Episode 159: Three Songs, with Meredith Michael

Episode 159: Three Songs, with Meredith Michael

Author: SpectreVision Radio December 6, 2023 Duration: 1:31:04
Every once in a while, JF and Phil like to do a “song swap.” Each picks a song, and the ensuing conversation locates linkages and correspondences where none was previously thought to exist. In this episode, they are joined by the music scholar Meredith Michael – Weird Studies assistant, and co-host of Cosmophonia, a podcast about music and outer space – to discuss songs by Lili Boulanger, Vienna Teng, and Iron & Wine. Before long, this disparate assortment personal favourites occasions a weirdly focused dialogue on time, impermanence, control, (mis)recognition, and the affinity of art and synchronicity. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Iron and Wine, “Passing Afternoon” Vienna Teng, “The Hymn of Acxiom”, (and here is the live version) Lili Boulanger, Vieille Priére Bouddhique Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Karol Berger, Bach’s Cycle Mozart’s Arrow William Shakespeare, Hamlet Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason Vladimir Jankelevitch, Music and the Ineffable Hector Berlioz, Fugue on “amen” from La Damnation du Faust Slavoj Zizek, A Pervert’s Guide to Idiology Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic Shepard Tone Rudolf Steiner, The Influces of Lucifer and Ahriman Special Guest: Meredith Michael. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the heart of Weird Studies, a podcast from SpectreVision Radio, you’ll find long-form conversations between Professor Phil Ford and writer J. F. Martel. Their discussions aren’t simple reviews or straightforward analyses; instead, they wander through the tangled undergrowth where art and philosophy meet, giving generous time to concepts that resist easy understanding and to creative works that fracture our ordinary sense of the world. This podcast deliberately lingers in that ambiguous space, treating the “weird” not as a genre but as a particular mode of experience-one that reveals the cracks in what we comfortably assume is real. Each episode feels like joining a deep, meandering dialogue between two friends who are both deeply knowledgeable and endlessly curious, covering a vast terrain that includes literature, film, music, and esoteric thought. It’s a show for anyone who suspects that the most profound truths are often found in the shadows, the anomalies, and the strangely beautiful. As part of the SpectreVision Radio network, which specializes in content that explores the uncanny edges of creativity, Weird Studies builds a unique community of listeners who are eager to think differently. You won’t find pat answers here, but you will encounter compelling questions and a shared sense of exploration that makes each installment a distinctive journey.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 230

Weird Studies
Podcast Episodes
Episode 17: Does 'Consciousness' Exist? - Part One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:05
In this first part of their discussion of William James' classic essay in radical empiricism, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?", Phil and JF talk about the various ways we use the slippery C-word in contemporary culture. The…
Episode 16: On Dogen Zenji's 'Genjokoan' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:57
JF and Phil tackle Genjokoan, a profound and puzzling work of philosophy by Dogen Zenji. In it, the 13th-century Zen master ponders the question, "If everything is already enlightened, why practice Zen?" As a lapsed Zen…
Episode 15: On Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' - Part Two [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:04
In this second of a two-part conversation on Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker, Phil and JF explore the film's prophetic dimension, relating it to Samuel R. Delany's classic science-fiction novel Dhalgren, the cultura…
Episode 14: On Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' - Part One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:33
Journey into the Zone to uncover some of the strange artifacts buried in Tarkovsky's cinematic masterpiece, Stalker (1979). In this first of a two-part conversation, Phil and JF discuss a poem by Tarkovsky's dad, compare…
Episode 13: The Obscure: On the Philosophy of Heraclitus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:21:32
Heraclitus of Ephesus was one of the great pre-Socratic thinkers. Called the Obscure and the Weeping Philosopher, he left behind a collection of fragments so mysterious and pregnant with meaning that they continue to puz…
Episode 12: The Dark Eye: On the Films of Rodney Ascher [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:28:50
American filmmaker Rodney Ascher is a master of the weird documentary. Whether he be exploring wild interpretations of a classic horror film in Room 237, bracketing the phenomenon of sleep paralysis in The Nightmare, stu…
Episode 11: Art is a Haunting Spirit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:25
M. R. James' "The Mezzotint" is one of the most fascinating, and most chilling, examples of the classic ghost story. In this episode, Phil and JF discover what this tale of haunted images and buried secrets tells us abou…
Weird Stories: M. R. James' "The Mezzotint" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:04
M. R. James has been hailed as the unrivalled maser of the classic ghost tale, and his powers are at their zenith in "The Mezzotint," a story that first appeared in his 1904 collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. In…
Episode 10: Philip K. Dick: Adrift in the Multiverse [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:24:13
In 1977, Philip K. Dick read an essay in France entitled, "If You Find this World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others." In it, he laid out one of the dominant tropes of his fictional oeuvre, the idea of parallel unive…
Episode 9: On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:33
The plan was to discuss the introduction to Aleister Crowley's classic work, Magick in Theory and Practice (1924), a powerful text on the nature and purpose of magical practice. JF and Phil stick to the plan for the firs…