body with the list times, people have referred to me as neuro divergent, even though I don't think I am. All these things are different ways, that of naming parts of herself for herself.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to make sense of who I am and what is going on in my brain.

English form.

Yeah because it's so organized and clear and clean. And the business of making sense of yourself is i've found to be extremely messy.

With that in mind, we've still keeps old to functions because you're like a record of who he was, listen when he was a teenager, like harmless things my dad hates, or things that should have known, or her very first list seeing. So my grandmother's nursing home, they don't weekly visit. And he was fourteen, trying to be a sense of that world.

No way, he doesn't this us. To anybody, just notice something about herself. And you notice a second example of the same thing. He starts to collect them so you can stare at the west, try to understand IT in the fact that it's collected on a list. What feeling this I give you once .

it's on the list, oh my god, it's like relief. It's so nice because it's just bounced and around in my brain. And so once is on a list, I don't feel like I have to remember IT.

but IT isn't just like you do not have to think about IT. It's like you don't to worry about IT like before you put IT on the last year, IT seems like there's a kind of fretting of like what does this mean about me that this is the thing and then when you put that on the list, sty, like I know what that means. That means it's on this list.

Yeah totally that's true. Like I exist and this is a thing about me.

Today on our program lists, and they tame the chaos of the world. Have to say, if very aware. And putting together everything that I ve said to you so far today, the way I did IT is the way I write every radio story of ever dozens, I don't know forever.

The first thing I do is I make a list of all the possible quotes that I might use. So in this case, there was three single space type pages of quotes from aviva and from daily wild chin ski. But as by the quotes, I like the most and then want to do if I stare at the list until I just pops up for me.

This coach, you conversed in this one second, and this one can end the thing. I have no idea how to write any radio story without a list to take control of all the confusion and all the possible choices that I could make and make a make sense. So today, list, have they run the world and everything in IT do you be easy chicago to american life am I A glass and i'm pulled on.

Have a good straight here. Number one, stay with us. Number two, stay with us. Be three, stay with us.

That one list revive. So let's start a show today with the whistle design as a kind of magical tool for living your wife and maximize your potential and being your very best self. Anyway, that's what this list was supposed to do. Story come from .

from john for cee ready to at the list going to see IT.

It's right.

This is that right here .

you ask me about IT.

I'm on a zoom call with my brother pat talking about a list that was written by our other brother, mike. And I want to ask him what he thinks I should do with that. It's one of the last pieces of mix writing that we have. What do you think should be done .

with this list?

I don't care if you burn IT. I I wouldn't feel sad. I wouldn't be angry, say I I say why you burn without me.

My brother mike died in twenty fifteen. That's almost ten years ago now, jeez. And, you know, trigger warning and all that.

He died because a suicide act. It's unclear why he did what he did. There were stories, his remains told about paranoia, who lose nations might, becoming obsessed with aliens. IT was also sudden and shocking that my family and I started grasping around for anything, trying to make IT all make sense. Which brings me to the list, mike.

The list the summer he was about to be a soft, more in high school, sixteen principles to live his life by titled goals for success double underlined on a rectangular piece of poster board. There were corny rosans from being honest, make a commitment, be unselfish, create unity, come together as never before. As you can see, mike was a real over driver.

Taipei improve everyday as a player. A person in student, be tough, be self disciplined, do IT right, don't accept less. He's captain into the high school football team. Straight student, give great effort, be enthusiastic, eliminate mistakes. Don't beat yourself. He hunger list on his closet door, facing his bed, so that when he woke up in the morning, the first thing he saw was expect to win, be consistent, developed leadership, be responsible.

I first noticed the list when I went into my bedroom to steal a pair of his boxers. I was always forgetting to do my laundry. My g always did his, and my feelings about the list were immediately complicated.

I felt like I was somehow judging me. I was the oldest of my siblings, but to me, I always felt older. He was mister rotti club.

Mister, scheduled out his daily routine. I was, mister, been arrested twice. Mister, smoking weed out of an aluminum can and probably doing irreparable damage my lungs in the woods.

And mike knew he was Better than me. He even wrote a poem, english class, about how disappointed he wasn't. Me, i'm not kidding.

He was titled second chances back then. I resented the list. I probably made fun of them about IT because I was the nature of our relationship, even though we were close.

