Holiday Special 2015: Mark Lint’s “Songs from the Partially Examined Life” with Many Guest Greetings

0:03 Mark: Welcome to the 2015 special partially examined Life holiday Show. This is Mark Linsenmayer talking to you from Madison, Wisconsin. I'll be your host this evening, and I'm here for this opening section with everyone's favorite Partially examined life podcaster, Mr. Wesley. Clarence Wesley Alwan.

0:22 Unknown speaker: Yes, I'm here.

0:26 Mark: Spread your holiday cheer.

0:28 Unknown speaker: That's right.

0:29 Mark: No, spread some.

0:31 Unknown speaker: That's all I got to spread.

0:32 Mark: Well, thanks for adding some energy to kick this thing off. So I know, Wes, you had a big deal at the beginning of this month when you presented on Ex Machina.

0:43 Unknown speaker: Yeah. Did a talk at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, and I enjoyed that and the audience seemed to enjoy it, so. Yeah.

0:52 Mark: And then we had our most recent thing talking to those religious guys. Are you now you've converted? You're convinced?

1:00 Unknown speaker: Yes, yes, I converted to Islam, actually.

1:03 Mark: So in the spirit of a philosophically respected holiday show, we're going to have a lot of musical numbers and actually none of them are going to be Christmas songs. And they're all going to be off of the songs from the Partially Examined Life CD by my alter ego, Mark Lint, which I just made you listen to, Wes. Right? Some of.

1:22 Unknown speaker: Yeah, I listened to Thing in the World.

1:25 Mark: So, yes, let's play that first. Do you recall the origin of this? This is when we did our Sartre Transcendence of the Ego episode.

1:33 Unknown speaker: Oh, it's a long time. So Thing in the World. Yeah, I forget the connection.

1:39 Mark: Well, the initial lines of it were actually quite old. They were like, from college. The am I amusing you? As I am musing over me, which kind of makes me cringe. But that was kind of the whole. It's all about the weird position of putting yourself as an artist or whatever. Like, why would anybody care about these little introspective things that I'm writing? And that sort of applies to philosophy and to the Partially examined part, you know, that sort of sick to your stomach over examination part of philosophy as a whole. So that was channeling that.

I had never made it into a whole song, but it kind of stuck with me, despite the fact that I wasn't sure if I liked it or not, but it stuck in my head. And then when we hit the Sartre episode, bam. The Thing in the World. So the main chorus and all that stuff spilled out that Sartre is all about. I mean, it's the existentialist thing. The question of why are you doing the self expression thing? Or why are you putting. This is. I don't know, I'm just out There I'm just a thing. I'm just doing the thing. That's just what you gotta do.

2:37 Unknown speaker: Well, then it kind of moves into this. It sounds like you're talking to the audience as if they were a prospective mate. Am I aiming much too high? Am I wrong about that?

2:48 Mark: Yeah, actually that was a bit that was left over from 1991. Or whenever the thing was originally written to.

2:55 Unknown speaker: Yes.

2:56 Mark: About the main function of a relationship for me when I was in college was to be able to express my thoughts to someone and make them listen.

3:06 Unknown speaker: Right. I see.

3:07 Mark: It's an extension of philosophy. The romantic. Is that not. You have your needs. That's one of the needs. And so you expect the person to fulfill.

3:17 Unknown speaker: To be heard and listened to.

3:18 Mark: Yes.

3:33 Unknown speaker: Am I amusing you as I am Musing over me? Am I a victor too? Well, what else could I be? Am I a bit too used? Are my expressions too obscure? I'll wait too long to simply wait it out for her I'm gonna speak my inner self or something if you don't mind it's ra surprising to be

who I am

I see I'm too unguarded to withstand a real attack

Am

I a bleeding fool to put a target on my back? I try to toughen up but my Persona's worn too thin I try to shake my pain but it's tattoo on my skin I'm gonna speak my inner self or somebody's if you don't mind it's rather surprising that this was my

plan

I'm just a thing in the world Just playing around Just a thing in the world Driving into the ground

and I'm open, I'm offered I'm here with no explanat Just a thing in

the world Loaded up with regret Just

a thing in the world and I try to forget that I've owned and

I bothered and caused my whole situation. Are you receiving me? Am I the enemy or what? Will you cherish me or will you kick me in the butt? Do I have a shot with you or am I aiming much too high or am I much too late? Now the crush of fate

I'm gonna

put myself all in on auction if you don't mind I'm not gonna lose more than you're gonna win I'm just a thing in the world Just a laying around Just a thing in the

world Driving into the ground and I'm open, I'm offered I'm here with no

explanation I'm in the world Just a taking up space Just a thing in

the world smashed all over the place

and I'm lonely and awful and feeling with no destination. I'm just a thing in the world so absorbed with myself Just a thing in the world I'm obsessed with my

health and I'm hopeful and want to

feel my whole situation I'm just a thing in the world Loaded up with regret Just a thing in the world

Then I try to forget that I'm a fake World alone. I'm just a thing in the world Just a thing in the world

Just

a thing in the world with no

explanation I'm just a thing in the

8:17 Mark: world

8:20 Unknown speaker: Just a thing in the world

Just a thing in the world.

9:04 Mark: Why I'm here with Josh Pelton, whom you may remember from our Russell and Mathematics episode long, long ago, episode 38.

9:13 Unknown speaker: How you doing, Mark?

9:14 Mark: I'm doing great. What have you been up to in the intervening years, philosophically?

9:19 Unknown speaker: Philosophically, I've been doing a little bit of philosophy for a YouTube show that I've started I've been doing for a little while now.

9:27 Mark: Why, that would be Thunk. Tell us about Thunk.

9:30 Unknown speaker: Thunk is a show that's basically about trying to introduce concepts that are interesting for conversation or intellectual fulfillment or whatever in a fashion that sort of covers the bases so that instead of just pontificating wildly about various topics, people have a little bit to grab ahold of and start talking.

9:50 Mark: Where can people find that?

9:52 Unknown speaker: YouTube.comThunksHow all right.

9:55 Mark: I recall you telling me that it was your appearance on our show that inspired you, that showed you that you are in fact worthy to be an Internet personality.

10:04 Unknown speaker: I think that it was more that my appearance on your show galvanized me that I really need to learn something and grab some primary sources and educate myself. And while I'm doing that, I might as well bring other people up to speed as well.

10:17 Mark: Well, I'm glad you provided a public forum for yourself because now your episode, I don't know if you knew, but it has been sucked behind the firewall. So only the preview is available for the common herd and they have to pay their $1.99 or their five dollar citizen fee to hear the whole thing.

10:35 Unknown speaker: Oh, goodness, I'm honored.

10:36 Mark: And given that it's about the foundations of mathematics, man, the cash rolls in for that episode.

10:42 Unknown speaker: Yeah, I can imagine. But I mean, economics demands that if there is a cost associated with it, that must mean that it's worth something, right?

10:50 Mark: Exactly. So Thunk. Worthless. All right, glad we've established that. What is the song you Chose from the album to discuss.

11:01 Unknown speaker: Oh, this song. I'm sorry, what was the name of the song? It's. It's not irrefutable. It's not. It's not disprovable.

11:10 Mark: It's falsifiable.

11:12 Unknown speaker: Falsifiable. Thank you.

11:14 Mark: Which appeared. It was written specifically for our Karl Popper episode about the falsifiability criterion of what makes something. A scientific theory like Freudianism is not because you show Freudian. Hey, this seems like it doesn't support your theory. And they say, yeah, it does. It's just. You have to look deeper. It does.

11:34 Unknown speaker: If your theory can't be proven wrong, then it's not a good theory.

11:38 Mark: So I just abused that idea that it's my love, no matter how irresponsible I am. And, of course, this is not about me.

11:46 Unknown speaker: Right.

11:47 Mark: Hopefully.

11:49 Unknown speaker: I recently did an episode on Popper and Kuhn and the whole falsifiability criterion, and I'm certain that you guys cover it in a lot more depth than I do in seven minutes of rambling with jokes.

12:01 Mark: Very nice. Did you have any other thoughts about the song?

12:04 Unknown speaker: The song is groovy. The reason that I picked it is because I was listening to the CD and all the songs have a little bit of, you know, I'm smirking along with most of them. I kind of know what you're referencing, but this one came on and it was the first time that my head started doing that involuntary bob motion. I was just like, yeah, this is some groovy stuff.

My love is not falsifiable. My love ain't clearly deniable. Whatever I've done, whatever I choose to do in the future My love is not falsifiable. My love ain't clearly deniable. Whatever I've done, whatever I choose to do in the future if I forget you, I forgot myself. I regret you, then I loathe myself. If I come home drunk, I was toasting your health. If I annoy you, it's unintentional. If I destroy you, it's unavoidable. If I lose my shit, I will get it back. I will locate my shit and obtain it, Obtain it. My love is not falsifiable. My love is here and it's iable.

Whatever I've done, I've done it all for you and me and others and no one. Whatever I've done, whatever I choose to do in the future if I neglect you, I'm just a little absorbed Protect you, you're just a little ignored, you know I love you because I have told you and to say is to do It's a performative I'm a fat old creep I'm your fat old creep I'mma bring home a sheep, leave it warm like a sheep. If my 14th mistress gives you a call just ignore her, ignore her, the one I adore and you know it. My love is not falsifiable My love ain't clearly deniable Whatever I've done, whatever I choose to do in the future

My love

not false if I don't love you, you can't prove it. I have deduced away your tears.

We'll go on like this for years.

Don't test me, Don't test me, Don't test me, don't test me, don't test me, don't test me, don't test me, don't test me, don't My love is not falsifiable My love ain't clearly deniable Whatever I've done, whatever I choose to do.

15:45 Mark: Hey, I'm here with Matt Teichman, veteran of recent and old episodes. Howdy. Our analytic philosophy guy. Whatcha up to this holiday season?

15:55 Unknown speaker: I'm hoping to do a little writing over the holiday season. I don't know how holidayish that is, but mostly playing a chillax. Do a little writing. My first post graduation writing, which is kind of cool.

16:03 Mark: Well, congrats.

16:05 Unknown speaker: Thank you.

16:05 Mark: Just got the Ph.D. and you are staying at UChicago indefinitely.

16:09 Unknown speaker: Yeah, I'm so. I'm lecturing full time in the humanities core here. Yeah, we will see. We will see what the future holds.

16:15 Mark: As always, after a PhD, there's still time to quit. You can still do it.

16:21 Unknown speaker: Oh, man.

Yeah.

16:22 Mark: Can you Send back your PhD in protest? I don't need your piece of paper. Show me I'm wise.

16:28 Unknown speaker: Yeah, yeah, that would be pretty awesome.

