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App not listed? Try this RSS linkIn this episode of The Hen Report, Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan are joined by poet, activist, and friend Gretchen Primack for a raw and deeply personal conversation about how animal advocates sustain themselves emotionally in a world that can feel overwhelmingly bleak. From the ground-level account of the Ridglan Farms beagle rescue to the growing momentum around Marshall BioResources in upstate New York, the episode weaves together urgent activism news with a candid discussion of despair, “respair,” and what it actually takes to keep going.
- Ridglan Farms & Marshall BioResources – Gretchen shares a firsthand account of the Ridglan beagle rescue that freed 1,500 dogs, and the hosts discuss why Marshall BioResources—home to an estimated 20,000–23,000 animals near Rochester, NY—is a next major target, with a public vigil planned for May 28–30.
- Hope vs. “Respair” – The conversation challenges the idea that activists need hope to keep going, introducing the 16th-century term “respair”—the joy that can emerge from despair—as a more honest and sustainable framework for long-term advocacy.
- Three pillars for surviving – Gretchen outlines the personal strategies that keep her going: prioritizing deep relationships (with humans and animals), staying immersed in activism, and actively seizing joy—without requiring happiness.
- Culture, not ethics, is the real battleground – Drawing on a Washington Post piece, the trio argues that plant-based food and animal advocacy won’t go mainstream until they feel culturally cool and cross-political, pointing to the bipartisan appeal of the Ridglan rescue as a model.
- Poetry as activism – Gretchen highlights her book Kind and the new anthology The New Sentience: Reimagining Animal Poetry, making the case that art and literature are powerful, underutilized tools for shifting how people relate to animals.
RESOURCES
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INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Jasmin Singer: Welcome to The Hen Report. This is Jasmin Singer,
Mariann Sullivan: This is Mariann Sullivan
and, a-and this, if you're watching, is Eugene, my cat.
Jasmin Singer: Hey Eugene, do you remember me? I'm that chick you danced with two times through the Rufus album Friday night at that party
Mariann Sullivan: that party. All right, we digress.
Jasmin Singer: Um, and we're, and we have another lovely human here that we will be, uh, chatting with in just a, a moment.
So excited that our wingman this week is poet and activist and friend, Gretchen Primack, who was, uh, who... We, we got together the other day, and we, she and I wound up talking about hope and the lack thereof. And, uh, so we thought that we might broadcast that conversation for everyone because I always, always find Gretchen to be incredibly insightful and word things in a way that I have not worded to myself, and it's, it always winds up being really clarifying.
So, uh, Gretchen is also the author of Kind, which is a poetry collection that will resonate with every animal activist, even if, like Mariann, they don't generally get poetry. So welcome back to Our Hen House and to The Hen Report, Gretchen.
Gretchen Primack: Yay. Happy to be here.
Jasmin Singer: Thank you for taking my, uh, demand seriously that you wear your Shut Down All Slaughterhouses T-shirt. It's great
Gretchen Primack: I mean,
Jasmin Singer: for those of
Gretchen Primack: I'm up for it.
Jasmin Singer: you watching. It.
Gretchen Primack: I'm up for it.
Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Um, I yeah. For those of you on YouTube...
Mariann Sullivan: I love that T-shirt.
I think that's a really good T-shirt. That is something that when people... 'Cause people are such idiots that when they see that, they think that they're in favor of that as they're eating their hamburger.
Gretchen Primack: Also, it's hard to get-- It's like, "How dare you say we should shut down slaughterhouses? I love slaughterhou-" You know?
It's like yeah.
Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, and it's also preserving the word because they like to call them plants, which I think is very ironic.
the Processing plants.
Jasmin Singer: Plants.
Uh, just a quick reminder to those of you in the ether right now that the Our Hen House podcasts go up several times a week. Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays, The Hen Report, which is this, on Thursdays, and the long form interview on Fridays. Bonus content for flock members comes out on Mondays.
We're on YouTube, we're on any podcatcher that you like to listen to. So subscribe, hit like, comment wherever you listen. All right, Gretchen, so before we get to chatting about, uh, the never-ending conversation that I seem to have in my head about hopelessness, I know that you were at Ridglin recently, and, uh, I think, I honestly think we should start with the, since we're on the subject of T-shirts, with you showing your new T-shirt that just arrived.
Gretchen Primack: Um, this is the T-shirt that I would've worn if I had not been instructed otherwise, but happy to just show it and, um... Actually, it's hard for me to see whether you can see this. So for folks in radio land, this says, "I got tear gassed at Ridglan Farms and all I got is freedom for 1,500 beagles."
And then on the back, it's just got the "Rescue them all @savethedogs.io," which for everybody, whether you're watching or listening, savethedogs.io is, uh, where you can go to see what's up with the next thing.
Jasmin Singer: We'll talk about the next thing in just a second, but I know that it was like a very... like it was like an emotional rollercoaster to go there and feel at the very beginning that you hadn't succeeded. Is that, is that right? Is that how you felt at the beginning of, of the process?
Gretchen Primack: Absolutely. Because it was chaos and we were not able to do what we had set out to do, which is get inside the facility and remove dogs. That was impossible. They were incredibly prepared for us, and they had arrested the entire leadership as well as the first, uh, group of folks to enter, which was the breaching group.