But after he died, I actually saw these principles as something I should live up to, because at that point I was spiralling. Michael was twenty four. When he died, I was twenty six.

I couldn't get myself together, drinking, depression, a simmering, futile anger at the universe, the original have been framed. And I asked my parents if I could have IT and hanging out in my apartment by the front door. I thought maybe its commandments might rub off on me.

And there I stayed for a bit. I gLance at every once in a while and feel, again, like I was falling short. So after a couple of years, I took IT down. I shoved IT in the back of my closet and just bothered me, the toxic positivity therapist, waiting room posters ness of at all. But I also compared to get rid of IT, which is why I call a pat, to finally figure out what to do with IT.

If anything, I would think the list would be cursed so you can keep IT makes makes you feel Better. I don't want anything to do the list.

Pat was the closest person to mike in the world. He is two years Younger than mike, who is a year and a half Younger than me. Pat, I can even agree on the most basic things about the list. And he had knee handwriting like that was one .

thing that should, at this great lines, are looking at the same photo. Yeah, yeah, no, that's me. That's me. Look at the cy didn't even die the eyes.

but he's consistently not doubting his eyes. That says something .

that he never learned how to write a letter.

Eye pats saw something in the list that I also felt, but I couldn't necessarily name. What world do you think police played in his in his death?

I mean, the list n payroll, but it's a reflection of is psychology which played every role in english death and shows you the type of responsibility he felt IT shows you the type of pressure he put on himself. There's nothing about self care and IT, and there's nothing about being truly yourself either IT IT shows you a lot of what was going on with him. And mine said that he got trapped in, and that made him very sick.

When mike was a soft more at penn state, he started experiencing delusions and he was barely sleeping. But if he felt like he was struggling, he didn't tell anyone. He kept going to class.

His roommates noticed, and they were talking about how to get him help. And I think this is just my opinion. I guess that might didn't want to be found out.

I mean, in the past i've connected the the list to mikes mindset isn't like he was not somebody. He's gonna be vulnerable all if he was suffering. no.

Was that are there .

any bullet points that stand up to you in particular?

There's a bunch eliminate mistakes. That's that's what I want to just such to eliminate mistakes. We, me.

you can that's why the mistakes .

yeah create unit come together is never before. I mean, you don't he's not just trying to get people to come together as never before.

I like that one that reminds me of he was a good unifier. You know, he had friends across the all the arbitrary social clicks after he passed. Did you think about the list at .

all or did you um I didn't give you a lot of thought until .

I went to the .

football banquet and heard mister Ricky speak and then I got pretty angry and then I was self pretty annoyed .

at the list one of the captains .

of our two thousand eighteen and a two thousand nine .

garny I graduate might forel and body the qualities of the coach ball player that's my high school football coach case .

can't just tell him his voice renaming in a war after my brother at a banquet in two thousand sixteen.

My created and shared a list of goals for success, sixteen standards at vala pole, and uses a compass to guide his path. They were, make a commitment. Be on selfish.

This is really the moment the list passed into law. When IT became the way my brother was remembered, the coach paid to have goals for success, professionally, matter and framed. That's the copy that I have. He also hung a replica of the list in our high school's weight room next to a photo of mike and football k. Here, with this tough game based on to inspire future generations, which I appreciated, he was putting so much into memorializing.

mike.

But later I started worrying about the kids you saw IT, and whether they might judge themselves by IT the same way that I had.

We want our players to do. You're supposed to do and believe if IT is to be IT up to me, we want them doing metal citizens, moto athlete, mille suns. In essence, we want them to be like mike forever.

The coach goes on to describe what happened. Mike, he says that he fell from the fourth floor balcony of his dorm and that he was an accident when he got from my parents. That was how they affraid IT. But mike didn't fall. He jumped.

The list makes me, I still makes me feel sad, but that was when the list started making me feel angry to me. It's like this obsession with image that is such a toxic quality of the community that were from and the family that were from.

We may have look good from the outside, but alcohol ism, a mental illness, run in our family, and we're a big part of my childhood. You don't need to know the specifics, just know that I was chaos.

and not even mister .

golden child was spared from IT, but where I struggled in flailed and totally embodied all that chaos might try to contain IT, to impose order on IT, to fix IT by being perfect. And that's what the list is, a manifestation of his drive to be perfect. That's how pat sees IT. Anyway.

it's painful for me the list because it's about what trauma did to mike. And now these adults are waving around like some sort of thing to be proud of with ten minutes. It's there's a lot of things that I that i'm very proud of that he did you know I rather those things be remembered than this um insane pressure that he put on himself.

