We continue in this fashion, touching on a myriad of subjects. Here is a partial list:

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - parallels are drawn between William Gibson’s The Peripheral and the above book. Jim talks about his experience reading Infectious Generosity by Chris Anderson

They Might Be Giants and albums: I like Fun, Book, John Henry

This leads us into a short discussion about surrealism, including: Remedios Varo a surrealist painter from Uraguay and Renee Magritte

Back to music, we try to find similar artists to TMBG and come up with: Cake and the album Comfort Eagle, Ween and the album Chocolate & Cheese, Beck, Daft Punk, and Laurie Anderson

We start to list musical inspirations like Lana DelRey, the documentary Summer of Soul by Questlove, Roots Manuva from a collection by Ninja Tune. We touch briefly on Amon Tobin, Juana Molina, The Cinematic Orchestra and their album Ocean, the song Birthday by The Sugarcubes, and Kaktus’ father Einar Örn Benediktsson

We close with a recommendation by Jim to look up Concordia Shwarma-McGraw aka Katherine Ellis on TikTok or YouTube.

The Unforgettable Logan Foster is a middle grade superhero story that deals with neurodivergence, autism, foster parenting, and the trials and tribulations associated with defeating a supercharged tectonic-powered villian creating havoc in downtown LA. Shawn shares a lot about his past history writing screenplays and his descision to start writing stories for kids. We hear about Shawn’s quest for an agent and the process of getting published, along with the extended timelines involving editing and promotion. Jim shares comparisons between the Logan Foster stories and DC/Marvel comic book dramas and Lionel draws a parallel between Shawn’s book and other books about autism such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.

Shawn talks about traveling to schools and the joys of reading his books to middle grade students and the excitement of being part of their early literary lives. We venture off to the excitement of creation and sharing that creation with others. We get some other inside stories about how the stories were created and Shawn shares another author he is excited about: Ernesto Cisneros and his book: Efrén Divided.

Follow Shawn’s future writing and find out more about his two published books at shawnpeterswrites.com.

It reminds Lionel of something he saw at the Newseum in Washington, DC. Jim talks about his recent move from his old office to the new one upstairs, listing some of his Uncle's old books and collectables. Notable among these is his copy of the DC Special #1: An All Infantino Issue.

We launch into our reactions to Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. It turns out, this was not our favorite of her great works. Comparisons are made to The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson, which we discussed in past episodes. Lionel decides that an author presenting a future hellscape must accompany it with a sense of humor for him to be able to get through it. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is mentioned as well. Jim refers to another book from a previous episode to talk about how people cooperate in the face of catastrophe, A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit.

We find our way back into Parable when Lionel talks about how it's more a story about what life is actually like today, for some, rather than what life might be like at some future point, drawing comparison to Margaret Attwood. Jim mentions that the idea of the drug pyro was fantastic and horrific, and the invention of the type of empath, the "sharer" concept was interesting. Overall, Jim preferred Kindred, and Wild Seed by Butler.

Lionel says he finished reading Gideon The Ninth, which he loved. We talked about our plans to read and talk about Distraction, by Bruce Sterling, as an example of prophetic science fiction. That book will have to wait, as there are no copies available, and we have a guest next week.

Jim mentions that he's reading Infectious Generosity by Chris Anderson.

Lionel talks about the Craigslist Hall of Fame listing for a 1999 Toyota Corolla.

Jim reacts to the song News by Kraftwerk. We talk about vocal processing, filtering out the words and leaving the notes and rhythm.

Jim mentions he's be watching Blue Eye Samurai on Lionel's recommendation. We compare it to Samurai Jack, Zatoichi, and other Samurai westerns.

(image for this podcast: Yuen Qiu in "Kung Fu Hustle." Photo: Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, 2004.)

Lionel says he watched Kung Fu Hustle and loved it. He also mentions he saw Maestro and Oppenheimer, neither of which Jim has seen. He talks about Hanford and Oak Ridge, which are untold parts of the story of the atomic bomb.

Jim talks about Cillian Murphy, listing some of his past works, and focusing on Sunshine.

Finally, Lionel finds the Erratum he was seeking. You will have to listen to hear it.