Pretty awesome.

16:31 Mark: Has anybody ever done that?

16:32 Unknown speaker: I don't know. I don't know. I got to tell you, it's tempting sometimes. It is tempting. How about you? What are you doing the holidays? Well, actually, I think I know the answer to that. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it.

16:41 Mark: What?

16:43 Unknown speaker: Starting a podcast network.

16:46 Mark: Perhaps that's something that. Yeah, I'm doing my own podcast and we're exploring other options. If folks out there have philosophy podcasts that they would like to somehow be under our umbrella or are thinking of starting one, maybe we can start you off. So, yeah, toss us a line.

17:03 Unknown speaker: What's your podcast gonna be, Mark?

17:04 Mark: Well, I'm doing a music one I'm gonna talk to songwriters. It's gonna be nakedly examined music.

17:09 Unknown speaker: Oh, fantastic. I see a little song exploder action going on.

17:13 Mark: Well, kind of what we're doing here right now, except more at length where we just play a whole song. Because I don't want clips. I want people to have the actual experience and then just talk about it. Talk about what motivated them, why they would do that, why would they would spend their time with that particular thing.

17:29 Unknown speaker: Yeah, well, you've been doing music for a long time, right?

17:31 Mark: I have since I think the first thing I wrote was 1987.

17:36 Unknown speaker: 87. Good year.

17:38 Mark: When I was in high school. And then inspired by the band Europe. How could one not be at the time, oh my God.

17:46 Unknown speaker: Or now.

Those drum fills. Those drum fills are sick.

17:52 Mark: It's more just that 80s symphonic sensibility that I enjoyed. I didn't like the people with long hair. I didn't identify with that. I dismissed a lot of people as druggie scum. Like I just had some social class issues at the time that divided me from a lot of rock, especially of the metal variety.

18:08 Unknown speaker: But what kind of hair did you identify with?

18:11 Mark: I just upper middle class, short haired, respectable white guys like myself. Very nice.

18:20 Unknown speaker: I'm trying to think who was rocking that at the time. I can't really think of anybody. They all had weird hair in the 80s.

Yes, yes.

18:25 Mark: You had to just not pay attention to appearances.

18:30 Unknown speaker: David Byrne, I guess. David Byrne had the short preppy hair, I guess.

Yes.

18:33 Mark: Well, yeah, the Cars and the Police and the Talking Heads. Yeah.

18:37 Unknown speaker: Police are a little bit. They're a little bit rock though, with the hair.

18:40 Mark: Which song did you pick out from the album for us to talk about briefly?

18:44 Unknown speaker: Well, I picked out Reason Enough, which is a delightful little ditty which actually reminds me a little bit of recent episode of my podcast Elucidations. Actually. We were talking about reasons and. Yeah, I couldn't help but wonder. I can never help but wonder, listening to your songs, whether you write that after like reading a philosophical paper or something. Because there's always these fun, like sort of, you know, philosophical themes, but then they sort of morph into these sort of like paradoxes as well. And I don't know, I think you just have this stuff on the brain all the time. That's my ultimate hypothesis, I guess.

19:11 Mark: Yeah. That particular song I actually wrote back in 2005, way before I started doing this, when I was well out of the philosophy game. Yeah, no, I had to finish it for an episode here and it could have been Done for any number of things. And it's basically. Even though it's got the word reason in it, and I was gonna maybe finish it for the Ayn Rand episod one of those kind of episodes, but it's an existentialist tune. It's a. Even if you feel like you're a waste of space, that's still not a reason to kill yourself.

19:55 Unknown speaker: But unlucky I stand a chance with this girl. No, it could not be I could not deserve this good life, this family. And I said if we should waste four walls well, there's reason enough well, it's reason enough to go on, huh? If we should waste our all Is it reason enough? Is it reason enough? Is it reason enough? It's enough now it's gone away Reason enough, it's enough now it's gone away Reason enough, it's enough now it's gone away yeah, I lost in some line that you could be standing yet standing so still I won't even try Watching my life slip to coals through the grill and I say if we should waste four walls well, it's reason enough Is it reason enough to go all along?

If we should waste all Is it reason enough? Is it reason enough? Is it reason enough? It's enough now it's gone away Isn't enough, it's enough now it's gone away Reason enough it's enough now it's gone away yeah just a little insecurity blowing harder Just my fatalism pissing me off this wall I see the future and it's really not sold out hearted but optimism is faking I can be a plague Please don't let me drive you no, not in a day could something so precious be frittered away? No, not my last hope Plenty more mornings to wake up the poop and I said if we should waste four walls Is it reason enough?

Is it reason enough to go on? If we should waste our all Is it reason enough? Is it reason enough? Yes, it's reason enough it's enough now it's gone away enough it's enough now it's gonna be reason enough it's enough now it's gonna be reason enough it's enough now it's gonna be. Reasoning.

22:57 Mark: Why Danny Lobell, star of stage and screen.

23:02 Unknown speaker: How's it going, Mark?

23:03 Mark: Good. How's your holiday season treating you in sunny California?

23:07 Unknown speaker: I mean, chestnuts. So that's not bad. Feels like the holidays.

23:11 Mark: I thought we'd take a second to reflect back on our year of We've Gotten to have a lot of association with you this year. I was very excited with the. With the after show thing.

23:20 Unknown speaker: Yeah, it's been really fun. I've had a great time with it, and I love the people that attend it. They're always really. They make it fun. The shows themselves are always great to discuss, and I enjoy listening to them. But then there's this added excitement when people tune into it. I'm very attracted to that. I love. I love people.

23:36 Mark: How is Modern Day Philosophers going?

23:37 Unknown speaker: Modern Day Philosophers has been good. Just put out a new episode for the first time in two months because I was touring, I was all over Europe, and. Not ideal situations for podcasting, but touring.

23:49 Mark: And then right after Married. Right, right.

23:52 Unknown speaker: So we called it Like a Honey Tour. It was half honeymoon, half tour. We went to eight countries and we'd switch off which ones were work and which ones were pleasure.

24:01 Mark: We have tentative, perhaps more than tentative, plans for another after show soon to get you back involved. So we'll alert the folks when that's gonna happen.

24:10 Unknown speaker: All right. I'm looking forward to it.

24:12 Mark: And the song that you were gonna. We were gonna talk about was the one that was for the episode you were on, but you probably didn't hear it at the time you were on the episode because it wasn't written yet.

24:20 Unknown speaker: Right. Well, I heard it now. Double Negative Theology. Great song. But I wanna also add that I just. I'm very blown away by your songs in general. You're so talented.

24:29 Mark: Oh, thank you. This one in particular, it sounds extra nice because I got this guy, Peter Kyle, or Keel K I E L. He's actually a guy in the Netherlands who I just looked up. I heard him playing on a John Anderson solo album where the lead singer of yes pitched to the wider Internet, said, you know, write me some instrumentals and I'll sing over them and I'll make an album out of it. So I knew he was just like a guy that would collaborate with people over the Internet. So I just contacted him and he put that beautiful lead guitar part. And then Ray Tango, my violin player in town here, came in and did that lead part here in my studio.

25:06 Unknown speaker: Yeah, it's beautiful. The whole thing really was beautiful. The violin always strikes me. I played violin when I was a kid. I had a Korean teacher, Mr. Moon. And I always thought my parents pulled me out because we moved to Long island. And they're like. And I used to be upset, like, maybe I could have been a great violinist. But all these years later, that whole myth was busted. Because I guess my parents never told me at the time, and then they forgot that they never told me. So they just casually leaked the fact that I was the only student that Mr. Moon dropped because he said I was a stubborn ox. Nothing could get through my skull because I'm a stubborn ox. But to his credit, Mr. Moon sends me a birthday card every year to this day from his school in Flushing, Queens.

25:54 Mark: Well, the song itself, you know, you'll have to go back and listen to the content of the Maimonides episode and negative theology. And I was just making a joke about it, and it's really not much more to it than that.

26:05 Unknown speaker: I love the not not one. There's a God, God is not not one.

26:09 Mark: And just the problem of evil, which, you know, everybody that is not religious that writes a song about God is all like, God, why do you let there be suffering? So this was just my contribution to that endless well of songs that people put out.

26:22 Unknown speaker: If there is a God, God is not not one. If there is a God, God is. But don't try to say what he is. Cause it does not not annoy him a bit. If there were a God, I would

not not be wrong.

Don't think there's a God

who would not not be strong

enough to fix this shit if he wanted to to make things fit this, this is not not that not new. If there is a God, God is not not through he puts down his fist but not with he pounds us

the not not good.

But don't wait and don't worry. Cause you're not gonna hear his voice calling you out for your worst mistakes which you can chalk up to your free choice. If there is a God, God is not good and you'll never know

if

you're not not understood and I hate to be so next.

27:56 Mark: It.

27:57 Unknown speaker: It's not not not do what I would.

If there is a God, There is a God. There is a God.

There.

28:44 Mark: Jonathan Segel. How you doing?

28:46 Unknown speaker: I'm doing well.

28:48 Mark: Did you come home for Christmas? Yes, we did.

28:50 Unknown speaker: We're here visiting my brother's family, and all of the Segel grandchildren are. Are having a blast here together. Not my grandchildren, my dad's grandchildren.

29:00 Mark: So, folks, remember Jonathan from our episode on Schopenhauer's musical stylings, which then led to the spinoff episode talking about music

29:09 Unknown speaker: and authorship and authenticity.

29:11 Mark: Yes. And it inspired me so that I'm actually looking to start another podcast.

29:17 Unknown speaker: Really?

29:18 Mark: Yes, That I will be on December 23rd. I am scheduled to actually interview David Lowery, your Bandmate.

29:25 Unknown speaker: Oh, that's great.

29:27 Mark: That's the only reason I haven't already asked you. I don't want to pile up the camper guys.

29:31 Unknown speaker: Right, sure. No, that's great though.

29:33 Mark: Well, tell us what you've been doing professionally for the past little while. What do you want to pump right here?

29:36 Unknown speaker: Well, I've been trying to shore up my Bandcamp stuff such that I instituted one of those subscription series things. And so the record that I'm working on right now, which I think now is actually going to be called Superfluity, as so inspired by the idea of all art being essentially the overflow from living or the superfluousness of above and beyond, everything that you actually need to be alive, that I started writing a lot about that sort of thing. And so I've been working on a very large sort of concept ish record about a lot of the issues that I've been thinking about this year. And as part of the subscription series on Bandcamp, I've been offloading the songs that aren't making it essentially into an extra sort of disc that the subscribers are getting to hear month by month before the real record with all the super hit smash hit songs comes out next year.