What do you wish he was remembered for? What are the things you want him remembered for?

I think just who he was really I mean, there's really nothing to be ashamed of and but like he wasn't this model person like like in school like we sold we together, like we we provided primary entire foot all team with weed. We had like a little business thing like IT was funny. It's not IT wasn't bad.

IT was funny like it's also just the truth, whether it's funny or not funny. You know, I just want the truth to remember. Red, I don't want to I don't want to have to deal with these fake stories about mike when I was at the bank wet and they gave his, they give a check to the kid that one is award and dad and i'm with dad and kid comes up and and that that says him was. Make sure you you spend this on other people. That's what Michael have done.

And I look at the kid, I looked.

that's what I said, and I looked at that and I go, who are you talking about? Talking about mike? And then I look at the kid, and i'm just like, do my brother would spend this on the dummy shit?

Alright.

you do IT you do IT you do whatever you want with that money can go have fun.

really.

He said that, yeah, I mean, he.

he that he was great, so bad with money.

He, he would buy like a four hundred per dollar pair sung glasses, and then like accidently leave them on top of the car and lose them.

Did you put sub a sub wafer?

And in his car OK.

the sub wafer was awesome. Okay, the sub wafer was such a deal and and perfectly further, the hash .

Better the.

List doesn't just leave out mix flaws. IT also misses really the best stuff about him. He was warm, generous, extremely goofy.

He was, he was curious, and that that was a really good quality that had. He found people really interesting. So we like to listen.

be curious to be a good one to be on here.

A kids from .

my grade, they come up to me and they tell me stories about mike when they started on the foot. All team, and they felt IT in belong there because the older kids were dicks. And they said my brother would come around and he would, he would comfort them, and he would, he would encourage them.

And then I remember here from allia promotion. He said when they were dating, mike had a great relationship with her grandmother, and he would watch T. V with her grandmother I think he was like a game shows for something that was, well, fortune and he was just watch T V with her and they would shoot the shit and um yeah, those are the stories that like i'm proud of because they their reflection. If he was, he was a good guy that people enjoy IT. And let's say, kind of I will remember.

Last year, pet rote the football go to our high school and asked him to use the list to spread awareness about suicide. He got him to add a line to the bottom of IT. IT says there is great strength and vulnerability as IT takes courage to push through the fear and share one's true self with others.

Recently, after my wife and I moved into our new apartment, I made a decision to hang up the list again in my home office. Now i'm the one looking at IT every day, and I don't resent IT anymore. And maybe IT still makes me feel little weird.

Okay, but I just I see IT for what IT is. I don't feel judged by IT and some of the list i'm genuinely downtown like create unity is a beautiful idea. IT reminds me of the best of mike, but mostly I just like looking at my brother's handwriting.

John for seo, his senior producer at the show snapp judgment. The story was produced by some call.

Coming up over hundred dogs and one giant bear and its list of enemies. That's in a minute like above radio when our program continues. This american ee from our glass today's program list, as they tamed the chaos of the world.

This list is all the dogs in my dog's life are kind of segmented by different criteria.

This is a bobbi shorewood, his friends winner, our producers here, Chris bender of the showing Christal said he keeps us on his phone of neighbor od dogs.

We've got lunch box. He was A A cream Scott with a turcos vest. We've got virgil, who is kind of some kind of dual dog. But I said, little chicken dog and the owner looks like my friend.

Auto, what is little .

fried chicken dog? Like some doodles have tight curly Brown hair, fur and IT looks exactly like fried chicken. So this are literally looks like a walking piece of fried chicken.

Baby keeps this this because there are so many dogs where he lives, one hundred thirty dogs on this list. This number is always the greatest. And he's convinced that people can tell if you don't know their dog's name and you're .

faking IT by saying things like how's here you doing today or how's .

your puppy is into the potential awkwardness. And okay, just for context, he does have a list of people like this to remember the spouses of friends, sc workers. That is not just ones people's kids, but dog is. He also finds that out put the rank of the dogs. So his dog, two ice favorite at the top, as least favorite at the bottom.

like there are some dogs at bully tue. So we throw them at the bottom of the list, and then we know, hey, this one is, is who beats up joy? You might want to believe that name to .

see others works in practice. Chris, fellow baby to the dog park and IT doesn't take wrong before they get into a list needing situation.