We are reminded by this of the movie Defending Your Life by Albert Brooks. Jim compares it to The Bardo, thinking one could create scriptures based on that movie alone.

We skid to a halt.

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 Handagain, 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. 

Lionel is inspired to go on 2 rants. The first is about youtube reviewers who get free gear. His second rant is about a story that shows how AI can be used to get around restrictions imposed on AI. Jim compares this to the Heartbleed exploit of the past decade but much worse. Given the carelessness with which these Artificial Garbage Generators have been put together, Jim expresses his concerns about twitter’s security now that Musk is cutting it to the bone. Lionel says the horse has left the barn.

Jim talks about the I Ching Oracle by Catherine Pilfrey and shares a card he picked to start his day. He then recaps his recent trip to Carmel, California and talks about recent churn in the Pacific Ocean, food, wine (Boekenoogen, Carmel Road, Parsonage), & relaxation. He mentions that he saw a grey whale and also saw a Hyundai Nexo, which is a hydrogen fuel cell electric car. They start talking about the nature of hydrogen as a fuel, but Jim insists that it's a sort of battery, referring it erroneously as a molecule rather than an element. Lionel brings up his feeling that fusion is the deal breaker, but Jim presses his idea that electrolysis should happen inside a car.

Lionel touts the benefits of petroleum products for manufacturing. We touch on Bakelite, Cellophane, and Mauve dye, which were synthetics created prior to the petroleum age. Jim comes back to hydrogen, unable to let go of his idea. Lionel mentions the Family Atomics from Dune, and the subject changes to Climate Change.

They talk about changes in culture and religion that relate directly to our preservation of the ecosystem. Jim talks about how doing the right thing can be made fun and feel futuristic, relating it to his experience renting a Chevy Bolt EUV (not a Ford, as he mistakenly says). Lionel wonders whether it's better to get a new electric car or to run his current car to the ground, mentioning the problems with that argument. They move on to find figures on the biggest greenhouse emitters today, googling franticly to get figures on power generation statistics and power use statistics by industry sector. Jim mentions hempcrete and Lionel despairs that everything is turning into Jim’s cyber-hippie novels. The conversation breaks down along super-nerd lines by mentioning the Pierson’s Puppeteers of Larry Niven’s books. 

Lionel says another game changer will be the advent of the sodium battery in cars. We branch off into nuclear and solar energy, touching on France’s use of nuclear energy, and battery storage for renewable power. The fact that solar is decentralized makes it the most attractive option according to both Lionel and Jim. Jim mentions a cartoon he saw about how from the point of view of the energy barons solar power is not feasible. 

Lionel mentions a documentary about Vangelis, the composer who created the soundtrack to Blade Runner. Jim says he wanted to read the book Trust by Hernan Diaz on his flight to California, but watched the Barbie Movie instead. Praises are sung. Jim also mentions a movie he saw, that felt like an indie called Landscape with Invisible Hand (not hidden hand, as he says, quoting his own song.) Robert Reich is mentioned tangentially as part of a discussion about what makes a great story. 

Finally, they come back to the book Trust, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, which Jim had not finished, but which they will return to in future episodes.

This long conversation continues until Teletubbies are mentioned, and they reach a merciful end.

Lionel talks about his visit to Jim's childhood home in Peter Cooper Village, where a scene from Three Days on the Condor was filmed. Jim talks about going to the Speakeasy Open Mic on MacDougal Street when it was run by Dave Van Ronk.

Lionel recalls his visit to the Met, Central Park, Essa Bagel & Franks Trattoria.

We move into a discussion about the book Deadly Companions by Dorothy H. Crawford and The Great Nadar: The man behind the camera: by Adam Begley, which leads us into recollections of the Belle Epoch which leads to a mention of Hugo, the film, and The History of the Twentieth Century, the podcast by Mark Painter.

Finally, we talk about how the turn of the 20th century hinges on the Dreyfus Affair & the fascination with Netsuke and another year of ‘funny,’ not funny comes to a close.

Catherine talks about the process of creating the deck, and her own experience using the I Ching in the past. She mentions the original methods of yarrow sticks and coins and how the cards are different. Catherine says she was inpspired by the book, The Laws of Change by Jack M. Balkin, who says that the method is unimportant. 