30:31 Mark: Well, yeah, this seems like one of the models for the future that is ideal for somebody like you that is just producing music on a continuous basis and I wouldn't mind hearing just when it comes out rather than having to wait around for the full album.

30:44 Unknown speaker: Exactly. I don't know. You know, it's like the whole Bandcamp collection, streaming stuff like that is. It's odd, and I'm not sure I'm quite with it or not, but it's an option now anyway.

30:56 Mark: So what is the URL? How can people find that you can do it?

31:00 Unknown speaker: From music.jsegle that's J-S E G E L dot com.

31:06 Mark: So what song did you choose from the album that this is really a long infomercial for?

31:10 Unknown speaker: I chose the Past is Not Real. It's one that I've listened to a couple of times before because I've always been obsessed with the idea of memory and how you reconstruct memories to understand them as you travel through time. So that you are essentially reconstructing the past as you experience it and carry it with you forward into the future.

31:31 Mark: Yes, this is one that was written very quickly. It was just sort of an imagined, perhaps nightmare scenario. Although I have this feeling sometimes I'll have a dream that maybe I hit somebody with my car and then I suppressed it maybe something really horrible did happen and I suppress it. How would I know? That's a nagging fear.

31:51 Unknown speaker: Yeah, I know. It's like far too many people trust their brains to tell them what's going on in the world, don't they?

The past is not the past is not the past is not not real. The best is not the best is not the best is not the real. I don't remember. I wasn't there.

It was nothing. I couldn't care.

The best is not the best is. The best is. Oh God. Just keep telling yourself the best. Best is not the best is not the best is not real. The best is not the best is not the best is not the way it makes you feel. We're all here now, just in the presence except. Oh God. What the hell happened? Accept these things, these facts. Take them as given, as persistent, done, but here with interest to someone who once thought of you as good. The best is not. The best is not. The best is not real. The best is not the best is not the best is not real. The best is not the best is not the best. The best is not the bestest.

Will it.

Will it not real?

I don't remember.

I've no idea. You cannot hate me.

I want a fear in a local

chapter of a fictional drawing of a year long Windsor building all the restraint.

The best is not the best is not the best is not.

It's not real.

Doing

the best is not the best. It's not the best.

It's not.

It's not really something to hold you. It's not really something at all. Not real.

Not real. Unless you let yourself feel, maybe start to feel. Try to heal.

At least be serene.

34:53 Mark: I guess that's why I've been sleeping for 16 hours for each of the last 15 days or so, thinking that maybe when I wake up in the morning next it'll be someone else for once. Which should happen according to the law of averages. I'm here with Mary Richie

35:30 Unknown speaker: who is

35:30 Mark: one of the behind the scenes people that listeners should know about because you've been doing the editing on our blog for a while now in addition to being a regular on the not school philosophical fiction group that people might have heard.

35:41 Unknown speaker: That's me.

35:42 Mark: So what's your area of philosophical interest?

35:45 Unknown speaker: You know, I just like big ideas and I like to have them parsed out for me. I found you guys when I was looking for secondary literature on Whitehead and couldn't find any that I could understand and I found your podcast and that's kind of all she wrote, really.

36:01 Mark: So it was the Whitehead episode this year that gained us something? The one from February.

36:06 Unknown speaker: Yes.

36:06 Mark: Awesome. Well, welcome to the Pel family. We've enjoyed having you clean up our grammatical mistakes.

36:14 Unknown speaker: Thanks. It's been a blast.

36:16 Mark: What is the song that you have chosen from?

36:18 Unknown speaker: I have chosen Stubus in the Sky.

36:22 Mark: Yes. So this is the song about my dog, who's actually named Stooby, but, you know, it was one of those. The stubinator. Stubus is the species, but he was a half chihuahua, half dachshund, and just got the morning that goes into when a pet passes away. Have you undergone that tragedy?

36:40 Unknown speaker: I have a number of times. But, yeah, kind of. The dog that I got by myself when I. My first dog when I was an adult, lived to be, like, 16, despite being a large dog. And, yeah, it's a slice of hell.

36:54 Mark: Yeah, that was. Stubby was 16 and a half. I mean, he was very small, so it's not as unusual. But he was on so many drugs and just kind of walked in circles and had various forms of dementia. So it was good that he finally let go of the mortal coil.

37:10 Unknown speaker: Yes. I made my vet tell me when she was little, you know, like, promised me when she was tiny that he wouldn't let me, you know, keep her on life support or something like that. Because I knew from the beginning that she was my little love, that I would love her forever. So, yeah, that was rough.

37:28 Mark: And did you throw yourself on the funeral pyre?

37:32 Unknown speaker: You know, I took a week off work and kind of shut myself up in the house. It was not an easy process. It's hard to say goodbye to dogs. There is no other creature in the universe that will ever love you like a dog does, most notably humans. So it's hard.

37:51 Mark: My way of coping was writing this song, although I think I did it a little afterwards. And this is one of the ones that then took a while to actually get finished that I sent it to somebody to my friend Steve's. Do drums on that. He did pretty quickly. And then it was a couple years. I was kind of waiting for us to do an animal consciousness episode, but it never happened to motivate me to finish it. But it finally got out there and has kind of the biggest band of any of them on it. You.

38:13 Unknown speaker: Who's singing harmonies?

38:15 Mark: That is Monica. Sarah.

38:17 Unknown speaker: Well, it's a lovely tune. I like it very much.

38:19 Mark: Shambling, drunken mess. But that's. I enjoy it.

38:25 Unknown speaker: I formed in my last day of work in this dark House I flushed all my drugs and stripped down to the bone I'm over, it's ascended I can't wait to fly I'll be petting my stubus in the sky we roll up the maps and turn off the computers Screw out the light bulbs from sockets and users unplug my brain and

we'll ship it on high I'll be

pets in my stew Bus in the sky. An age of amusements passed on into

nothing A party we burn through A

camp that stops humming A long lonely

look at the place we will die

I'll be petting my stubis in the

sky this old cold life A red awful slice A rusty tub A rusty tub A whole lot of lice oh, cruel God unshackled the locks of the

sky I'll be betting my stupas in the sky.

It's over, I'm ended I'm saying goodbye

I'll be prist in the sky.

In the sky that's in my school bus in the sky.

40:51 Mark: Why, Daniel Coffeen from our Deleuze episode.

40:55 Unknown speaker: Yeah, indeed. How are you, man?

40:56 Mark: I'm doing great. How has the intervening years since we recorded that with you been treating you?

41:01 Unknown speaker: It's been an interesting time. In fact, in the spring I'll have a book coming out on zero books called Reading the Way of Things Towards a New Technology of Making Sense. Almost like a primer or a delineation of sort of concepts for a kind of non hierarchical, non teleological interpretation.

41:19 Mark: Well, that sounds like a very Deleuzean sort of project.

41:22 Unknown speaker: It is.

I call it a kind of schizoanalysis or imminent reading. A lot of Merleau Ponty, a lot of Deleuze, a lot of Roland Barthes.

41:29 Mark: And did we inspire you to go back and read Kant?

41:34 Unknown speaker: Kant makes his way in there.

41:36 Mark: I love Kant.

41:37 Unknown speaker: Okay.

41:38 Mark: I thought when we had talked to you, I recalled you saying that you just never even read any.

41:42 Unknown speaker: Oh, no.

You know, for me, Kant is really, really hard.

41:46 Mark: It was the Kant's third critique you had read and enjoyed. That was. But not the other stuff.

41:52 Unknown speaker: He's one of those philosophers maybe, like Hegel, where. I love the architectures. It's just not something I believe. But they're things that I really enjoy.

42:00 Mark: Well, speaking of things you perhaps might enjoy for their oddity and their structures, what is the song that you chose from the album?

42:07 Unknown speaker: I chose I Insist.

42:09 Mark: Why the opening track? So you didn't even have to listen past one. That's very convenient.

42:14 Unknown speaker: It's funny, when I saw the title, I was immediately drawn to it. I'd been obsessed with this figure of insistence. And the idea I originally was actually it was the motivation for my dissertation a million years ago. This idea of the figure that doesn't insist. And studying rhetoric and the idea of the turn and the trope. And I was like the well, rhetoric is not a deviation. A trope is not a deviation, it's not a turn. What happens to the figure that insists that just is a pure sort of haecceity, a thisness. And so I immediately was sort of drawn to the song. And then I click on it and then right from the get go. I mean it's like my manifesto in the opening lines. Right. Place of a soul I've got tendency.

42:50 Mark: Exactly. Yes. It was about teleology for me.

42:54 Unknown speaker: I can give my sort of reading of the song.

Please do.

So the way I read it is like it opens with this. On this force, right? And the sort of impersonality of being or becoming.

Right?

43:04 Mark: It is.

43:05 Unknown speaker: It is the becoming of existence, emotion, emotion and force. I'm just pure movement.

43:12 Mark: Uh huh.

43:13 Unknown speaker: And then which is the sort of flux and flow that sort of belies and undoes ego and you know, structures and categories and knowledge. But as it moves on there's a sort of ambivalence because then all of a sudden the protagonist is insisting on himself. I'm a person, I'm a person, I'm this. And so I read the song as the kind of sort of human condition of this sort of two forces of work of the sort of, you know, becoming ego and the impersonal sort of flux of desire of the forces that make up or constitute anybody, including the human body.

43:52 Mark: Well, this was also my depiction of the protagonist. Somebody who had pushed themselves to a place of celebrity and worship by sheer force of will that, you know, you have to be that kind of person to be in that nobody just gets there by luck. Like you might have, you know, something, but to stay there to like become this. So it was actually written for Lucy Lawless to sing because she had helped me out and sung backup on a song earlier. But I had never gone the whole way to like give her something to sing on her own. And she ended up not being available. And then I sang it live and then I wanted it for myself. Some of it is sort of the point of view of my imagined playing on her Persona as just this goddess that is descended and is beaming anyway, so that's the sort of two sidedness of it in there.

44:38 Unknown speaker: I'd be really curious to hear Another interpretation. Because one thing like you're singing to me. I kept hearing Lou Reed.

44:44 Mark: Well, that's. Yeah, that's just my voice. I don't have much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, There you go.

44:47 Unknown speaker: It inflects the song, right? So it has this kind of a kind of irony and a kind of like it's playing both positions and there's. That's the way I was reading it.

44:56 Mark: Well, and this was also a kind of a treat for me in finishing up this, arranging it. A lot of the songs on this album I did by myself, but this is one that I sent out and different people did in different parts. This is the first time that the drummer Steve Petrinko and the guitarist Jeff Esty and I had played together since we were in a band together in college. Jeff, who did the crazy sounding lead guitars. Really interesting guy. Actually, the version that he sent me where he just overdubbed many different tracks is just a work of absolute chaos.

