• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Pirsig Talks About Storms at Sea

February 14, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

Pirsig's second book, Lila, if you hadn't gathered, is about a boat trip, though it seems more a matter of drifting around than a purposeful excursion (though he stops off to do some business in New York, or rather not do some business, as he decides to not allow Hollywood to make a ZAMM movie because it will be inevitably dumbed down beyond recognition). Well, here he is talking about his boat, and a different trip he took to cross the Atlantic ("right where the Titanic was sunk," he notes). As a bonus, the introduction is by John Sutherland, the musician who travels with Pirsig during the early part of ZAMM.


Watch on YouTube.

Not much of philosophical interest here, though I like that Sutherland says that Pirsig should do some travel writing, and if he wants to throw some philosophy in there, he could do that... as if, from Sutherland's point of view, the philosophical part was just a bit of self-indulgence crammed into this travelogue. I can certainly picture a movie version (Pirsig describes talking with Robert Redford about adapting it; I could picture it as a new Clint Eastwood-directed thing) of ZAMM sort of like A Beautiful Mind, where the philosophy is brought in only so much as is necessary to define the protagonist's character, and the focus is on the landscapes and the emotional relationships between father and son and the other characters. Personally, I think such a movie would be a boon: it would certainly renew attention on the original book and get the ideas discussed further. ...Or maybe it would just be a bust.

-Mark Linsenmayer

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Things to Watch Tagged With: philosophy blog, Robert Pirsig

Comments

  1. Bruce Adam says

    February 14, 2012 at 11:49 am

    That was awesome…thanks.

    Reply
  2. David Buchanan says

    February 14, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    This clip will be of interest to any Pirsig fans just because you get to hear him talk, to see what he’s like. I happen to know that the video was recorded in Liverpool in July of 2005, when Dr. McWatt received his Ph.D. and hosted a kind of graduation party/amateur philosophy conference. (As mentioned on the podcast.) One can get a documentary about this event at McWatt’s website – robertpirsig.org. It’s titled “Arrive Without Traveling: Robert Pirsig in LIverpool”.

    I’m not sure how much of the amateur philosophy conference made it into the final cut – there have been several versions and it’s been several years since I watched it – but I delivered a “paper” in which I speculated about making a proper movie of Zen and the Art. It’s called “Fun with Blasphemy” and it’s published on McWatt’s website too. (I didn’t realize that blasphemy was still a punishable crime in England at the time.)

    My blasphemous speculation was way too long and these days I find it slightly embarrassing but it was also part of a fairly amazing coincidence. The main idea was to portray the artist/philosopher as hero, to paint the hero as a kind of rock star version of Orpheus, as opposed to the usual tough guy, action hero. As the offspring of Apollo and the Muse of epic poetry, Orpheus is the perfect fusion of classic intelligence and romantic soul. If this ancient Greek god were around today, I supposed, he’d be a rock star philosopher. (No, I’m not just making this up to flatter Mark.)

    I was completely rattled by stage fright and quite relieved when it was over but each talk was followed by a Q&A session and this time Pirsig had something to say. He explained that it was a viewing of Cocteau’s “Testament of Orpheus” (1960) that finally pushed him over the edge. He said he walked into that theater and identified with Orpheus so thoroughly that he never came out. He saw Chicago as the land of the dead, as the underworld, and in that “psychotic” state he believed it was his task bring that whole world back to life. None of this is mentioned in either book but the in passages leading up to his final breakdown as it’s portrayed in ZAMM, one can get a glimpse of the Chicago he was seeing through his Orpheus eyes, if you will. Naturally, we were all quite stunned at this revelation and the sheer luck of that coincidence still blows my mind a little. As you can imagine, that was a day I won’t forget.

    Reply
  3. dmf says

    February 14, 2012 at 8:43 pm

    pico iyer on travel and reading graham greene the “man in his head”
    http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/pico-iyer-conversation-paul-holdengr%C3%A4ber?nref=90281

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Seth Paskin on PEL Eulogies Nightcap Late March 2023
  • John Heath on PEL Eulogies Nightcap Late March 2023
  • Randy Strader on Ep. 309: Wittgenstein On Certainty (Part Two)
  • Wes Alwan on PEL Nightcap February 2023
  • Kunal on Why Don’t We Like Idealism?

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in