Jim asks about the origins of the Book of Changes, and Catherine first mentions Richard Wilhelm, who did the first English/German Translation. Catherine says it pre-existed Confucious but that he added a moral quality to the augur method. In buddhism, Chögyam Trungpa was interested in the I Ching, and it was embraced by many of his students. Lionel talks about Philip K. Dick’s use of the I Ching and yarrow sticks in The Man In The High Castle. Lionel mentions a game/puzzle called House of Cards by the Eames Brothers, and Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies as welll as an article sent to us by Sarah Elkins espousing a theory that the I Ching was created to prevent human sacrifice in ancient China.

Catherine describes the hexagrams and their parts. She tells a story about how she consulted the I Ching for the first time to decide what to do in a relationship that was going south. Jim interrupts with a difficulty he's currently having during the recording of the podcast, and Catherine picks a card for him to decide whether he needs to end the podcast and deal with the issue, or keep going. He gets the answer, and the podcast continues. Catherine talks about how the I Ching can strengthen our confidence in our own inner wisdom.

From there we shift to the subject of Luddites. Jim mentions that he’s been reading Blood In The Machine by Brian Merchant, and discussion ensues about the historical Luddite movement. This dovetails into the topic of another book Jim’s been reading A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. In her book, Solnit discusses about how revolutions and disasters tend to bring communities together, but that those movements are often disrupted when the bogeyman of property loss scares people. This reminds Lionel of garage door openers and lawsuits sighting garage robberies which were close to non-existent. Jim shares stories about getting mugged in New York City back in the day and shares a funny story about a near miss on a skateboard. Point being, robberies do happen, but that Solnit shows how disasters bring communities together despite our tendency to distrust each other. Lionel talks about his experience living in Texas which leads to our recollections of near catastrophes in southern diners by both Jim and Lionel.

We move on to talk about Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and several of his other novels. We talk about Paris in the 20th Century, which was not published while Verne was alive, but was remarkably prescient. Jim says he’s looking for his next read, and Lionel recommends The Great Nadar, about a famous photographer in Paris in the 19th Century. Lionel mentions The Faun by Claude Debussy and we close.

Hewitt talks about working with Jim Steinman before he passed. We talk about the effect of MTV on music and how lots of recording artists wouldn’t have been as successful without it. We also talk about the elongation of hits in the public eye because videos stayed popular longer than songs on the radio. Jim mentions a quote from Seth Godin: “people like us like things like this,” and the tribal aspect of letting viewers decide what they like. Hewitt talks about wanting to be surprised by music, which was more possible when bands put out a new record every year, rather than riding out an album for multiple years on MTV. Lionel talks about a time when Jim told him that monetizing music was dead and how he didn't believe it then, but does now. 

Hewitt talks about wanting to support the artist Matt Pond, and how he wished people would be patrons of music. Naturally, Patreon comes up. Lionel wishes there was a way to support artists with micro-donations on YouTube. Hewitt points out that there is a feature in live chats that works like this. He mentions Philip McKnight and his channel Know Your Gear, and how he has support buttons in his live chats.

Jim breaks in to play clips from Hewitt’s songs but is derailed by Lionel asking about the naming convention used in the tracks he sent us. Hewitt explains that the secondary titles indicate the number of mixes. Jim plays clips from Evelyn, Howl, and Until the Sun Explodes. Hewitt mentions his friend, Christian Finnegan and his podcast Audio Spackle where he referred to Hewitt as “the Howard Hughes of music.” He talks about his plans to eventually get the music out there when they are ready. Jim pushes back, saying he should release the songs and work on the next ones. Hewitt also mentions how hard it is for new songwriters to be among peers who aspire to be artistic, rather than commercial. We mention Taylor Swift and how she is inspiring a new generation but how she lacks competition in this current environment. 

Lionel mentions how he's been turned on to Lana Del Rey and some other artists and talks about how he demonstrates how many new artists are copies of older artists, Lana being the main exception. He says that collaboration like the kind Jim engaged with, with Kurt Uenala is so important. Jim stresses the importance of open mics in honing the craft of the singer songwriter. He stresses the unpredictability of which song is good, and how the artist is often the worst judge of this. We end with a discussion of how good or great is relative, and Hewitt mentions a song for which we had no clip, called The Shame of Diamonds, which he felt achieved everything he wanted. We will leave that song for when he decides to release it.

