Episode 19: Intermezzo

Episode 19: Intermezzo

Author: SpectreVision Radio June 20, 2018 Duration: 1:09:28
After announcing that Weird Studies will be going to a bi-weekly release schedule for the summer, Phil and JF talk about how the podcast has gone so far and what's on the horizon (more guests!). Before long, they're digging deep into what makes each of them tick as weird speculators, locating the points at which their ideas differ and converge. The discussion touches on the philosophy of Quentin Meillassoux, the theology of Tertullian, the Beatles, the Coke-Pepsi dichotomy, the art of religion, and more. SHOUT OUTS Mandala artist Betty Paz Infinite Conversations Michael Garfield, the Future Fossils podcast Ramsey Dukes (Lionel Snell), “The Charlatan and the Magus” Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal and The Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency REFERENCES Patrick Harpur, The Secret Tradition of the Soul Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on Contingency GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy MC Escher, Drawing Hands The works of Tertullian 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…