In other words, the, the folks who were supposed to open the facility for us. So we had a closed facility, tons of cops. The tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets started quite early, and we could hear the dogs the whole time. So we were right there. We could hear the dogs. We knew they were there. We knew they were suffering.
We knew that between us and the dogs was a line of people who were either sociopaths or, you know, order followers of the most dangerous kind.
Uh, and it was extremely frustrating, and that's... You know, we ended up leaving with that frustration in our hearts, not knowing that, of course, what we had done that day directly led to 1,500 of them leaving.
I wanna say that there's still 500 in there, and context is everything. If you knew that there were 500 dogs in a facility suffering, you'd freak out, right? We, because 1,500 got out, we are celebrating a victory. None of us are forgetting that there's a critical mass still in there, and of course, that there are not only animal testing facilities that are gross and still open, but of course, this community knows that those of us who care about non-dogs as well you know, have our work cut out for us.
Jasmin Singer: Right. Well, and I, I, I want to talk about the, the next action, but do you think that people are going to be able to, you know, the general public is going to be able to make that connection a little bit better between the dogs and the non-dogs that we're talking about here? Like, is this a good-- is this a strategic way of getting people to awaken to why we need to shut down all slaughterhouses?
Gretchen Primack: It's strategic in a few ways. One way is that anybody who was involved in the action, even if they only came because they care about dogs and they would eat a hamburger, you know, in general, theoretically after a rescue like this, because of the context there, we're, we're forced to think about that. The leadership was vegan.
They were talking about all animals when they were making public remarks. There were vegans in every one of the small groups, so those conversations were happening. I know for a fact that some of the people who were not vegan who were in our group, I mean, one of them is now part of the 10 Weeks to Vegan group that I help moderate on Facebook and, you know, sends me like pictures of the food she's making now.
Like people are-- It is helping the people who are involved in these rescues. Another way it's strategic is that some of these facilities, um, have pigs, have farmed animals. So if the next action, which it presumably is, is taking place at one of those places, people are gonna have to say, "Oh, this one has dogs and pigs. I just wanna get the dogs out. The pigs I'm fine with being experimented upon."
It really forces that conversation,
Jasmin Singer: Yeah.
Gretchen Primack: Uh, and I think any time this stuff is in the, in the conversation, these elements make it into the conversation, the elements of, well, what makes suffering okay or not okay? What species are worthy of our care?
I think it puts it in the air. So...
Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. I, I, I think it-- I mean, uh, those are really good points whi- which I hadn't really thought of regarding the individuals, um, who are really involved in this. But I think the big meta conversation is, I mean, it's always one of our great hopes that for most, well, not, maybe not most, but for a great many people, this started with a dog or a companion animal, started thinking about animals in general and got broader, and that's what we're hoping will ha- I think that's always been one of the hopes about, uh, about focusing this huge, um, amount of effort on, on a dog facility, uh, that it, that it will be crossover.
I s- I think it will.
Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm. Well, I hope so, especially because, and, you know, we have certainly mentioned this the podcast before, but about 45 minutes outside of Rochester, where Mariann and I live, is Marshall BioResources. and you mentioned, you know, there's 500 dogs still at Ridglan, 1,500 were rescued. There are, uh, 20,000 animals at, at Marshall BioResources in the same, you know, very similar situation and, and that is now becoming the target, uh, a- of, of activists' efforts.
Mariann Sullivan: And it has been...we should say that it has been for a while, but on a smaller level. It's now become a big focus of, of larger, uh, organizations.
Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.
Mariann Sullivan: There have been people trying to work on this from this area for a long time.
Jasmin Singer: Yeah, uh, of course. And there's going to be a vigil on May 28th to the 30th, and we will link to where people can find out more information about that. But I'm looking at the website beagleloversandrescuers.org,
Where you could find out if you wanna be part of this, this vigil. I'm sure it's just the first step in, in many.
And this, this, uh, sort of press release that I'm looking at actually says there's 23,000 beagles housed inside these sheds and, uh, it's, you know... I it- it's almost unfathomable to me. I was talking to Moore about that
Mariann Sullivan: Wait, there are 23,000 beagles? I thought there were 20,000 animals altogether.
Jasmin Singer: I know. I'm getting...
Mariann Sullivan: that,
Jasmin Singer: I- there has been confusion about that, I'm- I just read to you what I'm looking at on beagleloversandrescuers.org. Um, another way of putting it is that there's a fuck ton of animals who are being...
Gretchen Primack: Fair. Fair and accurate. Yeah.
Mariann Sullivan: If there was one, matter.
Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, it's, it's an unfathomable number, especially... I mean ob- obviously it is fathomable because we're farmed animal advocates and we, we, we work with much bigger numbers than that. But it's unfathomable in the sense that, I mean, the, the rescues here in Rochester, the shelter system and everywhere, not just Rochester, are just, you know, wrung dry.
And just to like, where are we gonna put them? But like, we'll, we'll figure it out. We'll get them out and w- like, they could, they could all come to my house if they want. I'm
Gretchen Primack: Yeah,
Jasmin Singer: okay with that.
Gretchen Primack: Moore is thrilled about the prospect of 23,000. Yeah.
Jasmin Singer: " We, we already have four. What's 20,000 more?" Um, do you...
Are, uh, have, has...
