It’s a Christmas movie, some say, and in the end the holiday classic “Let it Snow” plays over the credits. But what counts as snow in the final scenes is a confetti of smoke, debris, and millions of dollars of bearer bonds, not to mention the Euro-villain who tried to steal them. These descend from the blasted-out upper floor of a skyscraper onto a scene of total destruction. Continue Reading …
(sub)Text: Attachments “Die Hard” at Nakatomi Tower
PREVIEW-Ep. 283: Alain Badiou on Love (Part Two)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode in its entirety. Citizens can get it here. Continuing from part one on "What Is Love?" (1992). We go through Badiou's account of love as the resolution of the paradox that on the one hand, Truth is trans-positional, which means there's no separate "man's truth" and "woman's truth" (or any other division like that), yet the positions Continue Reading …
NEM#161: Chuck Prophet Is On the Couch
Chuck joined Green on Red as guitarist in 1985 and has released 15 solo albums of tuneful guitar rock since 1990, touring constantly and doing a lot of co-writing. We discuss "Womankind" from The Land That Time Forgot (2020), "Your Skin" from Bobby Fuller Died for Your Sins (2017), "Castro Halloween" from Temple Beautiful (2012, the extended single version). We conclude by Continue Reading …
Pretty Much Pop #111: Our Beatles Love-Fest
Mark is joined by musician David Brookings, Gig Gab host Dave Hamilton, and OpenCulture writer Colin Marshall to discuss Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back and the enduring popularity of The Beatles. This was recorded on 12/8, the anniversary of John Lennon’s death. We consider the arc of their career, the various post-mortem Continue Reading …
Ep. 283: Alain Badiou on Love (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On "What Is Love," which is ch. 11 of Conditions (1992), supplemented by In Praise of Love (2009 with Nicolas Truong), with Mark, Wes, Dylan and Seth. In our episode introducing Badiou, we said that love is a "truth procedure," and here we see (sort of) what this means. Love is about Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Ep. 282: Alain Badiou: What Is Philosophy? (Part Two)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode in its entirety. Citizens can get it here. Continuing from part one on Conditions (1992), Ch. 1 "The (Re)turn of Philosophy Itself." What makes philosophy possible? Well, there are truths, and these come out of the four "conditions," i.e. mathematics (and science more generally), politics, art, and love. This precludes skepticism Continue Reading …
NEM#160: John McCutcheon Learns the Lessons of Folk
John has released 45 albums since 1975 of original folk, traditional folk, children's music (garnering six Grammy nominations for those), and instrumentals: He is fluent on guitar, banjo, violin, dulcimer, and more. His songs very often tell stories, and we discuss several of those: "Atonement" from Bucket List (2021), "Soup" from John McCutcheon’s Four Seasons: Wintersongs Continue Reading …
Pretty Much Pop #110: The Dune Franchise Tries Again
Yes, we have another Dune film, and this time Warner Bros. is serious about a franchise, with at least one sequel planned and a prequel TV series in the works. With thousands of years worth of world building, the books by Frank Herbert and the world now being fleshed out by his son Brian Herbert with Kevin J. Anderson offer more source material than Star Wars for potential Continue Reading …
Philosophy vs. Improv #18: Utopias w/ Jill Bernard and Michelle Gilliam
Hell is NOT other people, and the more the merrier, with our second episode with guests being with TWO guest improvisers, Jill, co-founder of HUGE Theater and her friend Michelle, owner of Improv MKE. Bill and our guests each start a scene to explore something of what utopia might amount to, and of course how it will inevitably go bad. Then we discuss whether there is some Continue Reading …
(sub)Text: Mad as Hell in “Network” (1976)
Diana Christensen is a television executive in search of an angry show—something that articulates the rage of the average viewer. In Howard Beale, failed newscaster turned mad-as-hell prophet, she seems to get exactly what she’s looking for. Yet in doing so, she reduces political and social discontent to a form of entertainment focused on generating audience excitement and Continue Reading …