Lionel talks about Roy Clarke and his appearances on Hee Haw. Lionel mentions a few of his favorite of Hewitt’s songs, made available to us for this podcast, first The Thief, then Leaning On You, and Just Rock and Roll. Jim added 2 clips in post-production. Hewitt mentions his conversation with storyteller, jewelry maker, Raelinda Woad. Hewitt talks about how his dad encouraged him to speak publicly at an early age, and express himself with music. When he was five, he stood up at a toastmasters banquet and gave a speech about dolphins. Hewitt grew up in New Brighton, MN which was mentioned in the movie In The Line of Fire. While we are on the subject of movies, Lionel mentions Burn After Reading, but we get back on track. Hewitt's family moved to Acton, MA, home of Bill Morrissey, Steve Carell, and Caroll Spinney. A friend of his from there, Christian Finnegan used Hewitt’s music in his standup show, Show Your Work. 

At this point, Lionel derails us with a story about rodents being shipped by a humane society to another humane society. We hope this story is not too disturbing to listeners. We decided to keep it in. We meant no disrespect to the rodents. Jim tries to get us back on track by playing a clip from an unreleased song by Hewitt Huntwork: No Mistake. Hewitt talks about what inspired it and his recording history, and we end part one of our interview.

We begin by talking about Dave’s instruction on ‘heartbeat physics,’ positing heartbeats as a form of life currency. He talks about how hard it is to get noticed among the 120,000 songs uploaded to Spotify each day. The importance of having a team is emphasized in the enormous endeavor of getting noticed among the hundreds of millions of songs in the air.

Dave mentions how he recently has started writing songs again without any expectations. Club owners need people in the club, and those people usually need to be drinking. Jim plays a clip of a song from his new album Postcards From Kindergarden Vol. 1, 86 years. We talk about the idea of internal age and waiting for the dad download to transform us into what we are. Lionel mentions our conversation with Phil Broikos and his project A Day In Music, specifically, the song about Back To The Future. Dave says he focuses more on what we do with our time, and still being here, rather than the morbid dread of the clock ticking out.

We switch to Dave’s song The Invisible Girl, and the process of getting that guitar sound. Dave says it's by Jeff Neumann from The Filters. Dave mentions that he and Jim will be doing a show at Club Passim in February. Dave talks about the process of recording with Epic Records back when O Positive had a record deal with them, Jim plays Imagine That, arguably the big hit from that record. Dave talks about working with Pete Walsh and switching out drum heads between takes.

We talk about getting a vocal take right with minimum takes to keep the lines fresh, valuing verve over perfection. Jim relates that experience to his time in Iceland and working with Dan Cantor at his studio. Dave says he’s been working toward doing things alla prima. He says he's remixing a recording of O Positive songs from a cassette recorded at WERS in the 90s with Dan. Dan has software not unlike what was used on the recent Beatles single to separate out the tracks from the old recording and remix them.

Dave invites Jim to write a new song with him. He says he’s been cowriting with as many people as he can. We talk about songs as postcards, the inspiration behind Dave’s new album. Jim mentions that there is a song from an O Positive album Toy Boat, Toy Boat, Toy Boat that lives in his head to today.

We close by talking about the origins of music in the human species. Lionel mentions his reactions to watching both Stop Making Sense, the remastered version, and Home of The Brave. We end on an awkward note.