It's just rips in mixing it. I had to tone it down. And then some of the lead guitar lines are kind of my answering calls that I did myself to make the whole thing do an actual structure because it was an. It was absolute madness. But you can still hear that in there in the really, really fast parts that he's playing and that, you know, at the very end of the song where it. He just goes into a little conniption.

45:45 Unknown speaker: In place of a soul I've got tendency gotta lean in I've got energy well I push it along into a tumbling world of my own of my own oh well I don't know what I am driving I am pressing the keys I am losing what's left of my periphery I'm forward essentially I am motion and force and something too fast to see and my eyes focus out to a point and reflect and I will pierce every door knife fails to react and I will overcome all the crap that I drag I am not asking the world I am not asking the world I demand it, I insist if I must give a reason well, consider this fist I demand it I, I require you must take what I make and all the love I inspire in place of my soul I've got irony in the space of a conscience and rock in this piece my belief is a 15 ton truck if I hold out my hand you will she ever will she ever?

I am driving, I am pressing it down if I fly at this speed I will be sleeping around I am forward, I am all the way I'm a mistake of the future we'll all be someday and my eyes focus out to a point and refract and I will pierce every door Nothing fails to react and I will overcome all the crap that I drag I am not asking the world I am not asking the world I demand this, I insist if I must give a reason well, consider this fist I demand it I require you mistake what I make and all the love I inspire don't be put as a fool or cover yourself and drool I'm a person person and not a force of nature don't be one of those guys who puts feet in his mouth I am lonely and done I won't save you, won't save you.

I demand, I insist if I must give all reason well, consider this fist I demand it I require Mistake what I make and all the love I inspire in my eyes Focus out to the point and refract and retract and turn black and go back and attack and react and distract and react and react and react and react and react and react.

48:36 Mark: I'm here with Diana Szabo with a silent Z.

48:41 Unknown speaker: Yeah, that's right.

48:42 Mark: Who people probably want to know about because you drew the cover to the album.

48:47 Unknown speaker: Yeah. It took me seven weeks.

48:51 Mark: That's a little creepy to have somebody staring at a picture of me and pouring over it literally every pore.

48:59 Unknown speaker: Yeah.

49:00 Mark: It's incredibly detailed. Although, why do I look like I'm 100 years old? I noticed that. Are you expressing my inner nature? Is that.

49:08 Unknown speaker: Well, you told me that. But I like details. So some of my past pictures have been like really crappy digital printouts, and they've had printing errors in them, and I just go right into the errors and then just really highlight them. So I don't know. Some fascination that I have with details. And I just found them all on your face.

49:32 Mark: Well, that's neat. So it's using the synchronicity of the medium. And I know our original idea was to do something that was a play off of the partially examined life guy with his little head exposed. And so we went through a couple versions of that with a skull that was going to lead to Plato's cave, but that was a copyrighted skull image, so he didn't want to go down that route. And then the current one, which, if you were to zoom out magically, you would see I'm wearing a seemingly a blue glowing bathing cap or something. But it's the. What was the effect? It's not an exposed brain. What was the effect? It cannot be put into words

50:11 Unknown speaker: in

the Transition from the Frank Netter derived copyright skull to the current form. I think because you had hair in the photograph, right?

50:21 Mark: Yes.

50:22 Unknown speaker: I had no skull reference as such and I didn't want to make you bald because that would look strange and you're not bald. So it just became sort of a Technicolor hair.

50:35 Mark: It was bright and glowy and it looked very cool. Somebody commented that I showed it to that it seemed a little pretentious of me to have a picture of me as if I have so many ideas in my head that it's just on fire. It's crazy, really.

50:50 Unknown speaker: Pretentious.

Wow.

50:51 Mark: I don't know if that was the word that was used, but then you on your Twitter posted a zoomed in version and so we tried that and everybody liked that better. So the bathing cap is mostly concealed, but there's something going on up there, you can tell. Well, tell the folks this is their introduction to you a little more about yourself as an artist and what you do and where they can find your work.

51:12 Unknown speaker: Well, I suppose I've been drawing since I was very, very young, probably two or three years old. And I always did it outside school during school. I had my work displayed in the library at school and things like that. And I went to extracurricular drawing classes and art classes throughout my youth. And I never studied fine art. I studied design, actually. I don't know, it's just something that I've always done. And I had my first exhibition in 2013 in September in Melbourne.

51:45 Mark: Congrats.

51:46 Unknown speaker: Thank you. That went much better than I was expecting. But the thing is, the drawing that I did for this album cover is just a very time consuming technique and as I said, it took me seven weeks, but that's working on it full time. So some of my things have taken, you know, months next to working, so it's just kind of unrealistic, even though the effect achieved is really nice. So recently I kind of transitioned to painting and particularly painting ceramics just through my mum. She asked me to paint her soup tureen the other week and yeah, just kind of snowballed from there and people can see my work on my website, which is just my name.com dianasabo.com and I'll try and have an exhibition next year again. But thankfully the painting stuff is much faster, so hopefully it'll come sooner.

52:42 Mark: Well, and working full time on a picture of me for seven weeks does not sound like it is compatible with a full time soul crushing job. Which may be why you picked the song that you picked yeah, that's a

52:56 Unknown speaker: sort of a passionate sort of issue that I'm passionate about, which is how shit most jobs are and how much people hate them.

We who have escaped, we will come back for you.

Don't you lose the thought I'm looking out.

We who have escaped are keeping track of you. All your desperate thoughts are leaking out. Bet you they're soft. Bet you they're dull.

Bet you they've got a common center. Bet you they're bought.

I bet you they're not really all you.

I bet you you're stuck. I bet you you're fucked. I bet you you've got a whole lot more coming to the end from.

Bet you feel don't though not always. We who have escaped, we will come back for you. You are not forgotten in these parts. You the sad remains of western barbecue Bought and sold and chewed up in your hearts.

I betcha they're good. I bet you they're kind. I bet you you've got a soul worth singing. I bet you you've got a hundred novels piling up in your cell. I'll bet you your spirit heart more than you think.

Bet you could stretch and reach the

stars or just the sink if your cube had one and not just the smell of decay decay of wasted day A time you've lost forever in that godforsaken office where your soul is left to simmer I'll dismay dismay of career here's all you get for dinner Though you're getting paid it's you who's made a bad bargain with the winner those

who rule your life they will not mourn for you

when your husky brought

out for its seeds and hay all you ever wanted can come back to you. But you've got to cut them out and not just make them pay you slightly more. Bet you feel poor Bet you feel normal like your father Bet you he

soldiered on regardless because that's what they expect.

Bet you you're next. Bet you barely feel your calling.

Bet you're all stuck and falling in a knot of rage A decay decay of a wasted day of time you've lost forever in that godforsaken office where your soul is left to simmer or dismay Display unbreakable please all you get for dinner no, you'll get it in pa. It's you who made the bad bargain with the winner. A decay decay A wasted day A time you've lost forever in that godforsaken office where your soul is left to simmer or just may display a brief Is all you get for dinner, though. You're getting paid. It's you who's made a bad bargain with the winner. Cause you wanna be the winner. Wanna be fast and young and fitter. And maybe it will happen if you pay.

57:35 Mark: Well, I think we've reached about the midpoint of our show. Good time to bring on one of our regular, our wonderful hosts, Mr. Dylan Casey. How you doing?

57:45 Unknown speaker: I'm doing good, Mark. Thanks for having me.

57:47 Mark: So I understand that you have some viewer mail to read, some listener mail.

57:53 Unknown speaker: Oh, I do have some listener mail to read. So one of our fans is also one of our participants, and she doesn't participate in email, so she wrote me a letter.

58:05 Mark: Why? Is it Eva Brady?

58:06 Unknown speaker: It's Eva, yes. Because she doesn't have the Internet. I cut the podcast onto a CD and sent it to her.

58:12 Mark: And you did that with all 129.

58:15 Unknown speaker: And it was two CDs. No, it was just with. It was just with her CDs.

58:19 Mark: So she's a fan of us when she's on.

58:22 Unknown speaker: There you go.

Okay.

58:23 Mark: There you go.

58:24 Unknown speaker: That's okay. That's good enough. She says, Dear Dylan, when the CDs came, I set them aside for all of two days because I thought I'd wither away from shame. Now I've heard the whole, and I'm pleased as punch. First of all, the audio part is very agreeable, very clear, very true to life.

Life.

Then the exchanges among us are really fluently conversational. We respond to each other. And finally, I'm relievedly pleased with my own part. I kept thinking I'd probably find that woman good company if I'd met her. Maybe I will. So I think I deserved my hamburger. Thank you so much for investing all the time and all that lugging yours from a happy participant, Eva.

59:03 Mark: And hamburger is metaphorical. We'll just say to the audience it

59:05 Unknown speaker: is not metaphorical, because.

59:07 Mark: I know. But I wanted to leave it mysterious.

59:11 Unknown speaker: The past two podcasts that we've done. Afterwards, I took her out for a hamburger, and those were the only two hamburgers she's had in the past two years. And she loves hamburgers.

59:20 Mark: And the song that you were going to introduce was going to be which one?

59:24 Unknown speaker: Antigone.

59:26 Mark: What'd you think of that song? What's going on there?

59:28 Unknown speaker: I liked it very much. And I think what's cool is you embodying the Choragos and speaking to all the characters in the song. I thought that was really awesome, actually. A fine thing to do. Very Greek of you.

59:42 Mark: And that was fun because I did that live to our family, including little kids, even though it's about incest. And I think I changed one word to make it not quite so naughty. But otherwise it seemed like it was fine.

59:56 Unknown speaker: Yes. And I'm sure that my brothers will be sending the counseling bills to you in the future.

1:00:04 Mark: Well, if that's any big sort of year end coming up on 2016, thoughts of what folks can look forward to or what you're hoping to. Are you in the mood to reflect?

1:00:14 Unknown speaker: Sure.

I'm looking forward to a couple of philosophy guests that are coming on next year. Can't quite say who they are right now, but I'm looking forward to getting some interesting people on the podcast as guests.

1:00:30 Mark: Big philosophy celebrities. Yes. We should not name until the episodes are actually recorded.

1:00:35 Unknown speaker: Yes. Because we have a bad history with that. But I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to us continuing our sort of walk through a number of philosophy subjects. I feel like we'll probably, in addition to doing things like Aristotle's metaphysics and other hard stuff we do, I feel like we may end up doing some more topical stuff, which might be fun. So we haven't planned it out yet, but I just got that feeling that it's going to happen.