Mariann Sullivan: I, I just wanna add too, this is not planned, though nobody ever knows what will happen, there's no guarantees on it. This is not planned as an illegal activity the
Jasmin Singer: Yeah.
Mariann Sullivan: I shouldn't say illegal. As an arguably illegal activity that some would consider illegal, and even though they're... I think they're, it's... think what happened at Ridglan was legal because there was a valid defense. This is not planned even to skirt with, um, legality. It is, uh, meant as a vigil on public property.
I, I just wanna add that.
Jasmin Singer: What are your thoughts on it, Gretch?
Gretchen Primack: Marshall or the vigil or Marshall?
Jasmin Singer: Like the, the strategy of that being the next target, the, um, the situation going on there.
Gretchen Primack: Well, I, I, I think strike while the iron's hot. The cultural conversation is very much in our favor and very, uh, active right now, and that momentum has got to be built on. So this makes a lot of sense to me. Um, also, if we're at a sort of tipping point, this is half of the animals used for testing in like...
Well, okay, not because... it's half of the dogs used for testing in the country. So to, you know, to, to, to master this facility is to pretty much shut the industry down.
So I think it's ambitious, but so was Rid- Ridglan and it's worthy of, uh, you know, for people to funnel the momentum into. Also, it's in New York State.
There's a lot of activists in New York. It's kind of head-turning that this would happen in New York. I mean, it's easier to be like, "There's 2,000 dogs in Wisconsin, you know, where nobody sees them." You know, that's one thing. But this is New York State, like what's up with that, you know? So, uh, yeah, I like it.
And, you know, you know, my bright idea is a march that starts in Albany with a rally at the Capitol and marches all the way to Marshall, which would take, you...
Mariann Sullivan: That's a long way.
Gretchen Primack: Yeah. It would take like over a week and, you know, you just have
Jasmin Singer: not-- She--
Gretchen Primack: I'm not, you
Jasmin Singer: would
Gretchen Primack: not
Jasmin Singer: like different...
Gretchen Primack: thinking small.
Jasmin Singer: But also Gretchen's not saying you would walk the whole way, that it-- you would just go in for like a few hours wherever you are kind of thing.
Mariann Sullivan: the whole
Gretchen Primack: Yeah. I mean, I'm walking the whole way, but,
Mariann Sullivan: I'm
Gretchen Primack: But yeah. So you have
Mariann Sullivan: in. Oh, it's kind of... You know, that reminds me of the, the monks, the
Gretchen Primack: exactly.
Mariann Sullivan: Um, the monks walk for peace, which garnered amounts of
Gretchen Primack: Exactly
Mariann Sullivan: related to animals, but it turned out that, uh, you know, they had very good attitudes about animals.
They also focused on their dog. Like, it really reminds me of that, and I think that's very powerful. I'm
in
Gretchen Primack: Yeah.
I
Jasmin Singer: Me
Gretchen Primack: think that there would be, you know, more and more, as what happened with the monks, like just more and more publicity around it as it moves. And then you'd have, you know, politicians doing a, a leg of, of walking, no pun intended. You'd have celebrities doing some. You'd have grandmothers walking their rescued beagles.
You know, they would be just like photo op after photo op. But
Jasmin Singer: Yeah.
Gretchen Primack: Anyway, this is my little pie in the sky idea. Anybody who's listening who wants to,
Mariann Sullivan: I'm in.
Gretchen Primack: know, help or strategize or, or tell the powers that be to consider it, I'm... Yeah.
Mariann Sullivan: Just one more factor I, I wanted to mention. Peop- a lot of people are probably aware of this, but we recently had Rose Paterson on, who, um, from... Oh, I can't remember the name of the... Animal Rising. Animal Rising in the UK. And their big focus is, um, what's known as MBR in the UK, but it's the same
Gretchen Primack: Yep.
Mariann Sullivan: Marshall
Gretchen Primack: Yep.
Mariann Sullivan: So this is actually an international focus.
Jasmin Singer: Hmm.
Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, okay. So we'll, we'll keep, we'll keep everyone posted about it as we find out more info. Uh, and, and thank you. Thank you for those of you listening who care and who are making the connection between the dogs and other animals as well. All right. I wanna switch gears because, uh, so Gretch, I saw you the other day.
Um, I went down to Woodstock and we were able to hang out at the amazing Garden Cafe, which I have to say, I haven't been there in more than 10 years and, uh, this time it was just like, I can't stop thinking about it. Like the food, the backyard, the dog friendliness, not of, not only of the Garden Cafe, but of like every single business in town. and just having such a wonderful time with you and with Erica who was also hanging out with us.
Gretchen Primack: Mm.
Jasmin Singer: It was just lovely. You get to go to Garden Cafe a lot,
so I'm
Gretchen Primack: It's my Cheers bar. Like it's, it's... Yeah. That is where everybody knows my name. it's amazing and I go all the time. Yeah.
Mariann Sullivan: Like, there aren't that many places that we have anymore that have been there forever. I mean, it's, it's really an institution. It has been a vegetarian or vegan restaurant for a very long time.
Gretchen Primack: It opened as a vegan restaurant at least 20 years ago, and Leah, the current owner, has had it for 11 and has just, you know... Yeah. It's flourishing and it's lovely.