I definitely think I recognize that dog, the top dual over there.

Do you .

do so see a big boy? I'm sure trees run into at the dark park before. Let me see he close .

down the list on his one. Do you to the dog park section searching for a dog with the description?

Shane Brown dual? Yeah, I don't know.

He finds nothing. Have to add that onto the list. Baby has no idea how other downers do IT keep drag of all the dogs, so I think it's entirely possible that other people are no Better with the named and he is, but they just don't .

care when he incase .

get back to the house going to neighbor's dog, because somehow .

wasn't on the list yet. List actually, i've been mpt into that dark many times and he always says he's friendly and I like, yeah, I know. Like we meant like, ten times you .

think he doing, remember you?

I don't know. I don't know. That guy needs a list though, you know?

Two pocket list, there's some list you definitely do not want to. Beyond this best thanksgiving, marsha and people come stay with them at the house. They effective ally called the datcha because that of the city russian now is the word russian to use.

We totally called the dash math.

math guess they read about russia for the new yorker and in books. And the day for thanks, giving to with their guests left for some of the celebration and a bunch of the remaining guests, four, five people on a hike, pretty vertical, one actually, up in nearby mountain, so they get to a spot way, a pie.

Yes, it's an overlook point. It's pretty tiny world standing pretty close together, looking out at the cats calls and the little town where we live. And then two of us pulled out our phones.

as one does. How much manager can you take?

And both of us saw a news item that one of the friends who left that morning had been declared a foreign agent.

Foreign agent, netherward. The russian government just put him on an official list of people that IT is not very found of. Foregate agent is not a good thing.

And this is something that the russian government does. Almost every friday.

they put out a list of foreign agent.

right? It's like this weird, weird spectators for to see who is now a foreign agent.

It's weird. It's it's like a sinister version of like when Oscar n nominations come out or something, you know so that's .

not a bad similar a because you know what Oscar instance come out. Then you have to wonder what what's going to be the outcome for any one of these and and with foreign ents is a little bit like that. Part of being on the list of foreign agent is that you're put on notice, right? Your honor. Rather, we may launch a criminal case against which has much harsher consequences.

You can graduate from this list to words list.

Yes, they end up on other list like the wanted list or somebody just stays a foreigner ent indefinitely. But it's extremely unpleasant IT. It's sort of reconfigures your world.

So the bed on this mountain, martial, one of the other russians, read us on their founds that their friend, who they just had thanksgiving dinner with the night before, is now a foregone agent.

So we both say his last name, the african. And this is something that actually happened before between the two us and where we just take out our fans on a friday see a name and say the name because you don't have to say van african has been named for an agent because we know is friday.

Marsha says russia is now in an age of list. This started when vlad m. Putin created the list of foreigner ents. When took the presidency for a second time, twenty twelve, I started clamping down on dissent. At first I was just organizations on the foregone agents, rights groups, media outfit.

And then three and five years ago, they started adding the names of people to the list, which is actually mother his foreign agent law on in american foreign agent law, and dates in the one thousand nine thirties. One key difference tween the two laws among many, in america, to be a foreign agent, you actually have to be working for or acting on behalf of foreign government organization. And you put yourself in the list, you register as a foreign agent.

In russia, the government just put on a list, close your finding agent and what you are. One, marsha says this list, the way to put in governments been using IT are typical. And the way is Operating these days.

it's like a very bureaucratic. And so all these lists have weird non classes rate at some foreign agent list, or undesirable organizations, or unfriendly countries. So the united states, for example, is an unfriendly country to russia, right? What they mean is like moral enemy.

It's so wear that they feel compelled to divide off the world into the friendly countries and unfriendly countries, that they actually have to write IT down on a list.

It's a great point. And then it's a very you know, it's a combination of of a country that that has the ideology of a fortress under size in a country that has like a deeply, deeply bureaucratic self understanding. So everything has to be somehow classified and put down on paper or in an excell table.

This resurgent to titanium and russia. It's really focused on the bureaucracy like the bureaucracy is it's hard and it's, it's, it's, it's cool. And that's why lists are so important.

Make sure you in this list.

I'm not i'm on a different list, a worth .

list well is that i'm on .

the wanted list because there's a criminal case against me.