1:01:00 Mark: Well, my prediction is we're going to finally go back to non Western for at least an episode or two. It's been years and years. It was before you even joined.

1:01:08 Unknown speaker: Right.

1:01:08 Mark: Was the last time you did non Western.

1:01:10 Unknown speaker: Yeah. I would love to jump in on some of that Confucius action. And we probably. Where does Islam fit in? Non Western, but sure, that's non Western. Yeah. It seems like that's going to be something appropriately contemporary and topical. I think it'd be worth us looking at that. So that's just in the mix of all kinds of stuff we've talked about.

1:01:31 Mark: Well, we're always up to the minute, responding to the day's news. In what topics? No, no, just a long list. That's all there is to it.

1:01:40 Unknown speaker: Yeah.

We're sort of the opposite of that, aren't we? Yeah.

1:01:44 Mark: Thanks for sitting down for a minute.

1:01:46 Unknown speaker: No problem.

1:01:47 Mark: Hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

1:01:50 Unknown speaker: I will. I hope you do too, Mark.

1:01:52 Mark: Thank you,

1:01:54 Unknown speaker: Antigone. You got to do what you got to do. But why did you do it twice? You got away a sprinkled dust on your brother.

Yeah, but why return to the scene of the crime?

Wouldn't the gods have been satisfied without forgetting yourself?

Cause

why couldn't you just Apologize. Why couldn't you just be distraught?

Isn't it hard enough having your dad be a brother? Or wasn't it fair

when you bro

killed each other and your mom sl grandma, she did some bad deciding.

Can we just stop all this face driven suiciding. Antigone. Creon is just puffed up ass. He could be putty in your hand. You know, I think he's got a thing for you. Just go along with his petty demands. Antigone, think of your sister boyfriend too and just hunker down for the blast. Antigone, you've got to know that we all love you. Please work the system and all this will pass.

Isn't it hard enough having your dad be brother? Wasn't it bad enough when your bros killed each other and your mom. Fate driven suiciding.

Antigone. I know the God's got it out for you. Would you brought this one on yourself? Antigone, you've got to do what you gotta do, but I don't think I can help.

1:04:41 Mark: Why here I'm with Eric Petrie from our no country for Old Men episode. How have you been? What are you up to?

1:04:48 Unknown speaker: Oh, you know, it's weird. I can't really believe that five years has gone by, but you know, I'm just working on the same old stuff, you know, working on and teaching. Very busy. I've been traveling to Italy a bit.

1:04:57 Mark: Did your no country for Old Men essay or book or whatever get published?

1:05:01 Unknown speaker: I don't know what to say about it yet. It wasn't really finished and I'm still thinking it through.

1:05:07 Mark: Well, that seems fitting for the slow contemplative. At least that's in retrospect how I'm interpreting Cormac McCarthy's. Either him or his characters gazing at the vastness of the despair of life. And yeah, you gotta shoot somebody if they're shooting at you. But you contemplate, you don't necessarily have to rush the thing out to publication.

1:05:27 Unknown speaker: Yeah, right, absolutely. That's definitely the way he was. He was basically a nobody until he wrote all the Pretty Horses.

1:05:35 Mark: So the song that you picked was. Tell us which song you picked here.

1:05:39 Unknown speaker: Well, it was Jesus Noise, of course I want a double negative theology, but Jesus Noise is fine.

1:05:44 Mark: And you had a particular attraction to this because of its choral connotations. I thought about sending it to atheist groups as a non denominational or anti religion, but it certainly influenced heavily by my time I was in children's choir.

1:06:00 Unknown speaker: Oh yeah?

1:06:01 Mark: Yeah. That's kind of how I learned to harmonize. And got my sense of wonder of the divine, of hanging out and listening to Silent Night and singing Hallelujah and all that. And so you're in a strange position as being somebody who's very into Cormac McCarthy, but also. Is this a strange combination? But also in a Lutheran choir.

1:06:20 Unknown speaker: Yeah, yeah, I go to church, sure. I attend a Lutheran church and a non denominational church, simultaneous.

1:06:27 Mark: I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that because somebody who finds McCarthy's. There are kind of two kind of people who find the McCarthy sort of worldview, you know, whether you advocate it or not, who knows, as we discussed in the episode, what he's advocating. But it's definitely meditating on the grim. And you could either be like a hard nose atheist, maybe even nihilist, there is no love or divinity in the world and be interested in that. Or you could just be a hard nosed Christian realist badass. You know, this is the harsh world that was created.

1:07:00 Unknown speaker: Yeah, yeah, no, that's right. And I think part of the audience for that book was certainly the people who are disgruntled about and upset and even very worried about the direction that the world's going in. And you know, that could easily be a religious view. I'm talking about the Sheriff Bell view.

1:07:14 Mark: Yes.

1:07:14 Unknown speaker: Is the outer crust of the story.

1:07:17 Mark: What did you think of the song itself?

1:07:18 Unknown speaker: Oh, it's hilarious. So I'm not taking you seriously, of course, but I had all kinds of thoughts about it. First of all, I love the mustard seed that grew into an ugly tree and then spreading. That is a great metaphor. Good job. And I thought one of the funny things about it is it's so nostalgic, as your little heading says on it. You know, it seems to be like you're thinking back on fonder days when the Jesus noise was in your ears. Or are you thinking back on your stronger and clearer days when you could keep the noise out of your ears?

1:07:47 Mark: I'm not clear and I'm unclear with songs like this. And really for much of the album, I guess I've in the they Might be giants school of Is it a novelty song? Are these jokey lyrics or is this a serious thing for me, just in my psyche, those things don't separate. And I don't know if that just says something horrible about how much irony has seeped into to my general thinking about anything even serious.

1:08:29 Unknown speaker: Jesus needs a dressing down, sacrificing stuff around, but he cannot make a single sound for you. Jesus made a big mistake. Promises Too huge to fake he couldn't get the earth to shake for you. Everybody's getting down all over this holy

town

I get weary of the sound I do. Glory in the highest way still it's how they pray I got good at blocking it out in my younger days. Jesus left a mustard seed Grew into an ugly tree Multiplying forth to feed on you. Final days that came and went Barely even made a dent Only what you might invent is true. Glory in a high pitched way that wafts away I got good at blocking it out in my stronger days Days.

Sam.

It.

Glory in the highest field to come my way I got good at blocking it out in my clearer days. Hark the herald angels singing as they fall and what the hey. May we all grow out of this now here in better days, wiser days.

1:13:04 Mark: Why Tamler Sommers from Very Bad Wizards and our Free Will Episode I've been listening to your podcast. I know you had a pretty exciting year with that little Sam Harris ratings bump.

1:13:13 Unknown speaker: And

yeah, you know, if you look at our podcast and the statistics, which every once in a while we'll do, there is a slight difference between the episodes that Sam Harris is on and the episodes that he's not. Some hundreds of thousands of downloads differ.

1:13:32 Mark: It's probably just a coincidence.

1:13:34 Unknown speaker: Yeah, no, it's the topics.

1:13:36 Mark: Yes, exactly.

1:13:37 Unknown speaker: Consequentialism.

1:13:38 Mark: It fires people up. Well, we keep meaning to invite your co host on with us to talk about psychology, but our list of topics is so long that he'll have to wait months and months probably still before I reach out to him about that. Well, that's good.

1:13:51 Unknown speaker: It's nice to have something to hang over his head.

1:13:55 Mark: Anything big coming up?

1:13:56 Unknown speaker: Well, we had what we called our golden shower of guests for our 75th episode. So we had a bunch of guests, including Sam for a little segment. Also Paul Bloom, Laurie Santos, Nina Strohminger, Eric Schwitzgebel, and Yoel. We have a couple of good ones. I mean, I'm very excited about. I don't know if anybody else is, but Mr. Robot, a full episode devoted to the season one of Mr. Robot and all the philosophy and psychology and just awesomeness that that show represented for us this year. So I'm excited about that one. And we have Paul Bloom coming on for another movie episode. We're just not sure what the topic

1:14:38 Mark: yet will be for that.

1:14:40 Unknown speaker: How about you?

1:14:40 Mark: Well, the closest we came to a Mr. Robot thing was Wes brought up Rick and Morty in the context of possible worlds recently. But I Don't know if you.

1:14:48 Unknown speaker: I haven't seen. Yeah, is that good?

1:14:50 Mark: There's no philosophical content. It's just pure silliness in terms of jumping to possible versions of yourself and, oh, we screwed up the entire world. So instead of fixing it, let's just shift into a different possible world where that thing didn't go wrong and that the other versions of us just died.

1:15:07 Unknown speaker: So now people understand counterfactuals.

1:15:09 Mark: I guess there's philosophy to be found everywhere.

1:15:12 Unknown speaker: That's right.

1:15:13 Mark: Well, the song that I inflicted upon you for this time was what it's called the default relation.

1:15:20 Unknown speaker: And you said that it reflected my personality or what you imagined my personality to be. I was hoping maybe you could explain that having now listened to the song and read the lyrics, just give a little.

1:15:34 Mark: Did you know what it. Did you guess what it was about?

1:15:37 Unknown speaker: You say that it's a song about disagreement.

1:15:40 Mark: Okay, well, all right.

1:15:42 Unknown speaker: So is it like moral disagreement?

1:15:44 Mark: Actually it was inspired by political disagreement and just the state of hostility that the red states and the blue states or however you want to break it down have toward each other and just, you know, the reading. Yet another stupid thing that Congress was doing, I think was the initial, you know, so this is not laying it down as me cursing the other side, but semi ironically or reflectively on the overall state of. That is our default gut reaction at this point. It's very hard to have like an honest, constructive political debate.

1:16:17 Unknown speaker: And you think that I personify that sad state of affairs in politics?

1:16:23 Mark: Well, first of all, I was just breaking your balls.

1:16:25 Unknown speaker: I hate that.

1:16:26 Mark: Who made that expression?

1:16:29 Unknown speaker: I think like the mafia. It's in every mafia movie.

1:16:32 Mark: But yes, your appearance on our podcast was a high point of pugilism. I will say in our experience that generally when you and peas are more likely to see constructive dialogue, as in the lawyerly advocate your side in a friendly way. Of course, I've been trying to articulate what our alternative to that is, because people will ask, you know, we just had an episode where we had two guys from religious podcasts on to talk about female faith. And somebody immediately said, well, why don't you have two atheists on as well? Because generally crossfire things like that, at least the way they play out in the public realm are tremendously unproductive.

And so we just like working at an infinitely slower pace, I think, you know, so treating these guests or, you know, anybody else, anytime, we have a sort of one sided take on things as sort of part of a text to be examined at the Time, but to slowly let it seep into our thinking, to, you know, whenever we read a text, I feel like we. We're yielding to it. We're trying to understand it fully before just coming down on it like a ton of bricks.

