On this episode, Kris and JDO talk: Uneasiness at work, the notion of time passing, teachers moving on, how to create amazing life stories, working on fishing boats in the North Sea. What is the psychology of someone who chooses to be homeless? How are some people built for adventure and others aren’t? Japanese cholos, psychotronic imagery, syncretic religions, and abandoned asylums. “Memory is what’s happening when you’re not forgetting.” Looking to other world traditions for a way forward. The...
Jun 17, 2024•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 199
On this episode, Kris and JDO break down a lot of the overly-complex cultural conversations to a brutally simple (but not easy) question: why can’t we just be courteous to each other? We also talk about “rewilding” social situations, keeping things fresh, and not taking people for granted. Bringing back the sacred. What does it mean to a child when their parents are too involved in their phones to talk to each other, let alone the child? JDO is given an imaginative challenge as a gender swapped ...
Jun 02, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 198
We have a very special guest for this episode of Lost Xplorers. The great Kent Axell, Vegas stage magician and all-around cool guy, joined us to chop it up. On this episode, we talk about the different types of magic, paranormal phenomena, the writing process of a magic routine, James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, the need for mystery in These Capitalized Times, choosing to believe, and the creative process. One of the most interesting conversations I've had in a while. Kent's a fascinating ...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 197
Kris and JDO talk about the strangness of passing time. JDO talks about the biggest viral scam he ever fell for. “Americans love nothing better than to be fooled.” JDO continues his path to becoming a cult leader by channeling Alan Watts. The strangeness of Florida. The World Weekly News as the ultimate American newspaper. What would an American Tory look like? Philip K. Dick vs. Alan Watts. There’s something in the searching. We are all still children who want to stay up late at night. Speaking...
Apr 25, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 196
Red-headed robins, challenged by the weather, and Oklahoma mythology, including serial killers, mass murders, and werewolves. Imaginative subversion of the terrain. Students are not co-teaching. Two-headed chickens. A homeless freestyle rapper named Big Weiner. And from the notes of Kris Saknussemm: -Rapper 50 Cent, age 48 and trying desperately to look like a cartoon version of someone my students’ age, says to his 12 million X followers, “It’s almost over,” as in Humanity. This while he’s embr...
Apr 19, 2024•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 195
From the notes of Kris Saknussemm... Travel becomes Tourism. This Sacred - > Profane style degeneration is hardly an isolated phenomenon—in fact it might seem to be a Deep Algorithm. But I think the progenitors of the Tourism Age can to some extent be forgiven. It’s fine to say now that they should’ve extrapolated—seen ahead to what large-scale, organized, budget-minded transportation of people around the world for the purposes of recreation or information, fulfillment of some kind—what that ...
Apr 09, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 194
From the notes of Kris Saknussemm... We said last time that we were going to investigate further how the distinction b/w Travel and Tourism might help us understand what’s happened to the project of national public Education in America. An odd proposition to some perhaps. But I think this is easily done, although it’s also easy to be very hard on Tourism. Travel can take many forms, but it’s never crass. Tourism can’t escape that tinge, that odor. Looking deeper, Travel suggests an openness to e...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 193
From the notes of Kris Saknussemm... Temporary tattoos and the latest Oscar’s night—two more examples of why we’ve entered the Post-Civilization Age. People who say the Oscar’s have been in “decline” for quite a while are the kind of folks who wouldn’t draw much distinction between Ted Bundy returning to have sex with a corpse three days after the murder, or three weeks. I maintain there’s a difference. Moving along, it’s struck me of late that there’s a relationship between Education (public sc...
Mar 27, 2024•1 hr 40 min•Ep. 192
FROM THE NOTES OF KRIS SAKNUSSEMM... If people haven’t read Jung’s work on Flying Saucers (as modern myth), I recommend it. I hadn’t looked at it in some time, but I think it reads even better in this age of social media. He completely skirts the issue of “real” or “imagined,” and focuses on the sheer popularity of the mythology. This is the view I took of cargo cult beliefs when I was a failed young anthropologist in Melanesia. Real/Unreal misses the point if something is deeply vivid at the so...
Mar 21, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 191
Today on the show we have a special guest: author/teacher Matthew O'Brien! We chat about the expat lifestyle, finding love through a language barrier, and the lives of people who live in the flood channels beneath Las Vegas. It's a great conversation. Matt is a fascinating guy. Here's his bio from his website, Beneath the Neon : Matthew O’Brien is a writer, editor and teacher/tutor who lived in Las Vegas for twenty years and is currently based in San Salvador, El Salvador. His latest book, Dark ...