Marcha has the being put on one of these less there's you out of the Normal world and into this weird, underfed limbo or perforate ID. But things different and more worried, some because it's unclear what it's going to happen next.

What is clear is that it's a permanent status change, a program to today about this and is part of that we want you to hear from people who are on a target list about it's like to live that the quire in life and maria aged to reach out to some to talk about IT and talk especially about what it's like to be on the foreign agent list. The vn nanea list is interesting because being on that list really can mean such a wide range of things. Maybe there will be nothing or maybe .

things to get our hot words.

Here's much.

I've been watching the foreign ent list growth for a few years. It's now about four hundred people, most of them living outside of russia, and I probably know half of them. That's one reason have been sort of obsessed with the list is today that changes your life.

Just I was cutting the turkey, and I believe that I was, I was in the mist of cutting my four in a row.

This is only my friend who was put on the list of friday after thanksgiving first check at that weekend or forth turkey that day.

probably that weekend and then um I saw my wife coming to me and I realized that he was bill. Just I rely that something happened and then he told me that I was declared red. The foreign agents .

he is getting the adoptive version of the experience of finding out he was on the list. She's a media lawyer who is representing journalists have been put on the list. Then SHE was branded for an agent herself. SHE was the first lawyer in the list. SHE found out when a report called to ask her about the implications.

Believe you are not like for the first few seconds, I didn't realize that he's actually same to me, that my name appeared on the list. I thought that he was asking me to provide a comment like a what would happen, what if you pay and how that would effect her life. And then I just realized that is actually not a hypothetical, that he is actually informing me that my name is on the list.

Put on the foreign ancient list has consequences regardless of where the person lives. And once the russian government names you a foreigner, ent, you face a bunch of choices, because there are all sorts of special rules that applied to foreign ents.

And you have to decide whether you are going to comply one rule, every time you communicate anything publicly or semi publicly in the media or in social media or in a dating APP, even you have to warn people that they are dealing with a foreigner. Ent, there is a special disclosure. You have to use an extra large type.

It's huge. IT has to be like an in front and letters to rise bigger than the main text.

Do you remember the exact words? You can see them and rest if you want.

yes. I E. The disclaimers.

this message or information was created under, disseminated by a foreign agent non governmental organization.

which quite like a big h paragraph considering the the size like an in in social media IT would be like an uh.

cup slog. It's an all caps yeah and IT gets more business in a personal, has been put in the list, must create a corporation. And the corporation in the eyes of the state is you and you're the corporation. This corporation has to file quarterly financial reports detAiling the income you make and the money you spend samit to an annual audit and also post regular reports of your activities, whatever that means on the internet, or submit them to the media for publication. The paper request be perfect every time, but the rules are league.

so you can make mistakes are easily, and then you made mistake here. Government comes with a fine, first fine, second fine, and then criminal case. So it's all made as a big trap. You know all these games around IT a it's like doron Jerry game. They are just running after us and we're trying to run away, trying to still do the job.

Gallina follows the rules most of her clients do, even if they are living outside of russia, because everyone has someone or something left behind family members that the authorities can decide to harass property the authorities concedes my friend at and decided not to follow the rules he'd left rush a right after the full sky invasion of ukraine. In a couple of month later, his name popped up on the list. Like everyone, he's still had a million things turning him to russia.

So I knew that i'm not gonna play by those rules, and I decided to just. Get rid of everything I had back there, including my apartment.

So you were thinking that now that you are on this list of foreign ents, your property in russia was in danger and you should basically take money out of the country.

Yes.

what does that feel like?

IT felt like nothing I told myself like we don't go there. I mean, in that .

like .

infinite depths of feelings about, you know, your country, everybody know who you left there and stuff, they can drive you crazy. So I just didn't feel anything a .

little over a year later, carton found out that he was in another list, the list of extremists and terrorists. This was, you could say, in upgrade IT meant that the russian stage froze whatever asset is still had in russia. So he'd been smart to sell his apartment.

But being on this list also meant theyd open a criminal case against him. Just to make this clear and informed that there was a case against him, god had to hire a lawyer to figure out what he was charged with, in which prosecutor was charging him. Can I have talked about this weird process of having to find your own case? Because there is also a criminal case .

against me in russia.