1:17:33 Unknown speaker: I think in order to understand you, I'd have to shed my skin. I think in order to really know you, I'd have to fit into the space you're in. Reactions only make sense in light of what's been done to you. What that was I can't imagine all that you've been through Communications broken down there's nothing left to do so fuck off so fuck off the default relationship between you, me, your Fuck off and your mama too and all the shit she did to you we don't like the same damn things Guess that's safe to say we barely live in the same world I wish you'd stay the hell away.

The things you choose to eat and vote for do you even care what you want? I can't imagine. Are you even a person under there? Communications broken down there's nothing left to do so fuck off so f Fuck off the default relation between you Mia Fuck off And your mama too and all the shit she did to you oh, fuck off yes, fuck off the default relation twixt you and me Ah, fuck off and your mama too and all she did to you it's not on point to think of you as someone that I could be in another life. Why would you point to humanity as a common bond? Because it's a bond that's chafing me.

Well, harmony has long left town One note still rings true Fuck off Fuck off on the default relation between you and me I fuck off and your mama too and all the shit she did to you so fuck off so fuck off the default position for society to rub off it's cakey shitting to our eyes so we can't see so fuck off off the gun Keep on Never can off far enough Keep on and all that stuff I sign no contract I can't stand you around here. Why?

1:21:54 Mark: Mr. Seth Benzell Former Economics Episode how you doing?

1:21:58 Unknown speaker: I'm doing absolutely great. It's great to talk to you again.

1:22:01 Mark: So was being on the Partially Examined Life. Did that change your life?

1:22:05 Unknown speaker: Did it change my life?

1:22:07 Mark: People recognize you on the street now or when you're calling for technical support.

1:22:12 Unknown speaker: I got one email from a kid in Indiana who said that he wanted to apply to the BU program in Economics and said, oh, I love Hayek. You guys must be smart if you talk about Hayek. So there you go. I've gotten more interested in interdisciplinary work, so fingers crossed. Maybe something will come of that. Something in the economics and philosophy world.

All right.

1:22:33 Mark: Any other things you want to plug?

1:22:35 Unknown speaker: What do I want to plug? Oh, man.

1:22:37 Mark: Any recommendations for holiday reading for people?

1:22:40 Unknown speaker: Ooh, holiday reading. Well, there's a great Journal of Economic Perspectives article out by Autor talking about the recent literature on the economics of automation. So if that's the area I work in, and if people want a readable summary to recent work in that area, Autor is absolutely excellent.

1:23:00 Mark: So in other words, you have no recommendations for good.

1:23:02 Unknown speaker: I have no recommendations.

1:23:04 Mark: That's an area that I wish, if we were to have more interchange, it will be over that. That we should do our little economics of new work thing. When I next turn my attention to

1:23:13 Unknown speaker: that, hey, someday it'd be my absolute pleasure.

1:23:17 Mark: The song, one of the only ones that was left when I sucked you into doing this.

1:23:21 Unknown speaker: I have to say, in this case, my resource constraint did not bind because it is the one I would have chosen anyway.

1:23:27 Mark: Oh, man. And what is it called then?

1:23:30 Unknown speaker: It is called Adds up to nothing, and it speaks to my economic predispositions. There's that nice ambiguity there about whether you're talking about, is this a zero sum game he's talking about? Or perhaps he's talking about the pity of a life that is devoted to just satisfying one's preferences. And perhaps there's something more to life than just than that. And maybe that's just adding up to nothing. I don't know. What do you think, Mark?

1:23:56 Mark: I thought it was just about frustration and the fact that the people that we're dealing with don't want the same things we want.

1:24:03 Unknown speaker: Well, I like that, but I mean, come on, you have to say that when you have that line, something like your wants are your wants, and I need to just shut up. I mean, that's liberalism, man.

1:24:13 Mark: That's right. You can't control other people.

1:24:15 Unknown speaker: Yeah. You have to let them want that they want. But maybe that's not enough. Maybe we should tell them what they want.

I don't know.

1:24:21 Mark: I was thinking of it on an individual level, but if Rand Paul wants to co op this, Beggars can't be choosers. I'm not like Bruce Springsteen, who's gonna say, reagan, don't use my song or something. Really? If Trump wants to use my songs, as long as it gets me on the map.

1:24:51 Unknown speaker: You want what you want want, and

I want what I want.

You wants are your wants But I want your wants and it all adds up to nothing?

All adds up to nothing?

You need what you need and I need what you need? You want what you need But I need a kind of need that you

wouldn't believe in if I spelled it out in blood that you couldn't believe in if it caused a flood when it all adds up to nothing? It all adds up to nothing

and

it all adds up to nothing? And it all adds up to nothing?

What makes people cling together what makes

people sing together is a whole lot of loneliness And I think I've never born to this.

It takes different eyes to see that nothing makes us rise to be that all for yourself enough for yourself be.

Because it all adds up to nothing it all adds up to nothing

oh,

it all adds up to nothing? All adds up to nothing.

You want what you want and I want what I want?

Your wants don't add up but I've got to just shut up?

And it all adds up to nothing?

It all adds up to nothing

and it all adds up to nothing?

All adds up to nothing.

Hi, Mark.

1:28:09 Mark: Good evening, Lucy.

1:28:10 Unknown speaker: How are you doing?

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm doing season's greetings.

1:28:15 Mark: Thank you. This song we sang together here, that's gonna play in a minute. It's kind of depressing. Have you noticed that?

1:28:27 Unknown speaker: Well, I just thought it was this

sort of the exploration of the concept of, you know, gathering experiences, and it's impossible. I mean, it's very apt for your podcast, isn't it?

1:28:38 Mark: I guess I sometimes feel like the music and the doing of the philosophy are different parts of the brain. You know, they certainly overlap. Oh, well, we just.

1:28:46 Unknown speaker: We just scrunch it together anyway.

You know what?

I didn't find it depressing, actually. I thought it's like, at the end, it kind of rocks along really nicely, even though we're singing the same thing over and over. I was quite surprised. I was kind of hating my contribution at first, and I realized it's because I probably did it without any direction from you that by the end, I kind of liked it.

1:29:08 Mark: Everybody that I've ever played it for is like, who is that? What is that? That just. That's awesome. That adds an extra dimension to things. No, I'm glad I was not there to give you.

1:29:16 Unknown speaker: Oh, okay.

1:29:18 Mark: I did that after the fact, in the editing, that was the direction.

1:29:20 Unknown speaker: Oh, you did? Well, I just wished I had given you more things to play with. But anyway. Yeah, no, I thought it was really nice at the end, it's got a little groove.

1:29:28 Mark: So what is your take on the doing things before you die? Is that being toward death, is that a proper way to live? Or is it just the.

1:29:35 Unknown speaker: Oh, look, I've been trying to ignore that since I was 8 years old. No, I can't. I had this eschatological shock at, like, 8 years old. I seem to remember it was like a Sunday. I'm walking home from church. It probably wasn't maybe a Wednesday. I'm walking home from school, same place. So I don't know why I'm on my own. But I get to the brow of Ellendale Road just as about to make the final turn for home. And at the brow, I'm saying my little prayers because my dad has told me that as a good Catholic, you know, you should spend all your time saying prayer. All your free time should be spent saying prayers, like, by rote, right?

Don't do it.

So think.

Don't create just by rote. Say these prayers and like, you're gathering brownie points for heaven, right? So I'm going, hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women. Blessed is fruit of thy womb, Jesus. And you have to bow your head on the name Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Now and at the hour of our

death, I'm gonna die.

1:30:31 Mark: I was like, holy shit.

1:30:33 Unknown speaker: I remember exactly where I was on the road at the moment I realized this fucking prayer told me I was gonna die. And I was so furious with the whole God religion thing for bursting my bubble at 8 years old. And it had the effect of putting me in a real hurry. So I've always known I was going to be old. I mean, touch wood, I'm going to be old. And I am such a. Like a sensation hog. And I'm terrified of stagnation. Like, I have to scrunch in as much as possible because I know this is finite. I was not a kinder and gentler person. For the first couple of decades after that realization, I was pretty gung ho.

1:31:13 Mark: You know, that's interesting that your experiences with prayer were of the rote variety. I certainly did some of that. But what I found appealing about religion when I was little was the sort of openness. It sort of gets you in the mode of talking to yourself. It gets you in the mode of feeling like, wow. You think it might prepare you to be, wait, what religion, Religion?

1:31:33 Unknown speaker: What religion did you grow up in? That's amazing. Tell me.

1:31:38 Mark: Liberal Protestant kind of thing, just to fill the space, you know, to feel like when you're talking to yourself that someone's listening, that you're performing. And given how little people actually care when you especially, you know, as a teenager or younger, write something down feeling like there's an audience that gives a damn and maybe understands you better than you understand yourself, it gives you a little boost of confidence, I think.

1:32:00 Unknown speaker: Wow, I dig your God. That's amazing.

Don't have a bucket list. What the hell does that mean anyway? You can't collect experience. It just flows on through. But yes, I'd like to travel. And sure, I take a class with you. I think I've got a life's worth of time saved up. Let's do it. Do it. Are there some things with should do before we die?

Things we should say and sure at least try.

I don't want to think about it I don't like to talk about it I don't like to measure out my life because it's overflowing but we don't want to live without you don't want to die at all. You know I hate cliches and love and death are the biggest ones.

But there are things we should do before we die. Things we should get around to before we die.

Of course you know I love you Although there's always some regret that language always fails us but it's enough I guess can I ever really show you that you own me heart and soul? You are my inspiration you got me

through and the things we should say and do it all we die. Things that we got to clean or at least try try try

Part of

being wide awake is dealing with God's big mistake and trying to take in

everything we can together.

But it's never never near enough Whatever

we may do however hard we ch know I will lose you keep let the things we should do before we die My mind even if dwelling on common makes you cry my mind

these

are some things we should do before we die why? Why? Things we should say and show at least try try

thank you, dear for losing me and being all my beliefs we'll deal with the inevitable and try

to I'll be okay with these are the things we should do before we die my these are some things we should do before we die My own life these are some things we should do before we die. These are some things these are some things these are some things these are some things we should do before we die.

1:35:51 Mark: Well, hello, Amir Zaki from our Burke on the Sublime episode.

1:35:55 Unknown speaker: Hi there.

1:35:56 Mark: Well, how have you been? What are you doing professionally these days? What are you studying? You got any recommendations? Any words of wisdom for the holiday season for the folks?

1:36:03 Unknown speaker: Oh, studying, not so much. I'm always. Well, honestly, I've actually just finished my teacher training in yoga. So I am now a certified yoga teacher. Which is probably a surprise.