Jasmin Singer: The funny thing is, uh, just such a little tiny Gretchen story, is that like after we ate and we were, you know, getting a little coffee or something, Gretchen wanted a cappuccino but only if this one particular barista made it.
Mariann Sullivan: Oh, yeah. That's so Gretchen
Jasmin Singer: And so she like orders it and then it's like sh- I don't know if she's gonna be...
And then she's like, "I'll be right back." And she goes inside, pretends to like go to the bathroom to like go find if the barista that she wanted was gonna make it. It was so-- it was such a classic Gretchen.
Mariann Sullivan: who are unaware, it's not because she loved the barista. I'm assuming hearing this line. It's because Gretchen is the fussiest eater on the face of the planet.
Gretchen Primack: I'm fussy. I'm fussy. Leigh makes the most incredible, you know, uh, oat cappuccinos, and nobody else can do it the way she does it, so... And she knows. She knows. She knows. Yeah.
Jasmin Singer: Yeah.
me too. Okay. Well, one of the things we wound up chatting about, um, was hopelessness as, as I alluded to before, as we do.
And you know, it's something that I think about constantly and, you know, I think about it constantly in a variety of different ways. Like I think about it as it relates to, uh, you know, an existential crisis.
I think of it as it relates to a, you know, frankly a midlife crisis. I think of it as it relates to activism constantly and where the meaning of animal activism falls within hopelessness. Like I, I, I, we don't have a planned discussion, listeners and viewers. Uh, I just wanted to broach the subject because whenever I bring it up to someone, they're also thinking about it constantly. And I think it has a lot to do with this shit world that we're living in right now. And, and Gretchen, what fascinates me about you is that like you are the, like one of the most active activists I know and, and just like relentlessly passionate and relentlessly fighting the good fight, whether it's like, um, pro-abortion or it's animal activism, or it's insert the blank, but I would say those are the two big ones. And, and, and yet, and yet you know what a shit world we live in, and I don't totally understand how you balance those two things. Like, so that's what I wanna discuss with you, and I don't totally know where to jump in, but what, like, what comes to mind immediately for you when I bring up this subject?
Gretchen Primack: Well, first that I'm grateful to be having the conversation. You know, I, I'm a big fan of you guys, um, both personally and podcast-wise, but I know that this is a question you ask your guests, and I'm always riveted when that question comes up because I also think about this a lot. But I like that this conversation is one of many that you have and that all of our responses together, you know, could potentially make a, a fairly cohesive or interesting way to think about all of this.
Um, I guess in a way it's kind of simple. What I have discovered over the years is that when I'm doing activism I can live in this horrible world, and when I'm not doing it, I have more trouble. So I've, I've spent a lot of time thinking... I, I think, you know, I've, I've been a depressed person my whole life.
I don't-- I've never been a happy person. So I think I've been asking the question: how can I live here? Here being planet Earth in our time. How can I live here? And then figuring out the answer to that question, and I've come up with some answers because I'm, you know, I'm 55. Like, I've been thinking about it since I was probably, I don't know, 10.
You know? So for 45 years, I've been like: how can I live here? And, and it is that, it is that simple in a way. It is that stark. It's like, okay, because I've determined that I will live here. I will live out my life, right? It's like I could drop off a bridge, but I don't want to because I have a lot of ties to humans and animals, and because I think there's work I can do.
So if I'm not, if I'm taking that off the table, all right, to be very frank and dark and whatever, but that's, that's who you invited on. Uh,
Jasmin Singer: No, that's why I wanted
Gretchen Primack: yeah.
Jasmin Singer: Go ahead.
Gretchen Primack: If I'm gonna take that off the table, then I need to make it work. I need to make living work, and here's how I make it work. I make it work through strong relationships with friends.
I prioritize friendship. That is one of my jobs in the world is to be a good friend and have strong friendships. It's not, you know, the thing that happens, you know, once every half hour in the movie, right? And when you have a conversation with somebody, that's not how I roll. So friendship is important to me.
I'm, I get to live with a beloved who is, you know, so phenomenal, and I get to live with animals who are so phenomenal. So I, I prioritize relationship, and I prioritize activism. I'll get back to that in a sec, and I prioritize seizing joy in the midst. So it's important to me that I indulge and that I have fun and that I, uh, can, can be passionate about art and, um, that I can feel like I'm worthy on the planet.
I'm not an, I'm, I'm not, you know, ascetic about things. I'm not dour even in the face of this, and that's important to me. So I would say that those are the three underpinnings that, you know, make me able to live through a relatively hopeless society, and I think everybody has to decide for themselves, like, what can make this okay?
And you just-- and, and it's so, like, I mean, I can talk about this as if this is an intellectual discussion. What it's come out of is living all those years thinking about it and saying what feels okay. What makes it feel okay? And these are the things that I've come to realize make it feel okay. You
Jasmin Singer: So I just, uh, You just said what the three things were, but just to summarize, those three, those three things are?
Gretchen Primack: With humans and animals, activism, and seizing joy, and feeling that I'm wor- worthy of, of joy.
Jasmin Singer: And, and to be clear, seizing joy and having joyful moments is not the same as being a joyful person.
Gretchen Primack: No. Or being a happy person. No. No. No.
Jasmin Singer: I think that's important. You know, I've been on a per- like, on a personal level, I've been struggling with anhedonia recently.
Gretchen Primack: Mm-hmm.