I found out about IT from articles in russian government media, and then my name appeared on the wanted list. In the higher gave list. The wanted list is probably the worst that we know about. anyway. I've now been arrested in absentia, and in the next few months, a moscow court is going to sentence me to seven or eight or nine .

years in prison.

IT took my lawyer two months to find the case against me for, quote, reading false information about the russian military. Carton said. I was lucky.

IT took his lawyer six months to find his case. That crime years ago. Current donated money to alexa violence, antti corruption foundation. The violence is the russian politician who died in an arctic prison earlier this year. And when did you give money to the to the other organization to remember?

Well, for years uh and that was of course, IT was long before they labeled uh H A foundation as illegal or extremism, anything else. Ah I was one of thousands of people, they believe who supported navigate his foundation.

Do you have any idea how much money you gave them?

Not that much, I believe few hundred dollars as a total by the the .

only was also in the list .

of extremist s he still is on that list because the authorities say they haven't received proper documentation of his death.

You know, any contact with russian state recently resembles more and more a sort of contact with who, the guns back in elementary or middle school bullies .

yeah .

like with bullies. This is feeling that they are very strong, very hostile and very.

Small .

minded yeah strong, hostile and small minded sort of feeling that they are like big, an angry animal who you 是 trying to attack you when they're scared of you and who can like kill you because they're scared of you。

Let's just call this animal what IT is. You're describing a bear, russian bear.

That's such a good. Come on.

With the russian bear on your heels, you have to watch your step. You're gonna travel. You have to ask, is IT safe? Can I go there?

Ellia crisishe .

a different ellia now divides all the countries in .

the world into three categories. So maybe can go, can go with consequences.

Can go with consequences really means don't go. You don't want the consequences is ida started a media outlet called help desk, which reports on the warm ukraine and helps ukrainians feel the fighting in the eyes of the russian state.

He has been a criminal for more than two years for posting about war crimes and butcher, I haven't been in criminal for as long as india has, but i've also learned as a whole convoluted science to IT, some countries will extra die. People to russia, some countries might. And then there's interpol, the international police, which russia tries to use to have people detained and sometimes extradited. The planning that goes into traveling to other countries can get very granular.

Sometimes it's it's not about where you go, but about which company you fly. And this is really difficult because, for example, turkish lines have, if something will happen, they can land in russia because they have this airport as the plan b airport. But you need to call every airline and ask them for every route. And I think somebody should do this.

You could easily spend all your time, your entire life perfecting the act being Jerry, who keeps Evans. Tom.

so it's absorb and absorb should be fun. I don't know, like afra yeah afra is funny, some sound way, but but also often.

I used to be when a friend was named for for A N agent. I would send them a note saying, proud to know you like IT was some sort .

of recognition .

at some point that stop feeling right. I don't feel proud, not when my friends were put in list and not one island er in russia wanted list. When that happened, my friend and yeah the one who was carving the turkish at thanksgiving texted me i'm not sure what the protocol is.

Do I congratulate you or express condolence? I felt sad, helps me understand the sadness because when I found out that um there was a criminal case against me and then later when I found out that I was arrested, an essential in a sense, intellectually it's almost exciting. And as people often say, it's a it's a .

sort of recognition .

and and I felt profoundly sad. I'd felt like I was Carrying around another burden that had been .

there before.

What is IT?

Oh, IT is a .

good one.

If I am telling you something rude, if I am telling you I hate you, it's a key to be said about that because I said that someone hates me. And when i'm saying that, well, i'm honored red by that or their stupid, I feel that this reaction just, you will gone you from the sadness and tragedy of that.

The elephant in the room of my sadness is that being considered a criminal by the russian state means i'll never be able to go home again, not even if there is a change of regime. I doubt that the first, second or even third thing they are going to do after putting is urge all .

the list select. The vast .

majority of russians were on these lists. I am an exact for life.

For many of us who live on the side of russia, this business of being, unless israel, a kind to having a troublesome nchu ic illness, if you give taps on, you modify your behaviors necessary, you hope that doesn't kill you. But other than that, you live a relatively Normal american or german or dutch life. For those who are still in russia, though, the condition can be much more serious.