All Things Brooklyn Public Library

* Brooklyn Public Library Books Unbanned page

* Brooklyn Public Library Books Unbanned merch

* Brooklyn Public Library Borrowed and Banned podcast

* Brooklyn Public Library Library of Things

* Culture Pass NYC

* Brooklyn Public Library Materials Selection Policy

* Brooklyn Public Library Submission Guidelines for Authors and Publishers

Book Bans & Challenges Stats

* American Library Association Banned & Challenged Books

* National Coalition Against Censorship Youth Censorship Database

* PEN America Book Bans page

* PEN America Index of School Book Bans 2022-23

Books Unbanned Partners

* Boston Public Library Books Unbanned page

* Seattle Public Library Books Unbanned page

* San Diego Public Library Books Unbanned page

* LA County Public Library Books Unbanned page

* PEN America Advocacy Institutes

We begin by talking about the balance between the creative life and career, and how that balance is never equal. Jim reads the lyrics from Ottawa before playing a clip, saying he wishes he had the lyrics printed out because they are so good. He mentions having seen a video on TikTok about how lots of women pitch their voices higher to gain acceptance. Karaugh says that the pitch of her voice matches her writing voice. We talk about the production of One Round Orange and Favorite Daughter and the process of working with Billy Conway from Morphineand Bill Morrissey in the studio.

We talk about the next track San Antonio, and Karaugh shares a story about busking in Padua Italy. The song is about the basilica there. Lionel gets excited about the university which he calls the first university in Europe, however, it was the second. We talk about the joys and dangers of revisiting a magical place from the past. We discuss the ritual hazing of the graduates there and compare to other ritual events in our visits to Italy.

Karaugh talks about how great it has been to get amazing and famous musicians to play at little bars around Boston. Jim mentions Dave Mattacks as an example before playing a clip from the song Blackout City. This song features Rose Polenzani on background vocals. Karaugh says it was written about New York City during a blackout during the early 2000s.

Jim plays a clip from a song called Stealing Women. Karaugh relates the story behind the song, which took place in Boston at the time she was working at a women’s shelter. There had been a series of kidnappings in the area at that time. Jim mistook the place for something more rural. Karaugh and Jim compare writing styles.

Before playing a clip from the song Gone, and then a clip added in post-production of the original song All Good Men, recorded live at Club Passim, the Campfire. Jim talks about how James O'Brien, Karaugh Brown, Jim and his wife Catherine used to live in a carriage house in Davis Square, Somerville. We talk about the changes between the James & Karaugh version of the song and the original. 

Jim plays another clip from The Campfire: Keep Giving. We talk about Karaugh’s plans for her next recording of her originals, and she talks about a plan to release an album of Bill Morrissey’s songs including Last Day of the Last Furlough and She Moved Through the Fair. Jim suggests that the Bill Morrissey album should be all synthesizers and recorded in Iceland. Karaugh thinks that would be something Bill would like. We discuss Bill’s music and why he was such an icon in New England folk music. Jim mentions the last time he saw Bill alive.

At this point, we lost Lionel to a computer problem. We close out with a clip from Favorite Daughter: the song I Can Save You featuring Kris Delmhorst on strings and Bridget Matros on backing vocals written during Karaugh’s time at the shelter.

After the outro, Lionel returns to talk more about the songs and the Gardner museum.

Thus begins our discussion about ambient music, and what it is. Jim mentions that he has been turned on to a new artist named Glenn Jones by our past guest, David Partikian. Comparisons are drawn to Leo Kottke and especially John Fahey. Jim says that there is something ambient about these guitarists with the exception of most of Kottke’s work. Lionel mentions the book, The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast and what he learned from it. Thus begins a furious reference bomb session, touching on Erik Satie, the Goldberg Variations, Evening Star and No Pussyfooting by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, early cylinder recordings and Musique Concrète, the albums God Save The Queen / Under Heavy Manners, and Exposure by Robert Fripp, featuring Daryl Hall, and Peter Gabriel.

Continuing in this vein, Lionel talks about some ambient radio shows like Star’s End and DJs like Chuck van Zyl. Naturally, we return to Joe Frank, Work in Progress. Was Windham Hill an ambient record label? We think not. Why not? It comes back to the question of genre and the question of Speculative Fiction vs Science Fiction vs Fiction. Lionel asks “what is jazz?” and talks about hearing the work of Kurt Rosenwinkle on KRTU.

