Weird Studies

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 a metaphor for all creative acts, including the act of living your life. The result is a penetrating and poetic reflection on the artistic process that values change, unknowing, and radical becoming, making Richards' text a guide to creativity that leaves other examples of that evergreen genre in the dust. Phil and JF get their hands dirty trying to understand what centering is, and what it entails for a life of creation and becoming. The discussion brings in a number of other thinkers and artists including Friedrich Nietzsche, Norman O. Brown, Carl Jung, Antonin Artaud, and Flannery O'Connor. Header image: NASA REFERENCES M. C. Richards, Centering: In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person J. S. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier American pianist David Tudor C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflect

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 in 1981. JF and Phil focus on one of his most chilling, "The Hospice," from the collection Cold Hand in Mine, published in 1975. In it, Aickman uses a staple ingredient of the classic ghost story -- a man is stranded on a country road at night, lost and out of petrol -- to concoct an unforgettable blend of fantasy and nightmare, reality and dream. Indeed, Phil and JF argue that Aickman deserves a place alongside David Lynch and a few others as one of those rare fabulists who can adeptly disclose how reality is more dreamlike, and dreams more real, than most of us would care to admit. Header Image: Detail from photo by Ivars Indāns (Wikimedia Commons) REFERENCES Robert Aickman, "The Hospice" from Cold Hand in Mine Dante Aligheri, The Divine Comedy: The Inferno David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp trolled the New York art scene with Fountain, the famous urinal, whose significance has since swelled in the minds of art aficionados to become the prototype of all modern art. The conversation as to whether or not Fountain fulfills the conditions of a genuine work of art has been going on ever since. In this episode, JF and Phil weigh in with their own ideas, not just about what art is, but more importantly, about what art -- and only art -- can do. The result is a no-holds-barred assault on the very idea of conceptual art, a j'accuse aimed squarely at Duchamp and anyone else who would make the arts as scrutable, and as trivial, as the latest political attack ad or home insurance jingle. REFERENCES J. S. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier Roger Scruton, The Face of God Philip Larkin, All What Jazz Daniel Clowes, Art School Confidential Banksy, Girl with Balloon Bill Hicks, stand-up bit on marketers Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History” and Paul Klee, Angelus Nov

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 see an opportunity to talk about magic, hyperstition, non-linear time, and the power of metaphysics to reshape the world. When Phil questions his co-host's animus against idealist doctrines, the discussion turns to dreams, cybernetics, and information theory, before reaching common ground with the dumbfound appreciation of radical mystery. Jorge Luis Borges, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in Ficciones Weird Studies, Episode 29, "On Lovecraft" George Berkley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) John Crowley, the Aegypt tetralogy Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia - Urn Burial Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) William James, A Pluralistic Universe Karl Schroeder,

Most people know Glenn Gould as a brilliant pianist who forever changed how we receive and interpret the works of Europe's great composers: Bach, Beethoven, Schoenberg... But Gould was also an aesthetic theorist who saw a new horizon for the arts in the age of recording technology. In the future, he said, the superstitious cult of history, performance, and authorship would disappear, and the arts would retrieve a "neo-medieval anonymity" that would allow us to see them for what they really are: scarcely human at all. This episode interprets Gould's prophecy with the help of the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, the Chinese Daoist sage Zhuang Zhou, and the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, among others. SHOW NOTES Glenn Gould, "The Prospects of Recording" Marshall McLuhan's Tetrad of media effects Ludwig van Beethoven, Concerto no. 3 in C minor Glenn Gould, "Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould" Glenn Gould and Yehudi Menuhin, dialogue on The Music of Man Jean-Luc Godard, A M

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 that demonstrates, with painstaking attention to detail, Zen Master Dōgen's utterance that when one side of the world is illuminated, the other side is dark. Treading a winding path between wakefulness and dream, love and sex, life and art, your paranoid hosts make boldly for that secret spot where the rainbow ends, and the masks come off. REFERENCES Arthur Schnitzler, Dream Story (Traumnovelle) -- Source of the EWS screenplay, sadly overlooked in the episode but well worth a read. Frederic Raphael, Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick Bathysphere  Frank L. Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz David Icke's "reptilian" theory of the British Royal Family  Thomas A. Nelson, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze Screenshot of newspaper article from Eyes Wide Shut Rodney Ascher, Room 237 Ja