Jasmin Singer: I'm laughing because it's, like, such a pretty word, anhedonia.
Mariann Sullivan: I know Anne. She-- I think she's lovely
Jasmin Singer: Like, uh, you know, Moore brought up to me, it's like the root is hedonist, right?
So if you think about hedonist and then an, the opposite. Um, and it's funny because anhedonia is different than depression. It's like, uh, kind of a different... It's about dopamine as opposed to serotonin. And so to me, my way of describing anhedonia is, uh, uh, and this is how it is for me, it's more like an inability to, uh, find anticipatory joy or anticipatory desire, but once you're there, you can have it still.
So I still have a lot of it. And be- and I think in some way, being aware of this has been a little bit of a gift, because it has really given me the opportunity to notice without a shadow of a doubt when I am having a joyful moment, or when I am having like, you know, a very satisfied moment and, and I appreciate it.
Like, I, I have a lot of gratitude for it. Um, and when you put it in the context of activism, you know, sometimes Mariann and I interview people, uh, and by sometimes I mean frequently, almost always, that I say, "How the hell are we still having this discussion?" Like, how are, how are we still having this damn fu- like as, as granular as you can imagine about, like, anti-foie gras stuff, like which a c- a campaign I led 20 years ago, the
same discussions. And yet, if you look at it a little bit differently, there are so many ways that it, you can notice it is shifting. And I'm not an optimistic person, but even I, I went into CVS the other day to pick something up, and I went into the shampoo and conditioner aisle, and I usually just order my shampoo and conditioner online, so I hadn't been there in so long, and I I I felt like I was in a portal into another planet. Everything said vegan and cruelty-free. Like,
Garnier, you know? Like, everything was vegan and cruelty-free, and it just, you take a moment to recognize that that's going on, and then you take a moment to see how the... Like Debbie Gibson, my childhood, like, rock star just got one of the Ridglan dogs.
Like there are, there are cultural changes happening, and it would be foolish and irresponsible for us to be ignoring that fact, even in the midst of these conversations, like the anti-foie gras conversation, that, that just feels like it never moves forward. I'm rambling a little bit, so somebody help me.
Just like, do you know what I'm saying? It's like, um, I don't know. Mariann, you've-- Mariann, you've been-- I don't know. if you've been doing it longer than Gretchen, sh- um, but
Gretchen Primack: Oh, Yeah.
Jasmin Singer: time, maybe '90s.
Mariann Sullivan: I don't know. Yeah, '90s.
Jasmin Singer: But like where do you stand on this?
Mariann Sullivan: I mean, despair is a part of our lives. I mean, to... Like, it would be crazy to deny that. Despair st- sneaks in, of course, when you see people, like, fighting hard on foie gras. we can't even win foie gras. But
Gretchen Primack: outrageous.
Mariann Sullivan: Are, like... I mean, all right, so it, it turns out that, that legislative changes have become impossible. One of the reasons for that, and certainly not the only, is that we've lost, you know, we're losing our democracy. That's in the context of a whole political situation that animals, you know, have an interesting role in. But there, there are cultural changes. I mean, I think that we have to believe that because there are signs that it's true. And, uh, I mean, that's always the thing that, that I've hold, held onto. But I kind of... know, to give me hope when I feel like I need hope. There are things that you can hold onto, but I kind of want, just wanna go back to what Gretchen said. I don't, I don't think trying to find hope is necessarily the goal. Like, it's too hard. It's too inconsistent. It's trying to function in a way that you're not relying on hope. And I, I just think all of the things you mentioned, I mean not to be a cliche or anything, but all of the things you mentioned are so embedded in, with animals and the role animals have in your life.
I mean, obviously your relationships. I mean, my relationships with my animals are incredibly important to me. Um, what was the second thing? Um, activism. I mean, That's totally about animals. I mean, it's, it's seeing what's happening to animals and devoting your life to that, period. Your life has a purpose.
Whether that purpose will succeed or not is not within your control.
Gretchen Primack: That's right.
Mariann Sullivan: you have that purpose is completely within your control. And The, third thing, what was the third thing?
Gretchen Primack: The, the third thing was se-
Mariann Sullivan: not-
Gretchen Primack: seizing joy, which if it's...
Mariann Sullivan: that I haven't mentioned, m- memorized all the things you said, I just forgot them as well. Seizing joy. I mean, where do you get the most joy from? Like animals. I mean, that's where I get the most joy from. Of course, you're married to Gus, so he's like a pretty good guy and, and you get a lot of joy from hanging around with him. But I hang around with animals all day and they are-- they, like, they constantly give me joy, and watching the birds outside and, and all of it.
So all of those things that you mentioned keep you going, for me, are very related to how I feel about animals and, and very related to feeling like maybe I don't have to have hope, you know? Uh, h- who knows what's gonna happen? I mean, God knows. We never would've imagined we would end up where we are right now in the world. It's probably a good thing or we all would've rethought the suicide question. But no. We're here and we gotta do our best.
Gretchen Primack: Yeah, I mean, it, it is, it's a, it's a matter of a bit of a perspective shift because if, if the question is: are we hopeful-- are, are things okay for animals? Are we hopeful that things will get okay for animals soon? If that's the discussion, then we live in hell, you know? We all know we live in hell.
And by the way, I should put number four, antidepressants, on my list, like please, okay?
