Season 4

Peter Mulvey joins the pod in person, sitting side by side with Jim in the Slabmedia offices this week. We talk about his career in songwriting, hitting a little on themes and methods, but also on inspiration, and a long history of work. Jim mentions Peter's TED talk about his book Vlad the Astrophysicist. We talk about the creation of his recordings: Notes from Elsewhere and More Notes from Elsewhere and play some clips from recent albums, Are You Listening?, There Is Another World, and Love Is The Only Thing featuring SistaStrings.

On the literary front, Peter talks about reading The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones, the works of Lorrie Moore, and the poetry of Tom Hennin, notably, Darkness Sticks to Everything and The Herron with No Business Sense.

Jim mentions that Lionel compared some of Peter's work to the guitarist Nic Jones, especially his song, Canada-i-o. We talk about Norwegian prisons and the case of Anders Breivik being sent to a humane prison there, which, interestingly, he calls inhumane in this article.

Our conversation continues to trend in increasingly philosophical directions, including some discussion of meditation and groundlessness until we land on the topic of redemption for the crimes of popular figures, specifically Louis C.K.'s apology. Peter mentions an interaction with Amanda Palmer on forgiveness in this vein.