Mar 12, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 190
From Kris's notes: I take the view that visual Art begins at the crossroads of eyes and hands. A stick or a bone is good…dust mixed with water. Blood. It’s a start. (With Sculpture, the question seems to me to be how does one escape? The whole world including open ocean is one vast sculpture park.) With music, hands and voice are the original party starters…splashing water. Two rocks would be handy. Maybe a blade of grass or a taut vine. (What’s not a musical instrument?) Work from there. When i...
Mar 06, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 189
JDO gives his AWP trip. Lots of books sold! Many of JDO’s ideas about how culture is were troubled by how cool everybody was. Is the negativity we hear online…just an online thing? Is there value in starting a collective rather than pursuing publication by an indie press or traditional publishers? The distinctiveness of Christopher Walken’s accent…and Kris’s. The disappearance of regional American accents, Korean accents, and British accents. Super Bowl ads…where is the Latino representation? Th...
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 188
SHOW NOTES... We’ve been talking a lot about Education of late, and the insurmountable problem of getting kids interested in reading if they aren’t already. Two clear thoughts have emerged. One, I think the tired but all-too-accurate metaphor that American society is an Allegory of High School (jocks, cheerleaders, druggies and criminals in the making, nerds, and disaffected sub-groups, etc.) is becoming more concrete and congruent with each passing year. The only new element I see is the School...
Feb 13, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 187
SHOW NOTES... Relaxed, deep sleep is perhaps the single best natural healing agent there is. If we wake slowly, there’s still a profound vibration of nurture, if not immediate refreshment. But pattern is the key. The reliability of satisfying sleep is elemental to its satisfaction. Consider this then. We live in a time increasingly characterized by sleep problems. Go to the appropriate aisle in any pharmacy. It’s a big aisle. The problem is an epidemic—but not a pandemic. Yet. But are sleeping p...
Feb 13, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 186
FROM KRIS SAKNUSSEMM'S NOTES 1/23/24 Hidden Terrain… What appears to be mythic exhaustion—the Jungian Collective Unconsciousness turned to Dustbowl—may be a socially engineered fiction. Our psychological / mental health apparatus is dysfunctional and overwhelmed. All our approaches center on social-public behaviors. As several noted sex researchers lament, what incentive do people have to share their private psychic experiences honestly? Is it necessarily obvious that they can do this even they ...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 185
First day back teaching. Education of today no longer lines up with the needs of young people. What if education was project-based? Outdoors? Kris recounts his history with his Black Mountain Nemesis. Is there something wrong with the architecture of schools? The impossibility of convincing teenagers who don’t like to read, to read. What’s going on with the price of sandwiches? Kris’s band for the day: THE LUXURIANTS! Radical wealth excess. A scathing attack on fandom. Is there any real cultural...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 184
Snow on the mountains. Starting to teach Jurassic Park. The tallest novelist of all time. Crichton’s most controversial novel. Was Crichton a good novelist? Trapped in the bathroom. Is the science ever settled? Harmful Content. Militant non-musicians. Compliance. Kris vs. The Looping World. Lost malls. Hunting for bookstores in a small town. The worst bookstore in the history of America. Return policies on dirty magazines. Osmos with the cosmos, or you will be socializing with a bureaucracy of g...
Jan 16, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 183
Kris and I get in the holiday spirit! Well, we start off cheery, at least. Learning how to reuse the internet. Crossing the Drake Passage. The Truth About Dinosaurs. Shout out Jay for putting me on to new ways to surf the web. Are you using your tools, or are your tools using you? Robot Santa Carnival of Blood. Kris has invented The Memory Game. Which game improves memory the most? JDO attempts to rank them. Intuition vs. memory. JDO’s imaginative exercise leads to “Polycule Slaughterhouse.” JDO...
Jan 06, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 182
We've got a slightly darker episode this time around. But there's lots of valuable insight to be had. Kris meets a magician named Kent Axell. Area 15 in Vegas. JDO vents about frustrations with adminstrators. Being a high school teacher is kind of like being Tyler Durden. Learning how to teach The Great Gatsby. The tragic figure of F. Scott Fitzgerald. A potluck band. Tribal music making. Bighorn sheep at the lake. Is the universe top-down or bottom-up? JDO shares his line art with Kris. BIG IDE...
Dec 28, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 181
Look out for another new episode dropping on Saturday! Words of the year. The etymology of authentic. JDO talks about getting a bunch of birthday cards. Visual novels. Mother Killed by Shark. Do You Know Where Your Parents Are? The inverse of a viking helmet. Pharrel’s Dudley Do Right hat. What about all the good things cults have done? The strangeness of time. Every Wednesday is the same Wednesday. Going full Bartleby. The singularity of the scrivener. Why do we have to do anything? Yielding so...
