Season 4

We launch into the pod by talking about a short Punch and Judy animation by Jan Švankmajer, Czech filmmaker and artist, which leads us into a talk about The Brothers Quay and then into reflections on Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban which leads into thoughts on Philip Glass, which leads to Lionel mentioning Kraftwerk, and electronic processing of found sound and spoken word when Jim says he wants to do a new project in Iceland in slow rap format. This all happens in the first seven minutes. We wonder aloud whether Iceland is still populated after the latest eruption in Grindavík.

Jim says he finished the novel Trust by Hernan Diaz and they proceed to rip it to shreds. They plan to read Demon Copperhead which shares the Pulitzer Prize with that book.

We talk about the difference between the New York Times Bestseller list and the New York Review of Books.

Jim speculates that A.O. Scott has been reviewing books at the New York Review of Books. Jim mentions that they went to camp together and he was super smart back then.

They talk about all the errors Jim made the previous podcast and then they talk about Landscape with Invisible Hand again, which Lionel said was too sad to watch.

Lionel says he’s listened to the AI generated song of Frank Sinatra singing Smells Like Teen Spirit which then launches a doom-filled discussion about the garbagification of all future free information, mentioning Yuval Herari along the way.

Jim mentions an article he read by Douglas Rushkoff about Narrative Collapse, comparing it to The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson.

Jim breaks the rules and mentions the Roger Stone recording and the decreasing weight that can be placed on recorded evidence.

Lionel brings up a book he read called Neither Black Nor White by Carl Degler about the nature of slavery in Brazil.

We end by prefacing our future discussion about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.