Back to Eno, Jim talks about is experience watching the documentary of the recording of The Unforgettable Fire. At this point we arrive at It’s no game David Bowie. Jim talks about how he can't stop recalling the song Wide Awake which was part of the same Unforgettable Fire project but came out with a more raw sound than Pride- In the Name of Love. We briefly devolve to our 12 year old selves and run through some Onanista tropes. Jim suggests that even Eno succumbed to the influence of the record label in having to record the latter. Lionel reasserts Eno as a genius as evidenced by Side A of Remain In Light by Talking Heads. Also mentioned is Sacred Songs by Daryl Hall. Lionel brings up Gymnopédies by Satie, as a way to bring us back to the question of ambient music. We propose creating a new podcast called “Now THAT’s Ambient!” We agree that Hiemal would be well represented there. Finally, Jim asks whether Lionel would consider The Tide, a track from Utopia Revisited, an ambient track, and Lionel says he will give it another listen and get back to him.

On to books: Lionel talks about Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. At this point, Jim asks Lionel to reposition his mic to avoid plosives. We think maybe our podcast should be retooled to feature nothing but the two of us adjusting the mic. We then resume our book discussion with some words The Books of Jacob and the issues of translation, referenced in Drive Your Plow. Lionel mentions a translation of Sex by Madonna being translated into Hungarian. Douglas Hofstadter’s writing on the problems of translation comes up. Then we address The 13 Clocks by James Thurber. Jim mentions that Keith Olbermann reads Thurber each Friday on his podcast Countdown, but never from that book. Jim talks about wanting to write a musical based on that book, thinking it had only been done in a high school somewhere, but unaware that it has already been written and published.

Jim says he’s been following a YouTube artist Andrewism who is a philosopher and historian, taking another look at our history and thinking. He is a Solarpunk advocate who discusses the benefit of Libraries of Everything. Specifically, Jim talks about Andrew’s piece on the Myth of the Barter Economy. We look forward to our interview with Leigh Hurwitz, a librarian at The Brooklyn Public Library, who pioneered Books Unbanned. Lionel advocates for drone delivery from the Library of Things and Jim pushes back citing issues Amazon faces with drones. We explore some ideas for what is practical for Libraries of Things.

We talk about existing shared resources, touching on robotic cars and the protest against them. Jim says he’s reading Piranesi to his daughters but that it’s been slow going with increased homework by his eldest. He talks about plans to see his wife Catherine race in the Head of the Charles regatta. Jim mentions he’s feeling like crap and they close... but...

The discussion continues offline, and Jim and Lionel realize, as Lionel gives his critical take on Andrewism that they should come back on the pod and discuss it further. Lionel says it’s really hard to determine how people actually lived, citing the charred scrolls at Vesuvius and the amazing advances in reading them. They seem to be a library of Epicurean Philosophy. Lionel mentions Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond and our Euro-centric concept of agriculture. We mention the Three Sisters and The Lenape People and their form of agriculture. We talk about returning to a discussion of Andrew’s work, and the problems with content on YouTube.

Jim brings up his notion, not an original idea, that money is the one true global religion and references his experience writing the latest volume of his book series. He proposes that monetary valuation is a category mismatch that leads to unhappiness. Lionel draws comparison to the age of railroads and the use of capital to create big works and talks about how technology forces all of us to change the way we order society.

Lionel says he’s hopeful that it is increasingly possible to question the basic tenants of the dominant culture without being labeled a commie. He wonders if there’s a way to do away with agriculture and just print food. He speculates how fusion energy might change all of this with molecular assembly. Jim mentions that we have a giant fusion reactor available to us right now, we just need to collect the energy and store it. Lionel says the fact that information transmission has become so cheap, the effects on the world are remarkable, and the idea of infinite cheap energy would change everything. Jim remembers his old college professor Eric Chaisson who said that even with a zero carbon world, we will still end up with a heat surplus. 

In the end, we decide we need to become like Larry Niven’s puppeteers and move the earth.

We discuss Frederick Douglass, who was born in Robert’s home town. Lionel is reminded of two books we have discussed: American Nations, and Union by Colin Woodard. Impressed by Robert’s vocabulary, we veer off into nautical terms used by Patrick O’Brian’s use of language in Master and Commander, for example, what is a futtock shroud?  We discuss the best way to define a thriller, and Robert draws the example to the TV show Banshee. We bring up other notable related novels in this genre including The Jack Reacher books by Lee Child, The John Clark novels by Tom Clancy, the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald, the Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte Series by Arthur W. Upfield, and Chesapeake by James A. Michener. Lionel is reminded again of The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes. Robert talks about flying his Cessna 152 out of New Jersey and Lionel and he get excited about the future of Air Taxis.