This is one such person, so is not her real name. She's an LGBT activist. In in november of last year, the russian supreme court declared the quote, international L, G, B, T movement was an extremist organization, though I had been put on less even before that the internalize circulated within government agencies. These lists aren't meant to be public, but there is an illicit service that will search different internally and database and send you what they find like a freedom of information act request. But fast unreduced and for sale.

you can just pay very small amount, like a thirty dollars, and download everything what they have, including these and formalists that police create for their work. You will be able to see how this regime, see, what do they have on you? Do they follow your flights? Do they? Black is enough information.

And what you get is an excel document, or P.

D F, D, F document .

on the P, D F. The last year on are Martin red, so her P. D. F said, extremism and terrorism in but again, this wasn't the public list of extremists and terrorists.

Yeah it's two different lists. Um if it's possible, I will say IT to in russian I need the best 哥哥 at the cost but this revanchist treme me but this review I is if you can translate so the reason the reason you want you .

to say russian is because not because he can't translate IT， but because it's the war doesn't exist, right? So it's like if they added another suffix to the word suspect, so it's like it's closest to if they call you suspect able in extreme suspectful in terrorism.

Yes.

it's like this internal list is the draft of a list like eventually zoe will probably be brought up on charges. SHE will be the suspect in a made up crime, but for now, in draft form, SHE is merely suspectful. Can you tell me why you were trying to to buy this information?

I think it's for .

me to understand reality around me because when you're in side country, ever often don't feel that it's risky to stay there and we will get this information. You understand that now you you cannot be safe. You have to be prepared every day that you could be arrested, they could come to your flat.

And it's not a question. Will they come or not? They will. Just the question is one. And we will have time to to to leave country. Will you have time to say goodbye for your parents or not?

And what did zoe do after finding out he was on this list of people who would eventually probably be placed on the list .

of extremists .

and terrorists? SHE cried. SHE started making some plans for leaving the country someday, and he made one very practical plan for staying.

We bought a very good door. And when I came to the shop, ask guy to recommend the door. Um the best of the best when police will come.

Uh, they want to break this door. I need my fifty minutes, twenty minutes, and they choose this door for me. This was the main crit iteration.

When you were buying the door, they think you.

Brock dealer and the guy told me that, okay, you will have a time like to to throw a way to to the toilet. Everything, what do you have? I I didn't explain them why I need this store. I think that probably it's a more understandable reason for them.

Police usually come in the morning, uh, every evening before i'm going to sleep, I check the door. Everything, all this, everything should be closed, because if not, then I will not have this twenty minutes.

How many locks does the door have? three? And why do you need twenty minutes?

Uh, I need to clean my computer and contacts. Uh, because if I will not do this, then all my friends will be in the risk. And also I have to fix my dog. My dog will protect me and they could shoot dog.

They have to put your dog in another room.

yeah, in the bathroom and ask them, and kindly ask them to not teach him.

Zai has many reasons to stay in russia since her sister died of cancer several years ago. So yeah and so his mother have together been raising so his knees, so his parents don't want to leave. So his partner doesn't want to leave, most important, so he doesn't want to leave, so he has decided that he will stay as long as you possibly can. SHE believes the authorities will give her one final warning, something like leave the country now, go to jail and mention believe.

I'm not sure why .

SHE thinks they'll be warning when IT comes to her knees, though, though is sure that the girl should leave the country as soon as she's old enough.

I don't believe that he will have a future. I don't believe that. Life will be Better in rush.

I see now how many people support putting in these selections and how people celebrate IT. And I wish all the best for my niece. I wanted to live in a free country with possibility to choose partners, work, opinion, everything.

Who verifies that? All the same things to you.

It's a good, if someone that wish me all the best matter, my niece will I. This is what I wish for her. But of course he .

will decide. Just before .

we SAT down for interview, though, he told me something that was still pretty new to hear too. He was pregnant.

I am in a huge crisis now, because all today, all money, I just cry. And I feel at how I start to care not about myself, but about the child.

It's like this child, when their borne will already be on one of those lists, hana errent, called by ocracoke rule by nobody. Maybe that's why I feel so hopeless. They label you an extremist or foreign agent. And next thing you know, you are using those terms yourself to describe your life, because that is your life. Thinking about where you can go, what you can say in public, how you are being singled out by the russian state can affect people you love, and how you can always, always get worse and you're never not going to think about IT.

Marsh gan, this is staff, or the new yorker, and the other several books, most recently, the future is history.

Pair stocks of paris shoes are record by the moody loves. Number five was a man.

停住 了 爱。

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asked up on my room. what? goodbye?