1:36:16 Mark: Which is why we got you for Burke on the Sublime. No, he's a professional photographer. Photography professor.

1:36:21 Unknown speaker: Yes, that's what I do for a living.

1:36:23 Mark: What do you know? Do you have any. Any works you want to point people to or.

1:36:27 Unknown speaker: I'm currently working on new series of photographs. I've actually been. It's funny thinking about Burke and the Sublime. I've actually been taking these road trips and photographing these rock formations along the coast. It's very kind of romantic solo activity I've been doing, which is also feels slightly antiquated. But yeah, I've been photographing these rock formations and at the same time making. Which is a very kind of old way of working and then making these 3D rendering kind of photorealistic sculptures that are made by chance on the computer. Which sounds very vague, but that's kind

1:37:02 Mark: of what I'm working on. Well, speaking of rock formations or maybe samba formation. I know, don't know what. This song that we were going to discuss just for a minute, which one was it?

1:37:12 Unknown speaker: This was called Sense of Beauty and

1:37:15 Mark: it was actually written for the Santayana episode that was called that. Although it really doesn't have a lot to do with the Santayana book. It's just more of a Don't become nihilistic or use art as a way of transcending the disappointments of day to day life. Something like that.

1:37:31 Unknown speaker: Yeah. I mean I always think with contemporary music in this context, my question is always to what degree the lyrics and. Or the music are ironic. It's almost like a curse of being someone who studied contemporary art where you have to look at everything with a potentially ironic lens. I think you've talked about this and talking about music and your own practice. So that was sort of a question. I thought, well, how much of this is sincere take and how much of. So that's my. I guess my question to you.

1:37:57 Mark: I thought this was one of the most ironic songs in the. Okay, that's not. Not that it's heartfelt, it's a fairly light sort of thing and there's snarky things in the words. But yeah, it's. You could burn everything to the ground. Or you could just not do that.

1:38:11 Unknown speaker: Right.

1:38:11 Mark: Which is a serious thing that, you know, I feel like I have to grapple with. But yeah, it's done in a playful way.

1:38:17 Unknown speaker: Right. The part I like a lot is your take on the idiom twist of fate, which is untwisting your fate. And it was funny because I looked up twist of fate, you know, like I look up everything on Google. And what was great is that Olivia Newton John 1983 song called Twist of fate came up and I thought that was funny, but probably not something you were referencing.

1:38:37 Mark: Once a work of art is out there, what it connotes is what it connotes.

1:38:41 Unknown speaker: That's right.

1:38:42 Mark: It's not my place to deny it.

1:38:44 Unknown speaker: Yeah.

Well, you can take all that you can make. You can burn it to the ground and you can break everything that's fake. You can seize and shake and pound and why not? You can preserve most of what you have. Or you can blow the wad in fire you deserve it when your wife is mad. Or you can buckle and survive. Well, it's not too late to untwist your fate. But don't lose your sense of beauty. You can debate everything you hate. You can even help keep score. You can berate all the clouds you skate. You can taunt yourself some more and why not? You can forget everything you set your plans and schemes and goals and regret everything you bet your love and rock and roll.

But it's not too late to untwist your fate. Just don't lose your sense of beauty. Run like a dog. Run like a dog on your feet. Run like a dog. Spring like a dog on your knees. No one's holding a grudge they won't see you coming. Take him and be judged. Just don't stop running. Cause it's not too late to untwist your fate. Just don't lose your sense of beauty.

And it's not too late to refuse the hate. Just don't lose a sense of guilty.

It's not too long to admit you were wrong and use your sense of guilty.

Hello. It is high Chicky.

1:41:40 Mark: Well, hi chicky. I know you've not actually been a guest on the Partial Examined Life, but you are on my YouTube channel and I own askchicky.com that someday I will get around to developing so you can spread your wisdom to the world. Is that your deal? You are a philosopher of some sort.

1:41:56 Unknown speaker: Philosopher is just a term that people use when they want to put an important sounding label on themselves and then Try to get people to pay their money for being wise, but they are not wise. I actually have been around and know all of the things and people ask me the questions and I answer the questions and I am actually the one who is wise.

1:42:22 Mark: So are you familiar with Socrates's idea that really the only person that's wise is one that knows that he is not wise?

1:42:29 Unknown speaker: That is the kind of mamby pamby foolishness that people use to confuse each other. When true wisdom rears its head, you'll know because you'll see the practical effects. You'll make lots of money and everyone will love you. And if you are an old, fat, ugly person who says otherwise, then you can go stuff it.

1:42:52 Mark: Alright, so we will point the folks toward your couple of videos that you have up so far.

1:42:57 Unknown speaker: Among many. There will be many videos where I will answer questions from the peoples and I invite the peoples to send me the questions so that I may answer them. And also I am now on Instagram, so please look me up on Instagram. That's Ask Chicky.

1:43:13 Mark: Okay, and what is the song that you chose?

1:43:15 Unknown speaker: This song is called Point of Confusion and I think it's a rather confusing song in which someone is stewing in his own juices and talking to himself and being sort of a mamby pamby booby.

1:43:29 Mark: All right, that pretty much sums it up. Enjoy. Thanks, Chicky.

1:43:32 Unknown speaker: Yes, you are very honored to have me.

I just can't think right now. Maybe if you were all here I would have the space I need. And I've settled this 15 times, right? And I couldn't have her if I wanted her, that why would I want her? And I'm not trying to convince myself. I wish my life would just shut up and stop trying to teach me things. I've reached the point of confusion now where my problems are only vague enough to move away. Just a certain uneasiness. Sometimes when I talk to myself in the shower, I do run at her

and I don't even know if I feel annoyed.

I just can't talk right now. Not to you, not how I want. Cause she might overhear. She's not in this time. But my loyalties are clear. I just want to scream at you for what you did to me. For blaming me, for shaming me, for leaving me, for believing me. Well, I promised you I'd be okay. For trusting me, adjusting me and pushing me away. Just admit you love me and I'll let you go to hell. Then you can condemn me. You've been doing it so well, you might say I'm sorry But you have no real regret I was just an enemy that someday you'll forget I'd luncheon with your conscience and poison its iced tea if I just knew where you're at and what you ever felt for me as long as I attempting to be helpful and mature I'd love to take back every word and give them all to her I'm sorry that I

met you and I'm sorry you're alive

But I must admit I miss you and I wish that we were five so you'd be much too old for me and a creepy girl at that and nothing I could do would make me want worse than just a brat and she'd be just irrelevant instead of all of me she'd filled my gaping void and set me arguably free

I

know I love her now I knew I did before but, well, too much was obscure but it settled 16 times now, right? And I wouldn't have you if you wanted me to and that's the end at least for you when there's no need to convince myself I think that I should just shut up and not overthink these things I've reached the point of confusion now where my problems are all vague enough to avoid just a certain uneasiness Sometimes when I talk to myself in the shower every you and it hurt I've reached the point of confusion now where my problems all fog up and dissipate Leaving only a funky film here an anonymous ring to contemplate

and I don't even know if I feel annoy

Though I rather suspect that

I'm well overjoyed

I've reached a point of confusion now which is enough for me I've reached a point of confusion now which is enough for me.

1:47:30 Mark: Lawrence Ware from our Jesus and Race episodes.

1:47:34 Unknown speaker: How are you doing?

1:47:34 Mark: How you doing?

1:47:35 Unknown speaker: Good to be here, man. Good to be here.

1:47:37 Mark: What's going on this holiday season for you? I just pulled you right from teaching, from spreading the word.

1:47:42 Unknown speaker: I don't know if I'm spreading the word. I'm teaching a winter intercession course on race, class and gender. I just finished having an incredibly insightful conversation about bell hooks and black women and feminism. So really, really good stuff.

1:47:56 Mark: Well, that's good. We'll call your mentioning that on our show. Does that count as us having it on our show?

1:48:02 Unknown speaker: Listen, we need to have it on the show, honestly.

1:48:04 Mark: Okay?

1:48:05 Unknown speaker: We need to talk about The Marginalization of Women 1 and Black Women in particular in general. So, yes, it needs to be on the show. We need to do this at some point.

1:48:13 Mark: Okay. Bell Hooks has been recommended to us a number of times. Well, so this is. You're one of the last people I'm talking to about this. You know, this is a Christmas special. And yet the songs are not traditionally Christmassy Christmas. I don't know if they're actively sacrilegious, but this one that you did, it's kind of the closest to that, but

1:48:32 Unknown speaker: I'm not really sure.

1:48:33 Mark: What song did I thrust upon you?

1:48:36 Unknown speaker: I Believe, I think, is what you said.

1:48:38 Mark: That is the name of the song. And I had to listen to this. I wrote it and recorded the initial part before overdubbing the stuff back in 2005. So I kind of had to really figure out what was going on there. And there's kind of different things in each verse. But I don't want to be too self indulgent about this because until I was just listening a little more closely just now, I was thinking like, okay, this is just a novelty song. This is basically like the Steve Martin has an old bit of I Believe just listing a lot of ridiculous things. Is that what you're hearing?

1:49:07 Unknown speaker: I mean, in a way, but I thought about the whole notion of belief a little bit differently. So next semester I'm having my students read Ta Nehisi Coates book Between the World and Me. And one of the things that's really divisive about Ta Nehisi Coates is that he comes from really a long tradition, but a not well known tradition of black agnosticism, atheism. And so Ta-Nehisi Coates does not in fact believe that things will get better. And it got me thinking about the notion of belief. And it got me thinking about the Christmas season, for me has always meant the whole notion of Advent and the coming of Christ and all that kind of stuff has always meant like this notion of hope.

The world's bad, but, you know, this child came and that child made things better in a kind of a traditional kind of sense. And without getting kind of tangled up in all the theology there. The basic notion for me for Christmas has always kind of been hope that things can get better. And so I think that belief and hope are kind of intertwined. And so that's how I kind of approached it during this Christmas season. This notion of I Believe, even though the song is a novelty and is idiosyncratic in a way, it still kind of points at the notion of I believe, therefore hope.

1:50:18 Mark: Well, I'm glad you're getting something positive out of it. I'm seeing, you know, a lot of this kind of criticism of the notion of belief, of I believe a few basic truths, none of which I could possibly do justice to now. In other words, even though what repeats over and over again is I believe, I believe. And it actually feels really good to sing that and to hear that, no matter what the context.

1:50:40 Unknown speaker: Absolutely.

1:50:41 Mark: But yet it almost seems like it doesn't really matter. But the first bit, the attention in my left chest there, like this is when I try, often when I write lyrics to just express the truth of what's going on in the room. And usually, usually if I really try to get introspective, it's like, how do I describe the nuance of the headache that I have right now? Like, that's what it comes down to.