Jasmin Singer: I'm on those.
Gretchen Primack: Yeah. So, but if that's the discussion, like the more we linger there, the more we're gonna like start walking towards the bridge, right? But if-- the, the things that I mentioned are the things that keep me from lingering there.
If I'm absorbed in activism, I am not lingering there. I'm not spending all my time thinking about how fucked everything is. I'm just not-- I don't have time, you know? If I'm like on a vegan riverboat cruise surrounded by vegans eating vegan food and looking out over, you know, the Rhine, I'm not thinking about that, and I deserve to have a minute where I'm not thinking about that.
So that's if I'm in a, an excellent conversation with somebody or if I'm helping somebody get through a breakup or if I'm, you know, just communing with a person or animal that I love, I'm not lingering there. And I think we need to live our lives in a way where we're not lingering in that place.
It doesn't help us. It doesn't serve us. It doesn't serve animals. If we are motivated without that to do the work, then I don't see the need to linger there. I see the, the need to do the work that moves things forward without that kind of lingering. And there's a way in which it's, you know, solipsistic for us to do it because when we're doing it, we're not in the work.
Jasmin Singer: I, you know, I used to ask people on the podcast, "What gives you hope?" And I'm almost embarrassed that I did, because at some point, like a year or two into asking them that, I realized I was making a lot of, uh, uh, I, I had a, a lot of, um, you know, assumptions that they had hope. And, uh, and so I kind of changed the line of questioning at that point.
Mariann Sullivan: I'm not sure that pe- most people would say that they don't have hope.
Jasmin Singer: I don't know. I, I don't, know if I would appreciate it.
Mariann Sullivan: don't focus on that
Gretchen Primack: Yeah, I don't think it's an unfair question at all. I've heard you say that question and I've never been like, "Why is she..." At, at, at all. I think if someone,
Mariann Sullivan: feel very free to,
Gretchen Primack: just say, "I don't." "
Mariann Sullivan: I don't think about
Gretchen Primack: Yeah.
Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.
Gretchen Primack: Yeah. They can answer however they want. I, I don't think it's unfair. And I think that at a certain level we do all have hope, even if it's that, you know, even if it's very incremental in certain ways, and we're interested in how the change gets made.
I, we-- I just read, there was an article in "The Washington Post", which I recommend to everybody. It's got a bit of a provocative title because those stupid Bezos articles do.
Um, but, you know, it's like the thing that plant-based food is not getting right or, you know, something like that where I was like...
Mariann Sullivan: The missing ingredient in plant-based food isn't taste or nutrition.
Gretchen Primack: I'm like ready to-- I'm like, "Them's fighting words, buddy. I will fuck you up." Like, let's do this, right? But then no, he was making an excellent point, which is that we must change the culture. You could have all the imper-- uh, Impossible Burgers coming off the line in the world. If critical masses of people do not feel that it is in their culture to eat vegan food and to think vegan thoughts and to care about animals, they won't.
That's who human beings are. We are still in the seventh grade doing what other people are doing or feeling like shit. That is like where we are as a species, it appears. We represent people who are not quite that way. We represent the people who even in seventh grade were like, "Really? I don't know." You know?
But most people are not there, and we have to recognize that and understand that and almost respect it enough to understand that we need to change the culture.
Mariann Sullivan: I'm sorry, I'm not respecting it.
That's beyond me. But I'm willing
Gretchen Primack: Yeah. I hear you.
Mariann Sullivan: to acknowledge that it's true. And I just want to make clear too that this article makes clear, I think, um, and we all know, ta-taste or nutrition are necessary. They, they're not, they're just not sufficient.
Gretchen Primack: Right.
Mariann Sullivan: We have to have taste, we have to have nutrition, but we
can't think that's enough.
Gretchen Primack: At all. At all.
Mariann Sullivan: it's talking a lot about culture war and not... You know, I'm, I admit I haven't read as carefully as I should have. But one thing that occurred to me is that it was talking, you know, about, making it more attractive to people in various ways, like, you know, athletes and whatever. But another piece that I think is crucially important in the cultural question is the whole, um, plant-based default movement that gets, kinda gets people...
'Cause pe-people will pr- kinda just eat what's in front of them, and then they eat the plant-based, um, pro-product, and this has been proven over and over again. That's part of the culture too, just getting people to eat it and think, and start thinking, "Oh, this is one of the things that I eat."
Gretchen Primack: But it also, like I think the article, what it boils down to is it has to seem cool. The
Jasmin Singer: Exactly.
Gretchen Primack: The Ridglan dogs, they're cool. The Ridglan-- Adopting a Ridglan dog is cool.
Mariann Sullivan: Totally.
Jasmin Singer: Debbie Gibson has
Gretchen Primack: Yeah. Like it's...
Jasmin Singer: You don't get cooler than Debbie Gibson.
Gretchen Primack: Yeah, if people do not think that it's cool, they will not do it. I mean, I'm sorry because that's unbelievably stupid, but it's true.
Mariann Sullivan: That we're all part of this movement, because who's cooler?