Dec 21, 2023•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 180
Over the next few days, there will be a new episode of Lost Xplorers dropping daily! A Christmas miracle! JDO got a bit behind on the uploading during finals season at school, and it is time to catch up so our official Christmas episode drops around Christmas. It’s officially Christmas season! Cheddar biscuits. Ultimate endless shrimp. Mcnugget boxes. Gas prices. On-the-street, at-the-drive-thru-menu level economics. The Undaunted. High lonesome cowboys wrapped in bandages into S&M. The hung...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 179
Kris and JDO record a Tascam episode! Walking and thinking. The Accelerants. Atomic age cartoon characters. Milestones vs. mileblurbs. What has happened to the holiday season reindeer? Undercover teacher. The Long Kiss Goodnight. JDO recounts his most recent move into an apartment. Mental illness invariably involves time distortion. Personal alignment vs. societal expectations. Blackout time. Stretched-out time. The schizophrenic is touched by God. Physically representing how old the dinosaurs a...
Dec 07, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 178
On this episode, we begin with a bullet-pointed takedown of Neil Degrasse Tyson. Then we talk scientism as an unstable foundation to build knowledge. Philosophy of science. All sciences are not created equal. The price tag of academic credentials. Bergson’s Principle of Proving a Negative. Shutting down interesting ideas. Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The God of Evidence. A band made of biofeedback. Human beings as stewards of reality. The miniaturization of knowledge. H...
Nov 26, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 177
On this episode of the podcast, we invite our second guest (the first being Ellen) onto the show to discuss education. Lisa Sezate is a lifelong educator working in elementary schools, and she brings a unique look into that side of education. Kris teaches college, David teaches high school, and Lisa teaches elementary. Between the three of them, they have a wide ranging conversation about the definition of insanity, how to get kids' attention, cell phone policies, and how to explain to students ...
Nov 14, 2023•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 176
"Courage borne out of Curiosity" New segments and lowered sumo standards. Unexamined cultural phrases. Engaging with the unknown throughout the day. Giving credence to memory. Dedicated reading rooms and responsible education. Growing up on algorithm curated feeds. Ancient character divides (Ambush vs. Surprise). A self-fulfilling mass psychosis in the form of a band that's more of an urban legend. Being the masks on the wall. The extension of interiority. Grave site obsessions. Following the or...
Nov 04, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 175
A little grumpy luminosity at the dermatologist. Some Lake Mead diving magic. Nominal Strangers and the Agents of Synchronicity. The Doppelzüngig. The sanctity of Good Shelter. Making sense with mondegreens and celebrating ghost stories. A billionaire manufactures thought contagion music with "Spanky Hanky". Seeding culture; paving paths. Crotch Level Wisdom (Romance & Lust). Famous Ghosts and Transparent Presence. Mutating villages in contaminated civilizations. Hideos cliches in the Impote...
Oct 27, 2023•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 174
On today's episode we're getting attention while gaining traction and forming a humble rapport between audiences in a dead age. Having 3500 years of material to sift through. Absorbing news tangentially. Nostalgic lyric-memory messages. Maintaining a harmonic congruence with reality. Being hyped on ambient anxiety. The perverse side of heroism. Surfing waves of momentum. The Raw (sacred) vs. The Cooked (profane). Oblique phrases from the Deep and one of Kris' darkest band contributions yet. The ...
Oct 19, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 173
From Kris's notes: I wonder if an analogy for what lies between the private consciousness-structuring agencies we’ve presented as the Memory Palace and the Swamp (the wilderness of All the Things Someone Doesn’t Know) can be found in the Tent Cities and Homeless Camps we see today in almost every American metropolis? -Memory as species of Hallucination. I don’t see how this position can be entirely dismissed or circumvented. -Rethinking Heizer’s CITY as an Inverse Memory Palace?? -Begin Xplore o...
Oct 14, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 172
Getting in tandem with psychomagnetic rapports and poignant quietudes. A bit of Freudian-Quaalude lounge music with the band HypnoLiquid Motion. Tonal give-aways. Cleopatra Denial Syndrome vs. Resonant Harems. The admission of denial and denial as admission. Being the steward of your inverted Memory Palace. Being in charge of your psychic constructs and heralding your unknown terrain. Balancing Integration and Insinuation. The Allegory of the Theremin. Unmediated Sound Generation and the influen...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 171
This week, a review of the terrain the Lost Xplorers have crossed and the expedition ahead. Exploring the multiple angles of motifs. Hunting butterflies in strange lands. The decompositions of The Machine Elves. Taper erections. The Unspatialized vs. The Intangible. The prism of masculinity and the hidden melancholy behind behinds. The Alienated Experts. The inescapable reflection of the human shadow. Revisiting the human habitation of the oscillation between The Edge and The Heart. Being more i...
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 170
