The novelist Patricia Highsmith is rarely praised for her characters. But are the critics making a mistake? And does the way we assess a novel’s characters say more about us than we might think?  (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 1.0 Universal License. Outro: Spy […]

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EPISODE 39: Highsmith and Character

It seems like people used to believe that important cultural conversations and insights could be found within fiction.  Has that changed?  And if so, why?  (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 1.0 Universal License. Outro: Dance of the Stargazer (edited) by U.S. Army Blues Band, […]

EPISODE 38: Fictional Conversations

Many fans think The Dark Knight is the greatest superhero movie ever made.  But what do they love about it?  And are they right? (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 1.0 Universal License. Outro: The Way by Heavy Links, from The Free Music Archive, CC BY-SA […]

EPISODE 37: The Dark Knight

In this episode we discuss Aldus Huxley’s celebrated novel Brave New World.  Does the novel still have things to teach us?  (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 1.0 Universal License. Outro: We Start the Cure in Paris (edited) by lo-fi is sci-fi, from The Free […]

EPISODE 36: Brave New World

Major soccer leagues and tournaments are adopting VAR, a video replay system. But is it ruining soccer? (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 1.0 Universal License. Outro: Someone Else’s Memories (edited) by Revolution Void, from The Free Music Archive, CC BY 3.0 License.) Subscribe on iTunes […]

EPISODE 35: Is Video Replay Ruining Soccer?

What can we demand of celebrities, athletes, and artists?  Should Magnus Carlsen have played on in the last world chess championship rather than taking an easy draw?  Should George R. R. Martin spend more time writing Game of Thrones books? (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 […]

EPISODE 34: Magnus Carlsen and George R. R. Martin

Many of you emailed questions after our last podcast about single payer healthcare. In this episode, we discuss your questions about the effects of uninsurance, the financial consequences of single payer, the politics of healthcare, and many more things as well. (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music […]

EPISODE 33: Listener Questions about Single Payer

As we approach the 2020 election, we hear a lot about single payer healthcare. But what is it? Should we like it? Along the way we discuss Alex’s new book, The Ethics of Universal Health Insurance.  (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 1.0 Universal License. Outro: […]

EPISODE 32: What is Single Payer Healthcare?

After our last podcast about utopia, we wondered if utopias are more credible in science fiction than in realistic fiction. Are space adventures like Star Trek the place to look for a utopian vision?  (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 1.0 Universal License. Outro: Peace Within (edited) by […]

EPISODE 31: Is Star Trek a Utopia?

Few people enjoy reading about utopia. Why do we prefer visions of chaos to dreams of order? Are we all dystopians at heart?  (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind (edited) by Loyalty Freak Music, from The Free Music Archive, CC0 1.0 Universal License. Outro: You Happy? (edited) by BJ Block & Dawn Pemberton, from The Free Music Archive, […]

EPISODE 30: Are We All Dystopians At Heart?

In this episode, we conclude our nine-part series on contemporary art that was inspired by Ossian Ward’s book Ways of Looking.  Looking back, are the works of contemporary art more valuable than they seemed to us at first?  And if not, why does the art world prize these works so highly?  Artworks discussed include James […]

EPISODE 29: The Great Conversation

Sometimes modern art doesn’t seem to offer any deep insights into life, but neither does a traditional landscape or still life.  Are they more similar than they seem?  Is modern art valuable for the same reasons that traditional art is valuable?  We ask these questions as we discuss the idea of “Art as Spectacle” from […]

EPISODE 28: An Enormous Hole in the Ground

Some contemporary artists seem to mock the art world itself, suggesting that its patrons and consumers are fools who’ll buy anything. Does that mean that modern art is a deliberate scam? Could it be a collective delusion? If contemporary art doesn’t have the power to provoke valuable responses, what keeps the art world afloat? While […]

EPISODE 27: He Works in Death and Formaldehyde

One traditional role of art has been to offer a message. But do artistic message have to be ambiguous and indirect in order to be powerful? We discuss two contemporary works from chapter five of Ways of Looking: Play Pit (2000) by Miroslav Balka and The Green Line (2004) by Francis Alwys.  (Intro: Traveling in Your Mind […]

EPISODE 26: Somebody Has to Clean All This Up

In chapter four of Ways of Looking, Ossian Ward says that some contemporary artists make art out of human performances, including eccentric performances like punching a time clock every hour for a year. Are these really works of art? Can they be good art? We discuss these questions while examining Tehching Hsieh’s One Year Performance 1980-1981 […]

EPISODE 25: Dancing Like He Was Electrocuted

A podcast by John Farrell and Alex Rajczi

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