This podcast tries to go a little deeper with Supermarionation. It is really about social class, and the kind of alliance that inevitably imperils a religion whose goal is emancipating the human race. We start with "It Happened One Night", then chart our way north, to an old surprising hymn.
Can the mind of man and woman conceive that the subject of Episcopal haberdashery in the movies might be interesting and meaningful? Well, yes, it might be, at least to me. This podcast surveys Protestant Episcopal clothing in the movies and television. We travel in our sound machine from "The Bishop's Wife" to "Family Plot" to "Night of the Iguana" to "The Sandpiper"; and we end up on British tv -- in Supermarionation. Maybe this is completely unimportant. Then again... I dedicate the cast to F...
Yvette Vickers played supporting roles in two unforgettable 1950's science-fiction movies: "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches". As far as I'm concerned, she stole the show both times. But, Yvette Vickers is now dead. Or rather, she was found dead, on the 27th of April last year (2011). The conditions under which she was found, and the conditions under which she apparently lived her life near the end of it, evoke floods of compassion. They simply have to. How could thi...
This is a theme with me -- the pros and cons (there aren't many cons) of learning foreign languages. Also, how does it actually work? Why is one language easier for a given person to learn than another? Also, what's the relatiion between learning a language to read, and learning a language to speak? And why is psychology so important, personal psychology, in the acquisition of a foreign 'tongue'? Here is 50 years' experience of pain and suffering (and altered states) rolled up into a single half...
From our house to your house, at the Turning of the Year: a portrait of the dignity that is able to inhere within romantic love -- sometimes. The subject is a short scene, a musical number really, in a late Jacques Demy, "Une Chambre en Ville" (1982). You can YouTube it by typing in "Violette amoureuse". I have faith you will be richly repaid. Try to marry a 'Violette' if you possibly can -- or, if it's too late, tell your children about her....
Why am I "afraid to say what I really want to say" (Jack Kerouac)? That's a line from "Visions of Gerard", and many could echo it. This podcast is about changing mores, specifically the contrast between a sensational murder case of the 1930s and a sensational case of recent times. Then there's Ken Russell's "The Devils" (1971), a charming little movie -- and the shifting sands of killing inquisition. Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead.
This is PZ's Christmas Podcast.
What constitutes you, as a human being? What are the parts which make you the whole you are? A single sentence from Huxley's "After many a summer dies the swan" can help, together with Fritz Lang's "Woman in the Moon". It's not about the ego. I am so sorry that human education pumps up that flat tire. Is there another way to educate ... ourselves?
I'm shooting for quality today. In the spirit of earlier podcasts concerning Giant Crab Movies and Journey,this podcast concerns what might today be called "Lounge Crooner Classics". In their day, they were pop songs commissioned to be played over the credits of movies and then sold as singles. We're talking about "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" by Frankie Avalon; "Journey to the 7th Planet" by Otto Brandenburg; "The Lost Continent" by The Peddlers; and "The Vengeance of She" by Robert Field. ...
I tried to follow the invitation of that song recently. Saw a lot of things, found out a lot of things, remembered a lot of things, heard a couple of new things. It was a definite pilgrimage. I would like to tell you about it.
Can the "young" be instructed by the "old"? Can Nigel Kneale's "Planet People" be even saved by the over 70s? To put this another way, are there two messages to life: one for the first half and another for the second? Ultimately, no. There is one message. Alack! : It comes through suffering. Pump up the volume.
Nigel Kneale (1922-2006) was absolute murder, in the Reggae sense. No writer of English science fiction thought more originally than Nigel Kneale, who mostly wrote teleplays for the BBC. His "Quatermass (pro. 'Kway-ter-mass') and the Pit" from 1959 attempted to explain the whole history of religion via Martians. It strangely works. Kneale's "Quatermass" (1979) showed how the "young" are unable to save themselves from generational self-slaughter. Only "seniors" can save 'em! There's a lot to Knea...
Rejoicing at someone's execution, in "disturbing images", is hard enough to absorb. To add the unaccountable silence of Christians in relation to such joy is almost impossible to absorb. What's to love in this world, in this planetary race of not so human beings? We're hoping to get a little help today from Harnack and Huxley. (Wonder what would have happened if they'd ever met? I feel almost certain that Holl, Harnack's A student, would have liked Huxley.)...
This is about the use of language to cover an unpleasant reality. It's not just about the "removal" of an al awlaki or a "new chapter in the history of Libya" accomplished by means of the murder of a POW who was captured alive. It's about resigning yourself to something you cannot change.
Arthur Machen meets St. Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 11, Verses 16-19. You can try to make your voice heard with an engaging, danceable tune, and it will pass like a shadow over the water. (Think "Men Without Hats".) Or you can try it in a shrill, scratchy key, and it will still be forgotten, fast. (Think P.J. Proby.) Whether it flops or not, however, that's not the point . Someone will probably eventually hear it, and take it up. Think Joe Meek....
There is nothing quite like the Inward Voice of 'Mark Rutherford', the novelist whose real name was William Hale White. He wore a mask over a mask, and his six novels constitute a kind of ultimate Inward Voice within Victorian fiction. Today we look at his "Revolution in Tanner's Lane" (1890), which reveals the worst and also the best of the Romans 7 understanding of human nature. Cradled in this unique book -- "Revolution" -- is a message I think the world's gotta hear. I don't think it ever wi...