Jasmin Singer: Well it's true, but like it is, it is a really-- it's actually a-- it, it's helpful for me to remember that culture is the real battleground because, you know, for so many people, and I'm asking you, I'm asking both of you and everyone listening to this right now to like just go with this for one second. Most people don't think of me-meat as food. They think of it as identity and tradition and masculinity and comfort and nostalgia and, and that is how it's been massively marketed for, for decades. And so plant-based needs basically an equally sticky story, and that's how culture changes. We have to stop assuming that ethics messaging is going to convert the mainstream because it's not.
Gretchen Primack: Right. That's-- I mean, I'm s- again, I'm super sorry. It was enough for us and it was enough for the people who are listening and watching, but it's not enough for most people, and that's sad. But if it's true, we need to work towards changing it, you know?
Mariann Sullivan: I, I'm just gonna mention one... I, we, we can't hang on here, keep hanging on here because I know you people have to go to work. But, um, the-- it just made me think of this article in VegNews, which I had planned to talk about today, but we don't really have time to talk about. Trump calls rising Texas Democrat weak, pathetic vegan for ordering a non-vegan taco.
The story, of course, about James Talarico, and I really do think that our country is in this whole... And of course, James Talarico is not vegan. I
Gretchen Primack: Unfortunately. It's the only thing that isn't great about James.
Mariann Sullivan: That as a... sorry?
Gretchen Primack: That's the only thing that's not great about that guy. He's cool.
Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, absolutely. Um, Well, not to be political, but, um, but Trump obviously sees that as a terrible insult and, a-and, and that's the question: Can we make being, uh, vegan not a terrible insult, a cultural issue? And, you know, I think our country is in a debate about what's cool, what's powerful, what's, what's strong, what's, what's important about a lot of things.
And, you know, the r- like, good side of these messages have not been winning for a long time, and vegan is one of them.
Gretchen Primack: You
Jasmin Singer: I
Gretchen Primack: that-- Yeah.
Jasmin Singer: I do wonder-- Go
Gretchen Primack: Just that the, that Ridglan is also important here as a lesson because it, Ridglan was very big tent. They were proud of having people from every political and religious and e-ethnic, like
Mariann Sullivan: Totally.
Gretchen Primack: And good for them. That is how culture changes, right? If you're only changing the culture within one political mome- movement or one religious movement or one...
It's not changing culture. Ridglan dogs are cool no matter what your politics. If we can make vegan food and caring about animals cool no matter your politics, that's everything. Now, Trump is obviously making that about politics, and in the past, the culture wars have included, you know, animals and politics and trying to say that lefties are, care about animals and such.
But if we can bust that, ooh.
Jasmin Singer: I wish that this whole, like, crisis that we're having as a society in late-stage capitalism could, kind of permeate the, the vegan space a little bit more and invite more people in. Like, I wish that was their antidote to the despair. That if, if Trump is saying something and, and pejorative about veganism, why isn't that alone making people vegan?
Gretchen Primack: Yeah, that's a good point.
Mariann Sullivan: Well,
Jasmin Singer: What were you gonna say, Mari?
Mariann Sullivan: I think that's an excellent point. I really do. Like, like we're, we're in a bunch of different culture wars right now, and we wanna get, as you point out, uh, Gretchen, we don't wanna get veganism just on one side of those
Gretchen Primack: No.
Mariann Sullivan: We want it to be the cul- the cultural ideal for all of these people.
Gretchen Primack: Eyes on the prize,
Mariann Sullivan: There's a, um, there's a, there's a Trump Republican, um, up, up in Western New York, and Marshall BioResources is not in his district.
I mentioned this on, on our interview, uh, this week as well. but he is all in, I mean all in about defending these beagles. And, you know?
We have the on- animals may be the only crossover issue, Uh, not just between Republicans and Democrats, but, but, but between our whole cultural disaster in this country, and that's our goal.
That's what we got-- we gotta make animals the thing that people see as cool. You're absolutely right.
Gretchen Primack: Before-- go
I do not wanna quit without, uh, I was just listening to an interview with the author Jesmyn Ward, and she brought up, uh, because it's in one of her new essays, a new term, respair. It's actually an old term. It's an, a ter-term from England in, you know, the 1500s or something.
Respair. Spelled like despair but with an R instead of a D, and it is the concept of finding joy from your despair. The moment where your despair has become joy. So it, it, you know, it could be that the first time that you feel okay after the death of a loved one, right? If it's a personal thing. I think in our terms it could be that you feel-- we feel the despair of animals so much, and when there is a movement forward, we feel respair.
We felt respair when the 1,500 beagles came out. We felt respair when, you know, Wayne won his, won his, uh, you know, suit. Um, it, it's like, you know, the, the piglets coming out. Um, somebody we know saying, "Yes, I'm finally ready to go vegan." Like, all of those moments are moments of respair, which I thought, "Oh my God, I'm about to talk to Jazz and Mariann about despair," and, you know, let's get this term in the books.
Jasmin Singer: Well, and, and speaking of books, uh, before, before you go, I wanted to ask you what books... I mean, you work at The Golden Notebook, which is a fantastic indie bookstore in Woodstock.
You are, of course, an author, a poet. Uh, what, what book, what book or books are, are exciting you?
Gretchen Primack: Well, I, I should say that the, the writing is part of activism, right? Like, for me, and I think everybody has... I like to say, like, we all have our angle for our activism. I'm a poet, so, uh, this, which is about to go in the mail to somebody, but, like, this is just animal poems. So it's, it's a, it's an exploration of, you know, our dynamic with animals through time and space.
