Episode 209 – At Home in the Labyrinth, with Murakami and Borges

Episode 209 – At Home in the Labyrinth, with Murakami and Borges

Author: SpectreVision Radio March 25, 2026 Duration: 1:33:25
In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Haruki Murakami’s “Cream,” from First Person Singular, alongside Jorge Luis Borges’s classic tale, “The Garden of Forking Paths.” Together, these two stories occasion a meditation on time, perplexity, and the strange possibility that meaning isn't found at the end of the maze, but discovered only in the course of wandering it. Photo by DMzlC via Wikimedia Commons. Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page, home of Weird Studies Vol. 3 (to be released May 22, 2026). Joel Plaskett's website and Substack References Geoffrey Cornelius, “Chicane: Double-Thinking and Divination among the Witch-Doctors,” in Divination: Perspectives for a New Millennium, ed. Patrick Curry (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 119– 42.  Joe Leduc's Blood Oath  Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths”   Haruki Murakami, “Cream”  Marc Augé, Non-Places  Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic  Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats at the UFO Show”  Nicholas of Cusa, “On the Quadrature of the Circle”   Ethan Weed, “A Labyrinth of Symbols” Kids in the Hall, “Premise Beach”  David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return   David Lynch, Lost Highway  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Don Giovanni  Weird Studies, Episode 66 on “Diviner’s Time”   Gottfried Leibniz, Theodicy  Quentin Meillasoux, After Finitude  Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot  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
Christmas Bonus: Hyperstition Addendum [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 24:31
Happy holidays, Weird Studies listeners! In this short "Christmas Bonus" episode, your intrepid hosts finish up what began as a discussion of Nick Land's concept of hyperstition. Following last week's closing remarks abo…
Episode 36: On Hyperstition [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:13:52
Hyperstition is a key concept in the philosophy of Nick Land. It refers to fictions which, given enough time and libidinal investment, become realities. JF and Phil explore the notion using one of those optometric appara…
Episode 35: Whirl Without End: On M.C. Richards' 'Centering' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:41
The first step in any pottery project is to center the clay on the potter's wheel. In her landmark essay Centering: In Pottery, Poetry and the Person (1964), the American poet M. C. Richards turns this simple action into…
Episode 34: The Weird Realism of Robert Aickman [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:55
Although he is one of the luminaries of the weird tale, Robert Aickman referred to his irreal, macabre short works as strange stories. Born in London in 1914, Aickman wrote less than fifty such stories before his death i…
Episode 32: Orbis Tertius: Borges on Magic, Conspiracy and Idealism [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:14
Jorge Luis Borges's story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a metaphysical detective story, an armchair conspiracy thriller, and a masterpiece of weird fiction. In this tale penned by a true literary magician, Phil and JF…
Episode 30: On Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:56
No dream is ever just a dream. Or so Tom Cruises tells Nicole Kidman at the end of Eyes Wide Shut. In this episode, Phil and JF expound some of the key themes of Kubrick's film, a masterpiece of cinematic chamber music t…
Episode 29: On Lovecraft [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:37
Phil and JF indulge their autumnal mood in this discussion of Howard Phillips Lovecraft's work, specifically the essay "Notes on the Writing of Weird Fiction" and the prose piece "Nyarlathotep." Philip K. Dick, Algernon…
Episode 28: Weird Music, Part Two [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:59
"Music is worth living for," Andrew W.K. sings in his latest rock anthem. In this second episode on the weirdness of music, JF and Phil focus on two works steeped in ambiguity and paradox: Bob Dylan's "Jokerman," from th…