Here is a two-parter concerning your inward voice: What is it, and how do you find it? From a Romans 7 point of view, the inward voice (and voices) is almost all that matters. Now get it down! Write it down! Put it on paper, or else it'll probably just "Fade Away" (Rolling Stones). This is personal archaeology, yours and mine, and it involves digging, and lifting.
Now here's a find: a passage in the novel "Revolution in Tanner's Lane" (1890) by 'Mark Rutherford' (aka William Hale White), in which the author answers the question I set in the previous cast. If there is a word from religion to the middle-aged and "mature" -- i.e., a word of humbled acquiescence to the disillusioned and shaken -- what is religion's word to the young? Can the same message of experienced wisdom and non-identification, which seems able to communicate with immediacy to the shatte...
Does life-wisdom offer the same message to the non-disillusioned, who are often on the younger side, as it does to the disillusioned, who are often over-50? It's a live issue for me, since a gospel of hope to the shattered can sound depressing to people who are working on wresting something like success from life. Interestingly, many religious pioneers, from Pachomius to Zwingli, from Clare to the "Little Flower", were young when they received a message of negation, but also a new and different ...
My new law firm is called "Scrambling, Rattled, and Bracing, P.A.". It is a firm devoted to the project of complete control. It helps me "scramble" to contain unexpected problems; prevents me from getting "rattled" by unexpected threats; and gets me "braced" in anticipation of feared outcomes. In other words -- you guessed it -- my new law firm helps me get control of my life. I pay it to get me ready for every eventuality. Oddly, though, it hasn't worked as well as I had hoped. I'm still scramb...
This ancient show, much of which is now richly available on YouTube, let alone DVD, understood something important. It understood about the "collective unconscious" and the nature of the Love that exists underneath human loves. The several great episodes in this terse ancient treasure, from 1959 to 1961, depict reality so unflinchingly that you can barely look — and, the underlying reality of God. I actually think "One Step Beyond" is a profounder prototype for "Touched by an Angel". Plus, the m...
Anger -- it's everywhere. The question is, at whom or at what are you NOT angry? Well, you can't be angry at anyone or anything you love. Or rather, you can't be angry at that part of anyone or anything that you love. This podcast is about seismic anger -- into which the internet is just a current window. Every age has its window. This podcast hunts for an answer.
This gorgeous 1964 film is everything people say it is, and makes you wonder sometimes whether its director and writer, Jacques Demy, was too good for this world. Let's also hear it for Michel Legrand, who wrote the score. What I wish to eyeball, and what this podcast is about, is its vision of romance, for "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" is about first love, lost love, best love, et enfin, true love. The hero's "Je crois que tu peux partir" ("It's time for you to go.") is so wonderfully masculine, and...
Lord Buckley broke down a barrier that is exceptionally hard to break down. He broke down the barrier between the Sacred and the Profane. Several of his 'hipsemantic' monologues, once you begin to study them, are fascinating expressions of Christian ideas, but expressed in the terms of an offbeat and wacky nightclub personality. I don't know of anything like them. In this second and concluding podcast on a genuine comic genius, I read, sitting on my white azz, Lord Buckley's riff on "Quo Vadis",...
Lord Buckley (aka Richard Myrle Buckley, l906-1960) was a "way out" nightclub comic and monologist, who created "hipsemantic" routines based on famous people -- very famous! -- and famous works of literature. Lord Buckley's most famous monologue was called "The Nazz" and is a "hipster" re-telling of three miracles of Our Savior, which was Lord Buckley's frequently invoked term for Christ. "The Nazz" is a homage to Jesus that exists in a class by itself. If anything you've ever heard or read brea...
This is My Sharona of faith, a series of four theses, briefly explained, that express an approach to everyday living, and understanding. I hope you like them.
It's possible to tell the future. It's actually pretty easy. You have to know about human nature, and you have to know about fashion. You have to know that human nature doesn't change, and you have to know that fashion changes all the time. It changes right to left, then left to right, then back again. Then the same, again. And again. "My Ever Changing Moods" (Style Council) You, too, can be a fortune teller. Here's how.
William Inge (1913-1973) wrote plays of restrained optimism concerning broken families in small Kansas towns of the 1920's and '30's. He understood about the importance of sex in everyday life -- even in Protestant Middle-Western America during the Great Depression. He also understood about the Church and its disappointing failure to help people when the bottom fell out of their lives. Yet there a wistfulness to Inge. He seems to be saying, 'If only'. If only our religious tradition had not decl...
It just may be the worst thing about America today: our view of human nature. If you listen to almost any -- and I mean, any -- commentator, speechmaker, pundit, or spokesperson, of literally any and every organization, institution, medium, or government office, you are going to hear about taking charge, and imposing control -- of everything and everybody. (I hate that they'll now ticket you if you're caught smoking in New York City. That's insane! No more "Shake Shack" for us, I am dashed to sa...
Another one of those unknown authors. But he has so much to tell us, first about sex and then about Christianity. About the former, he puts first things first. About the latter, he puts Jesus on the "Enola Gay". Would that Philip Wylie were here today, to put Jesus on a predator drone, or on one of those Navy SEAL helicopters which flew into Pakistan recently.