One of my moments--
Jasmin Singer: Say what it is.
Mariann Sullivan: you're talking about
Gretchen Primack: Oh, right, right, right. Ah, sorry listener. I listen, so I don't know why I'm forgetting about the listeners. Um, it's just my book, "Kind," uh, which is a book of animal poems that's, like, a sneaky way to, um, inspire vegans or help other people, you know, go vegan.
Jasmin Singer: It's amazing. It's just phenomenal. It's like one of my faves.
Gretchen Primack: And it's just going into a new printing, so it's very exciting. But, um, but that, that helps me, right? Like, writing about that and putting, doing readings, having somebody, you know, write and say, "Oh my God, I'm thinking about animals in a different way," that is a form of activism. So whatever your thing is, it, it can become activism.
But, uh, I'm just reading something, but again, I'm totally biased. I'm reading, um, there's a new collection which has a bunch of my poems in it that's called "The New Sentience." So think of the word sentence, but then shiv-, you know, shove a blue I into the word sentence and you've got, you know
Mariann Sullivan: I, I think most of our listeners are pretty familiar.
Gretchen Primack: With the term and--
But, but just that idea that it's also the word sentence with an I in it.
I don't know if everybody... You see what I mean? Yeah, 'cause it's
Mariann Sullivan: cool. Yeah.
Gretchen Primack: It's about sentences that people write about animals.
Jasmin Singer: Cool.
Gretchen Primack: Called "The New Sentience: Reimagining Animal Poetry." The, um, the folks who edited it are vegan poets. The forward is by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, who is a vegan poet. And, um, it's just-- Now, you know, most of the people in here are not vegan, right?
Like there's, um, there's E.E. Cummings is in here, Mary Oliver's in here, Joy Harjo's in here. Like these are poets who are not vegan. But they're animal po- these are animal poems that are not about like your grandmother or that are not about exploiting the deer. Um, they are looking at animals as individual, worthy, respect, respect-worthy living beings in their own right who are sentient and deserving.
So I-- it's called "The New Sentience" and, um, bookshop.org or your local indie. Uh, it's it's pretty, it's pretty profound and fantastic.
Mariann Sullivan: I like to think that people like Mary Oliver would be vegan if they were, if they were alive and writing nowadays. I like to think that.
Gretchen Primack: Mean, she, you know, she died fairly recently. Like she had, it, it, she should've gotten the memo if she... And I, as far as I know, she wasn't, but yeah. Anyway,
Jasmin Singer: But who
Gretchen Primack: who knows?
Jasmin Singer: Uh, and Gretchen's website is gretchenprimack.com where I think you can also get to links to buy Kind and, uh, and just sort of follow Gretchen's work. Is that right? Is that like the best place to shout out for you?
Gretchen Primack: Oh, totally. Yeah, and I like to sign books, and people can put notes like, "Please sign to my friend Janine," or like, "Please sign to me," or whatever. I always send signed copies, and I'll inscribe it if people want.
Jasmin Singer: When, when I was in, uh say seventh, yeah, seventh grade. I, I was a big poet as a child. Everything rhymed.
Gretchen Primack: Ha!
Jasmin Singer: But my poems were long stories about people, and I wrote a poem called The Story of Janine, it's just funny that you just said Janine. And here's how it started: "My friend Janine has cuts up and down her face.
She really doesn't talk much. She's sort of out of place. Both her eyes have shiners. Her legs are banged and bruised. She says that she's just clumsy, but I think she's abused."
Gretchen Primack: My God. Wow.
Jasmin Singer: They sent me down to the guidance counselor. No, it goes on and on and on, but at the end she's okay. She goes to Alateen.
Gretchen Primack: Oh , okay. All right. Shout out for Allateen.
Mariann Sullivan: Wow.
Jasmin Singer: I was
Mariann Sullivan: a lot.
Jasmin Singer: a messed up child.
Mariann Sullivan: Jasmin was not, uh, physically abusechild, I just want to assure everybody.
Jasmin Singer: That was one of the cheerier poems, by the way.
Gretchen Primack: Come on.
Jasmin Singer: Yeah, no, for real. They were dark. They were real dark. I think that I had, like, a fascination with the dark. I, I read Sylvia Plath all the time, like, as a very young child. It was super weird.
Gretchen Primack: Very Edward Gorey.
Jasmin Singer: Yeah.
I mean, it wa- like, it was intense. Anyway, I digress. Um, Gretchen, as always, thank you. You're such a delight. I am so grateful that you're, like, a close friend in our lives and that you're just... I don't know. Like, I'm get- I'm getting verklempt. I just really adore you, and I'm really grateful that you brought this conversation to our listeners and our viewers, because I think it's, it's a gift, you know, to them to have access to your brain in this way.
So thank you.
Gretchen Primack: Oh my God. No, thank you. And, uh, I love you guys too.
Jasmin Singer: And thank you for those of you who are listening and watching. Don't forget to subscribe and like and comment on apple Podcasts or what have you, or on YouTube. If you're not in the flock and you'd like to join Gretchen as a flock member, go to ourhenhouse.org/support, and don't forget to catch our next episode of the Our Hen House interview coming tomorrow with Tim Woodward of Animal Rescue Corps.
Amazing interview, amazing guy. Talk to you next time.
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