Thank you to Robert Whitehill for spending time with us talking about all these things. We’d love to have him back to discuss his later books.

The rest of our conversation centers around the use of humor in speculative fiction, including works by Stephen R. Donaldson, Mark Leyner, Susanna Clarke, & Neal Stephenson. Jim brings up Malcom Gladwell’s definition of story. Lionel recommends watching The Day of The Jackal. We make a plan to read some Robert Whitehill. Jim watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and they discuss the role of the game in that movie. Jim mentions his invite as a guest speaker at a college English class at Defiance College. Jim quotes his friend Barry Crimmins. At the end Jim has a question for our listeners about moving the podcast to Substack. You can reach him via the email address he mentioned or via the contact form on our website.

If you want to support this podcast and Jim’s other creative projects, become a patron or subscribe to his Substack.

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To see all the books we talked about, check out our references page for this episode.

Greg Olear joins the pod to discuss his novel “Empress: The Secret History of Anna K.” Greg Olear is an author, novelist, journalist, and podcaster. His substack, PREVAIL tackles the currently mad political news cycle as both weekly articles and podcast episodes. His Friday YouTube podcast is called The Five 8 featuring well known political guests. We leave the politics to one side for most of this conversation to focus on this heartbreaking fictional autobiography of the life of Anna Komnene, first daughter to the usurping Byzantine Emporor Alexios Komnenos and her thwarted rise to power. The book covers the life of this amazing woman during a period of history left largely untouched by modern historians. Eventually, we drift off to touch on the songs of Taylor Swift and Joni Mitchell, and his warning about Leonard Leo. This was a special interview for us. We hope you enjoy it.

Bill is a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard and the co-director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. Jim met him while on tour with Jim’s Big Ego in London. We talk about English Football, Thanksgiving from a UK perspective, Doctor Who, Billy Butcher, Frank Herbert, Zombie Math, and the World of Warcraft disease. You might recognize his voice from his interviews on NPR in which he as appeared as an expert in virology on the topic of the COVID pandemic. I promised him we would talk about anything but epidemiology, but it crept in anyway.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~08-Bill-Hanage/

All audio clips used with permission from Ellis Paul.

New Theme music: “Hum” from Utopia Revisited by Jim Infantino

This week we talk with James Meyer, a photographer and artist who did 12 deployments in Afghanistan as a flight engineer on C130s, moving cargo during the war. We talk about his life as an artists and how his tours of duty inform his work.

Lionel and Jim talk about Birkenstocks, Uggs, scorpions (not the band), the Men at Work lawsuit, Borges & The Lottery of Babylon, algorithms and black boxes, Mozart In Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling, Walkaway by Corey Doctorow, the problem of explainers in speculative fiction, The Diplomat on Netflix, Hugh Howey’s Wool and the Apple TV show Silo, The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, Susanna Clarke’s books Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and Piranesi, the quality of Apple TV’s speculative fiction shows, Jim’s adventures in writing and publishing, Lionel’s impending move, Hiemal’s music, badvertising, unnecessary quotation marks, and cake disasters.

Jim and Lionel talk about the Andy Warhol case at the Supreme Court, discussing parody vs sampling, Two Live Crew, artists and inventors who began with a craft, graft, difficult listening hour, Meghan O'Gieblyn's book God, Human, Animal, Machine, The Book of Job, more stuff in The Bible, Calvinism, Jim's invitation to an LA premiere, the origins of The Flash, Carmine Infantino's view of Manhattan, and some upcoming ideas for new episodes.

Listen to the full project here: https://adayinmusic.bandcamp.com/

All song samples included with permission from David Wilcox.

[contains fbombs]

Lionel and Jim continue their discussion of AI, and move into the idea of human understanding through modeling, Isomorphism, stories, and the importance of forgetting.

