Fugues

You ever get in a fight? I did. Once. Wearing my Red Sox hat at Yankee Stadium. Me (and two Yankees fans) were basically high on an aggressive cocktail of brain chemicals that forced our collective hand. Stupid, pointless violence with strangers that almost cost me an eye.

This episode’s fugue will describe the experience, followed by Inner Voice and I doing a post-fugue analysis. Together we’ll review the ingredients of a lethal cocktail that drove me into a dangerous, seemingly unavoidable situation.

This is Part 1 of a three-part series about fate and biology, sharing the experience of situations that find us “stuck in time,” unable to avoid fate.

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Credits:

Written and produced by Gabriel Berezin.

Original music and sound design by Grant Zubritsky

Opening and closing music by Monuments (featuring Grant Zubritsky (bass), Robby Sinclair (drums) and Bryan Murray (saxophone), Gabriel Berezin (guitar))

Editorial insight by Melissa "Monty" Montan

Logo design by Justin Montan

Follow Fugues: Substack | X | Instagram | Threads | TikTok

References:

• Study on GABA, serotonin and dopamine and its relation to aggressive behavior
• (And another study)
• Pic of my eye post-fight
• Slaughterhouse Five (the novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.)
• Sneaky Spirits Social Club (website) (instagram)

How does increased power impact human minds? It’s almost not someone’s fault if empathy wanes while power accumulates. In fact, it’s basically inevitable.

Joe Smarro, one of the subjects of the HBO documentary, "Crisis Cops: Ernie and Joe," is an exception to the rule. Joe is a police officer and trainer who gives a Master Class in how to sidestep fate when encountering people in crisis. We hear a few fugues from Joe illustrating what it's like to be a cop in these situations. And we give it the post-fugue treatment with inner voice, helping us to understand the cognitive effects of power and how to avoid unnecessary conflict.

Join us for the third and final part of this series on fate and biology.

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Credits:

Written and produced by Gabriel Berezin.

Original music and sound design by Grant Zubritsky. Additional music courtesy of Sami Jano.

Opening and closing music by Monuments (featuring Grant Zubritsky (bass), Robby Sinclair (drums) and Bryan Murray (saxophone), Gabriel Berezin (guitar))

Editorial insight by Melissa "Monty" Montan

Logo design by Justin Montan

Follow Fugues: Substack | X | Instagram | Threads | TikTok

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Relevant Fugues episodes:

• The Brain's Molotov Cocktail | Fate & Biology | 1
• Bonding, for Better or Worse | Fate & Biology | 2
• Why So Irrational

References:

• HBO’s Crisis Cops, Ernie & Joe
• Joe Smarro’s TEDx talk
• Solution Point + (Joe & Jesse’s first responder training organization)
• Follow Joe on Twitter
• Waco Drama Series Preview
• Waco Siege History
• Gary Noesner
• Digby, The De-escalating Dog (that prevented a suicide)
• Jamil Zaki on police empathy and power
• Cognitive effects of power (Adam Galinksy, Deborah H Gruenfeld, and Joe C. Magee)
• Power drains empathy (Adam Galinksy)

Why are we so prone to bad logic? We’re going to hear two everyday fugues in this episode: the search for a lost spatula and a spilled beer. The real story here is how easy it is to be irrational. Who is “we” in this episode? It’s me and my inner voice obviously. Inner Voice and I will do some post-fugue analysis to find out what mental phenomena are at play while I make really bad assumptions about events in my surroundings.

By the end of the episode maybe you’ll appreciate why we’re actually doing a lot better than we think we are as a society given how mistake-prone our brains are.

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Credits:

Written and produced by Gabriel Berezin
Original music and sound design - Grant Zubritsky
Opening and closing music: Monuments (featuring Grant Zubritsky (bass), Robby Sinclair (drums) and Bryan Murray (saxophone), Gabriel Berezin (guitar))
Editorial insight - Melissa "Monty" Montan
Logo design - Justin Montan

Follow Fugues: Substack | X | Instagram | Threads | TikTok

References:

• Apophenia in the Queen’s Gambit
• Apophenia in Stranger Things
• Wacky Conspiracy Theory showing Back to the Future predicted 9/11
• How Netflix uses big data to inform its content
• The Brain’s Autopilot (Scientific American)
• Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 vs 2 Thinking (article)
• Thinking Fast and Slow (book)
• Anil Seth’s TED talk
• How Much of What You See is Hallucination (TED Ex)
• Abracadabra! A Classic Magic Trick Fools Expectations, Not Eyes
• My Special Egg Spatula

Episode Song Playlist:

• Delirious - Prince
• Memories Can’t Wait - Talking Heads
• Not My Own - Monuments
• Where is My Mind - The Pixies
• Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
• There There - Radiohead

Look I’m not gonna get all gloomcore about the state of things in the world, but it does seem that our appreciation of morality has waned a bit in the last few years. It had me thinking of this one funny (and traumatic) memory from college.

Recounting it made me wonder - is it better or worse to have morals? This little tail tale has me reconsidering long held beliefs.

(PS - this is basically an audio snuff film, just warning you now, it's...graphic in parts.)

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Written and narrated by Gabriel Berezin.

Follow Fugues: Substack | Instagram | TikTok

Why do we help strangers? And why do we love revenge stories so much? The same thing that connects those questions connects us all - bonding.

There’s an invisible line between groups of people - it can be a thin dotted line between acquaintances, a steel girder between mother and child, or a series of chain links between millions of people in the same country.

In Part 2 of this series on fate and biology, we identify the brain chemical that plays a central role in how we bond, and explore why certain group behaviors are inevitable.

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Credits:

Written and produced by Gabriel Berezin.

Original music and sound design by Kirk Schoenherr and additional music by Grant Zubritsky.

Opening and closing music by Monuments - featuring Grant Zubritsky (bass), Robby Sinclair (drums) and Bryan Murray (saxophone), Gabriel Berezin (guitar).

Editorial assistance by Melissa "Monty" Montan.

Logo design by Justin Montan.

Follow Fugues: Substack | X | Instagram | Threads | TikTok

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Further reading:

• Part 1 of Fate and Biology: The Brain’s Molotov Cocktail
• Counting to Twelve (the ultimate funk on Sesame Street)
• Won’t You Be My Neighbor (Mr. Rogers Documentary)
• Philadelphia greases light posts before 2018 Superbowl
• “Are we the baddies?” Aka, an existential crisis for nazis (mentioned by Inner Voice)
• The Science of Kindness (and oxytocin)
• The Neurobiology of friendship
• Nasal spray and oxytocin increased male cooperation
• The above study debunked (in Vox)
• Book: Sapiens (by Yuval Noah Harari)
• Book: The Power of Us (by Jan Van Bavel and Dominic Packer)
• Paying Mentorship Forward (podcast episode for the NeuroLeadership Institute featuring Josh and Kendrick)
• Panel in the Vatican celebrating the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre