The Letter X

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy podcasters/writers David Christopher “Nunchucks” Bell and Tom Reimann (Gamefully Unemployed, ‘Fox Mulder Is A Maniac’ podcast) for a look at why the letter X is secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• Gamefully Unemployed on Patreon — the home of the podcast ‘Fox Mulder Is A Maniac’
• Tom Reimann’s page at Collider.com
• Tom Reimann’s page at 1-900-HOT-DOG
• Some More News (YouTube)
• “Kitten” by David Christopher Bell featured on The Black List

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
• Mapping Manahatta: 10 Lenape sites in New York City (6sqft)

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Language Visible: Unraveling The Mystery Of The Alphabet From A To Z by David Sacks
• The Letter And The Cosmos: How the Alphabet Has Shaped the Western View of the World by Laurence de Looze
• Steve Sax (Baseball-Reference.com)
• YouTube upload of Steve Sax’s guest appearance on ‘The Simpsons’
• X Look Back on 40 Years of Punk Iconoclasm (Rolling Stone)
• The xx Share Documentary to Launch Young’s Online Archive: Watch (Pitchfork)
• Before X Was X: The Dark Horse Story Of The 24th Letter (Dictionary.com)
• The Phoenicians — 1500–300 B.C. (The Metropolitan Museum Of Art)
• Malcolm X (History.com)
• Malcolm X (Sky History)
• What Happened to the X-Rating? (Mental Floss)
• Revisiting The Controversy Surrounding ‘Scarface’ (Vulture)
• X-Rated Movies: 28 of the Most Controversial Films Ever Released (IndieWire)
• Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins (Pew Research Center)
• Comic Book Nation: The Transformation Of Youth Culture In America by Bradford W. Wright
• Defining generations: Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins (VentureBeat)
• Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson shares video of launching XBox in 2001 with his ‘bud and twin’ Bill Gates (CNBC)
• Virtual Boy (Nintendo Wikia)
• Half-Life and Portal universe (Half Life Wikia)
• SPQR: A History Of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
• Is ‘Xmas’ a Modern and Disrespectful Abbreviation for ‘Christmas’? (Snopes)
• The X in Xmas literally means Christ. Here’s the history behind it. (Vox.com)
• Duane ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ Chapman Stars in New Faith-Based Film ‘Hunter’s Creed’ (CBN News)