All song clips included with permission from John Chin.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~11-John-Chin/

Jim’s Books: https://wakefulwanderer.com

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~10-Back-to-Humanity/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~08-We-sell-holes/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~07-From-Iceland/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~06-The-Milkman/

Photo credit: Fred Romero from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~05-Iron-Maiden/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~04-Damien-Cassin/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~03-Caller-Tim/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~02-Mindful-Aware/

Professor Donald Smith returns to the pod, post haste to deal with Jim’s misconceptions about gravity, a discussion of neutron stars and the James Webb Telescope, mental models in physics, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Ptolemy, and more.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~01-Donald-Smith-2/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~14-Johnny-Gottadoo/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~13-Donald-Smith/

Late release due to time constraints.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~12-Superstition-Ain~rsquo~t-The-Way/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~11-Ben-Burnes/

All song samples included with permission from Ben Burnes.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~10-Upside-Down/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~09-Kurt-Uenala/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~08-Bill-Hanage/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~07-Vance-Gilbert/

All song clips included with permission from Vance Gilbert.

References here: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~06-Secret-Aardvark/

John talks with us about creating cartoons, writing the stories we watch, adaptations & mutations, shows he’s watching, and the books he is reading, including:

Neon Genesis Evangelion

The Book of Strange New Things

A book his friend is writing about an Orc in Mordor

The Flashman Papers

Rendezvous with Rama

Riddley Walker

Finally, we reminisce about our trip to Italy together and end up with our admiration of Mark Hamill and Roz Ryan as voice-over actors.

References / with links for this episode: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~05-John-Infantino/

This is correct imdb page.

We look forward to having him back.

Jim and Lionel discuss streaming shows and books including the Rings of Power, the upcoming show based on William Gibson’s The Peripheral, Chef’s Table: Pizza, N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy, Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza, and Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan.

Photo by Brenda Timmermans: https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-photo-of-white-goat-58914/

Actual historian Robert Gaudi on the War of Jenkin’s Ear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lga2xHDZvOs

References for this episode: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~03-Goats-On-Wings/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~02-Dan-Cantor/

All song clips included with permission from Dan Cantor.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~01-The-Will-of-Landru/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~27-Imperfect-people-being-uncomfortable/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~26-Sarah-Elkins/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~25-Amy-Robinson/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~24-We-fill-in-the-blanks/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~23-Julia-Tenney-2/

And Lionel Was right, Downtown Train was on Rain Dogs.

Dar joins the pod to tell us about her experience writing What I Found In A Thousand Towns, her songwriting and creative process, her experience in Beacon New York with Roger Ailes, the remarkable Jaimie Raskin, our relationship to art, the environment, and each other, Active Citizenship, and so much more.

I could not find the live performance of The Mark Rothko song. If someone knows where it is, please send a tweet to @jiminfantino so I can post it here.

Dar's Website: https://darwilliams.com

Writing A Song That Matters (her retreat): https://darwilliamsretreat.com

Listen to the full project here: https://adayinmusic.bandcamp.com/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~19-The-Huperchild-Problem/

Visit his work at https://dixonvoice.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~18-Walter-Dixon/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~17-Julia-Tenney/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~16-Everything-Will-Always-Never-Be-The-Same-Again/

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~14-David-Partikian/

You can view the lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nv0Ol-R5Q

We also talk about Lionel's college tour of the Northeast, and his experience at an actual Chris Chandler show.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~11-Chris-Chandler/

Bob was a wonderful guest and we know he has many more stories to share. We hope to have him back soon.

The audio mix on this was terrible. Jim is too loud, Lionel is too quiet. After trying his best to mix this one, Jim decided to move to a more expensive Streamyard plan to get separate audio tracks to mix. Apologies, future episodes will be better.

References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~08-Meet-The-Pope/

Mentioned:

The Rings of Power,

William Morris,

Gary Gygax,

Coal: A Human History,

Station Eleven,

The Expanse Book series,

Uncoverage by Una Morera,

My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgård,

Corrections: The town in Italy was Vernazza, and it's The Valar, not The Valor.

In this episode, Lionel & Jim discuss American Nations & Union by Colin Woodard, Distraction & Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling, Station Eleven, and Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North.

Credit to Barry Crimmins for the title of this episode.