1:51:03 Unknown speaker: Lord, I believe in subtlety, in stating things with strict exactitude and attention to the nuance of how dumb I feel. For instance, don't say ouch. Say I perceive attention in my left chest and its proximate cause was when you rip the hair out, leaving me lopsided and mildly less bushy and spiritually gushy. Cause I'm not sure why you did it, though I could list 300 reasons. Here goes. Number one.

Nah.

I believe in subtlety. I believe in sounding off of nothing when it really didn't matter what exactly

1:51:46 Mark: got me going in the first place.

1:51:48 Unknown speaker: Place.

I believe in a few basic truths, none of which I could possibly do justice to now.

Lord, I believe. I believe I believe I believe Lord,

I believe in long hard work as long as it's obsessive and completely self invented and I'm welcome, like stalking. George Burns are writing songs. I believe in bullshit. If bullshit is funny, which it is.

I believe.

I believe

I believe I believe

I

believe Lord, I believe Lord, I believe I believe

I, I believe if you hate enough and you vent enough, then everyone you meet will just enjoy you. I. I believe if I'm loud enough and I'm hoarse enough and if foul enough, then I will win.

Donna.

Believe.

I believe. I believe. I believe.

No.

I believe. I believe.

I believe.

I believe.

1:54:03 Mark: All right, well, it's been a long and exciting holiday special, and I'm here for our last little interview with everybody's favorite returning personal exam in life. Can I say cast member? Like the whole thing is a pantomime? Seth Paskin.

1:54:20 Unknown speaker: This is the sound of my voice.

1:54:22 Mark: I could have just cut that from a previous episode. You have to hold up a newspaper paper to show that you're still alive.

1:54:29 Unknown speaker: Yes, here I'm holding up my phone to prove that it is 11:20am Central Time on Friday, December 18, 2015.

1:54:37 Mark: Except I think we're supposed to, since this is going to drop on Christmas Day. We're supposed to convince everyone that it's somehow streaming live straight from our servers that we've all taken time out on Christmas Day. At least that was my understanding.

1:54:50 Unknown speaker: Merry Christmas, everybody. I hope you got everything you wanted under your tree this morning.

1:54:56 Mark: Or other holidays.

1:54:57 Unknown speaker: We'll just assume no this Christmas.

1:54:59 Mark: Just no the Festivus tree. Whatever.

1:55:02 Unknown speaker: Oh, I thought you were talking about like Kwanzaa, Chanukah. Yes, well, Hanukkah's over with.

1:55:08 Mark: Oh, okay. Well, screw that then.

1:55:11 Unknown speaker: That's right.

1:55:12 Mark: So yeah, this is. I don't know. I hope people enjoyed this experiment here and and hearing from all these guests and behind the scenes people that you either haven't met or haven't listened to the episodes for me yet. You know what? If you folks go to partiallyexaminelife.com xmas as a special Xmas present since we had Josh Pelton, the guest from our Russell on Math episode, which is now behind the firewall, you'll find a link to a totally free for just you listeners now version of the that episode. Just a link straight to it so you can listen to the whole thing. Because who better to give the Christmas spirit than the first new atheist, Bertrand Russell? That was a question for you, Seth. Who better?

1:55:57 Unknown speaker: Oh, it was not rhetorical.

1:55:59 Mark: Tis the season for answering rhetorical questions.

1:56:01 Unknown speaker: Oh, no one is better, Mark.

1:56:04 Mark: Thank you, Seth. You're big on the action items. What should people do in response to this holiday cheat year?

1:56:10 Unknown speaker: Well, I think one is of course they should express gratitude for all the good things in their lives, tell their loved ones that they in fact do love them, and then purchase merchandise such as the 2016 partially examined life calendar or perhaps one of our new line of mugs and T shirts that we're ever expanding and growing. Sign up, become a member for a citizen site and join in the conversation with our other members and share the word. If you've got friends who are interested in serious but irreverent conversation about philosophy or generally looking for enlightenment, hit them to our podcast.

1:56:50 Mark: And the one thing that you forgot in there was that all the music we played here tonight is also for sale on our site. In fact, there's a CD. People still use CDs, right? It's not just the purely digital world they Especially for gifts. I know it's too late for a Christmas gift. But you know, buy it for next year, buy it for a birthday, buy it for somebody you forgot. But yeah, we have a bunch of CDs of this album with all the things you've heard tonight lying around in our vast Pel warehouses.

1:57:19 Unknown speaker: Yeah, that's right. We have hundreds of underage Chinese children standing by to manufacture and fulfill the order for the thousands and thousands of CDs, mugs and t shirts that we want to send out. I might say this too, that insofar as we as a podcast are interested in retro topics, for example books that were written 2,300 years ago, Mark's foray into the physical media of CD represents a regression from digital music. And so I think you can imagine that the next thing we release, that's an audio recording, will probably be on vinyl and then we'll be going to wax cylinders after that.

1:58:05 Mark: Oh man. Seth has been very supportive about this. This was an experiment in terms of taking this. You know, the music has been kind of a free rider on the podcast since its inception. Neither incurring costs from the podcast or paying money from the podcast for the music, but even though it's basically free, it's a leisure time activity for me to create these recordings. And the musicians that played on them never get paid paid. So thanks to all them for volunteering. But to actually make it sound good, you have to send it to be mastered, you have to send it to a studio, and then if you Want to make CDs or post it so it shows up on your Spotify, your itunes, then that's cash that needs to come from somewhere.

So this time, you know, this was produced by the Partially Examined Life. So thanks to Pel citizens who their past monies went into making these things available, making them such sound sweet as they do. However, that was an experimental investment in my musical endeavors by the podcast. And unless we recoup some of the costs by people buying the CDs or there's even a place in our store where you can just throw $5 in the tin to get the MP3 versions, even though you already are listening to them here now for free. If you show that you actually do not feel beset upon by having these, that you appreciate that, that the music is part of it, then the guys will get that message.

And I have three more albums that need mastering, so perhaps they'll be released somewhere someday or else I'll have to do a Kickstarter if I can't get money out of Pel for them. Alright, last song, which Is the song that you picked, Seth, the last song that's left?

1:59:43 Unknown speaker: Well, the song I picked was no Exit. And not just because what better topic for a song, but also, I thought thematically and musically kind of in touch with both the philosophy and the work of fiction of the same name. It had kind of a. Lilting is not the right word, but you paired it down a little bit, you know, sort of a little more singer, songwriter. Y. I don't know enough about keys, but it wasn't up tempo or top beat. But what got me Mark about the song song is the hook in the.

What's it called?

The refrain, the chorus term. The chorus. Hell is other people with nothing to do.

2:00:26 Mark: Hell, other people here with nothing to do. Yes, yes.

2:00:29 Unknown speaker: And I wanted to ask you about that particular lyric because the suggestion. Right, so the phrase is hell is other people. And yet your suggestion is that perhaps if in this place we had something to do to busy ourselves with, perhaps, or to give life meaning, hell would not be other people. So I wanted to first ask about that.

2:00:52 Mark: Well, that is interesting. An unexplored piece of the play. If there had been, like, some workout gear, if they could buff themselves up

2:00:59 Unknown speaker: like they're maybe a jigsaw puzzle, or

2:01:03 Mark: can they write anything? Can they write their memoirs? Is there any chance, even if they weren't going to be shown to anyone but each other?

2:01:09 Unknown speaker: Other.

2:01:09 Mark: Seems like the opportunities in that artificial world created in the play by Sartre were quite limited.

2:01:16 Unknown speaker: I agree, but I think that's also one of the explorations of the themes is the idea that we create meaning through work or through action. And that one solution for the people in the noexit room would be to do something. So that was the first thing that struck me about it. And then the second. The second thing that struck me about it was the fact that if I remember the play correctly, it's entirely external dialogue. In other words, there are no asides and there's no structure where we get any insight into the inner life or inner monologue of any of the characters. It's all about them externalizing and interacting with each other. But your no Exit song sounds to me more like it could be like the voiceover.

Right.

Or. Or it's an internal monologue of the character. So it opens the dimension of perhaps introducing this doubt that something that could be explored about how somebody's emotional state was without it having been communicated or put into part of the dialogue.

2:02:19 Mark: Well, it sounds like you're saying that the song added a consummatory Fulfilling extra layer on Sartre's imperfect work. So now it's perfect. That's the way I interpret it.

2:02:29 Unknown speaker: That it certainly improved made it better. In fact, I think that this should be required release. So you should go back and find whoever owns the copyright for no Exit and find a way that anytime anybody buys the playbook or the script, they're also required to purchase the song, required

2:02:50 Mark: to listen, in fact, with no way of auditorially blinking just like the people in the podcast play.

2:02:57 Unknown speaker: Yeah, maybe. In fact, maybe we could find a way to integrate it that it's the closing song or maybe the opening song or maybe an interlude.

2:03:05 Mark: Well, thank you for joining me for the last bit here. I'm sure people are glad to hear you and that you will be on our very soon to be released Aristotle's De Anima episode, both parts of it. And it's going to be an awesome 2016.

2:03:20 Unknown speaker: It is. I can't wait. Wait.

So this is it. This is what it's like.

It's not like we imagined back on the flip side.

No torturers, no lake of flames

Just

you and you and I with only

ourselves to blame Just sitting and sitting

and thinking about believing and what they will be doing without there's no aces, no way out of here Though the strategy is hazy the results are too

clear there's no no exit, no escape

from you and hell is other people

here with nothing to do we're letting

forgetting us back there on earth we

regretting and getting on each other's nerves you are rub me wrong I guess that's the point I wish that you

would both shut up or we had

a joint we don't belong together in this room

I don't think illuminage that's

why we'll happen too soon not pretty this pink lady I'm feeling so deep

I don't think I can sleep with you Cause only never sleep there's no

exit, no way out of here Though their strategy is hazy the result sounds too clear there's no exits, no escape

from you and the hands of the

people here with nothing to do Eternal estrangements this is our prize the final arrangement I look through your eyes and

see me the product of things I have done I know I deserve this

but shit it's no fun there's no exit, no way out of here all

the strategies here the results are too

clear there's no exit, no escape from

you

and head is of the people here with nothing to do.

2:06:29 Mark: Well, good night everybody.

2:06:31 Unknown speaker: Good night.

Thanks yeah.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye. Bye.

Good chat.

All right, buddy.

Bye.

2:06:37 Mark: Bye.

2:06:38 Unknown speaker: Peace.

As a Lutheran, though, I wanted to make clear that you're going to hell.

Okay, that is more than enough of that.