Produced by the island at WBUR Boston.

Emory, what do you know about the ancient Greeks?

I'll say any given day working on endless thread can feel like tragedy and comedy.

Is that what we're talking about here?

I think you're talking about how I failed to activate my company credit card for expenses

which made you then fill out expense reports which for you is tragedy and to me is slight comedy?

No, it is rage. For me it is pure rage.

I'm sorry.

And I've consulted the Oracle and the Oracle says that if you don't get that damn card activated

you're going to have an untimely, tragic, truly brutal Greek death any day now.

And I will have deserved it.

But by the dolphin armies of Poseidon, I swear I'll get it done.

I swear.

But here's my real question. What can you tell me about tartarus?

Sounds like a dental disease or something.

I could like a really gross dental disease.

Fair and it might be.

But tartarus is this massive abyss in Greek mythology that is used as a prison

and a torture complex in the netherworld.

And it is also perhaps one of the weirdest references ever put into a letter to a newspaper

that was supposedly sent by a serial killer who claimed to be both a demon and a patron of the arts.

Specifically the jazz arts.

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