Ep. 282: Alain Badiou: What Is Philosophy? (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On Conditions (1992), Ch. 1 "The (Re)turn of Philosophy Itself," featuring Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth. Sponsors: Get connected with a licensed therapist at betterhelp.com/partially. Get 20% off your first box off cool stuff from at boxofawesome.com (code pel). Learn about St. John's Continue Reading …
Philosophy vs. Improv #17: The Imitation Game (with Toaster)
Riffing on resemblance. Eventually invoking the spirit of a toaster. Mark is wrong: the God Emperor of Dune can't drink water at all, just dried food. Learn about Del Close. Philosophy barely makes it in, but if you want to chase down this nonsense about whether a robot cat is still a cat or not, check out the Twin Earth stuff in PEL's Putnam episode. Image by Maia. Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Ep. 281: Paul Feyerabend’s Anarchist Philosophy of Science (Part Two)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode in its entirety. Citizens can get it here. Continuing from Part One on Against Method (1975). Given that according to F., epistemological conformity (getting with the scientific program) can't proceed by an unambiguous appeal to reason, how does it proceed? Through indoctrination, propaganda, and coercion. Even when we want a free, Continue Reading …
NEM#159: Steve Bartek (Oingo Boingo) Is a Writer, Not Just an Arranger
Steve is best known as guitarist/arranger for Oingo Boingo through their eight albums from 1981-1995 and for following its leader Danny Elfman into a life creating movie soundtracks, often for filmmaker Tim Burton. However, his activity as composer goes all the way back to the late '60s and continues today. We discuss "Tango" by jackiO from their self-titled album (2019), Continue Reading …
Pretty Much Pop #109: Dueling in Film
In light of the release of The Last Duel (which you needn't have watched), we talk about the trope of the honor-resolving duel in movies and TV. Mark and guest co-host Dylan Casey of The Partially Examined Life are joined by Clif Mark, host of the Good in Theory podcast who wrote his political thesis and a 2018 Aeon article on the history and logic of Continue Reading …
Philosophy vs. Improv #16: The Legend of Kermit’s Gold w/ Tim Sniffen
Do you believe in miracles? If doctors believed in miracles, would they just let surgeries finish themselves? Do assumptions of a logical universe make it not just unjustified by psychologically impossible for us to really believe in miracles? Read about our VERY FIRST guest, Tim Sniffen at timsniffen.com. Follow him @MisterSniffen and hear him talking more with Mark about Continue Reading …
(sub)Text: Autonomy and Incest in Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex”
His first claim to fame was the solution to a riddle that earned him a kingdom by sheer force of intellect. His second was a doomed attempt to escape the particularly gruesome fates of patricide and incest. With his first act, Oedipus saved the city of Thebes from the sphinx; with his second, he afflicted it with a plague. In his retelling of this myth, Sophocles reflects on Continue Reading …
Ep. 281: Paul Feyerabend’s Anarchist Philosophy of Science (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On Against Method (1975), the introduction through ch. 5 and ch. 15-16, featuring Dylan, Wes, and Seth. This book that began as a joint call-and-response project with our last author Imre Lakatos, but then Lakatos died and couldn't respond to what Feyerabend explicitly wrote roughly in Continue Reading …
Philosophy vs. Improv #15: There is no “I” in “Dahyulectecs”
Who stole Carmine's lunch? I think you know. Are there only a certain number of "logical" directions from one idea to another? Are there no mistakes, or are there mistakes that know? This week's image (which definitely has an eye in it) cribbed from Child's Own. Audio editing by Tyler Hislop. Hear more PvI. Support the podcast to get bonus stuff (like the post-game Continue Reading …
PREVIEW-Ep. 280: Imre Lakatos on Scientific Progress (Part Two)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode in its entirety. Citizens can get it here. Continuing from Part One on "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes" (1970). We try to clarify the difference between dogmatic falsificationism, the view commonly attributed to Karl Popper whereby a disconfirming experiment is taken to definitively refute a Continue Reading …