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 Blackwood, and David Foster Wallace make appearances as our fearsome hosts talk about how the weird story differs from conventional horror fiction, how Lovecraft gives voice to contemporary fears of physical, psychological and political infection, and how authors like Lovecraft and Dick can be seen as prophetic poets of the "great unbuffering of the Western self." REFERENCES H. P. Lovecraft, "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction" H. P. Lovecraft, "Nyarlathotep" 1974 Rolling Stone feature on PKD Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy Theodor Roszak, The Making of a Counterculture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo" Algernon Blackwood, "The Willows" Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and

"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 the landmark post-Christian album Infidels, and Franz Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz, No. 1: The Dance at the Village Inn," inspired by an episode in the Faust legend. If this conversation has a central theme, it may be music's power to unhinge every fixed binary, from God and the Devil to culture and nature. Music, as exemplified in these pieces, can put us in touch with the abiding mystery of the eternal in the historical, the unhuman in the human... The hills are alive! REFERENCES Bob Dylan, "Jokerman" Franz Liszt, “Mephisto Waltz no. 1,” performed by Boris Berezovsky Andrew WK, "Music is Worth Living For" Leonard Cohen, “The Future” C.G. Jung, Aion Douglas Rushkoff, Testament The Guardian, “Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say” Garry Wills, "Our Moloch" Minoan snake go

In this first of two episodes devoted to the music of the weird, Phil and JF discuss two works that have bowled them over: the second movement of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata, used to powerful effect in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and the opening music to Cronenberg's film Naked Lunch, composed by Howard Shore and featuring the inimitable stylings of Ornette Coleman. After teasing out the intrinsic weirdness of music in general, the dialogue soars over a strange country rife with shadows, mad geniuses, and skittering insects. And to top it all off, Phil breaks out the grand piano. Header image by Bandan, Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES Ligeti, Musica Ricercata, 2nd movement Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman, opening music for David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation Suzanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey Viktor Shklovsky, "Art as Technique" Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut Hitchcock, Psych

Stone, bronze, iron... glass? In his recent thought and writing, transdisciplinary artist and thinker Michael Garfield defines modernity as an age of glass, arguing that the entire ethos of our era inheres in the transformative enchantments of this amorphous solid. No one would deny that glass plays a central role in our lives, although glass does have a knack for disappearing into the background, at least until the beakers or screens crack and shatter. Glass is weird, and like a lot of weird things, it can serve as a lens (so to speak!) for observing our world from strange new angles. In this episode, Michael joins Phil and JF to talk through the origins, the significance, and the fate of the Glass Age. Michael Garfield is a musician, live painter, and futurist. He is the host of the brilliant Future Fossils Podcast. REFERENCES Michael Garfield's website + Patreon + Medium + Bandcamp Michael Garfield, "The Future is Indistinguishable from Magic" (This is the essay we discuss that was unpublished at

JF and Phil head for Interzone in an attempt to solve the enigma of Naked Lunch, David Cronenberg's 1991 screen adaptation of William S. Burroughs' infamous 1959 novel. A treatise on addiction, a diagnosis of modern ills, a lucid portrait of the artist as cosmic transgressor, and like the book, "a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork," Naked Lunch is here framed in the light Cronenberg's recent speech making the case for the crime of art. Image by Melancholie, Wikimedia Commons. REFERENCES David Foster Wallace, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way," from Girl With Curious Hair Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, and "How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?" in A Thousand Plateaus David Cronenberg (writer-director), Naked Lunch (the film) William Burroughs, Naked Lunch (the novel) Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an Opium-Eater Dale Pendell, Pharmako/Poeia: Power Plants, Poisons and Herbcraft "David Cronenberg: I would like to make the case for

As Lionel Snell, also known as Ramsey Dukes, observes in his seminal esoteric essay, "The Charlatan and the Magus" (1984), the series of trumps in a tarot deck doesn't begin with the noble Emperor or august Hierophant, but with the lowly Fool, followed by the Juggler. Trickery or illusion, Snell suggests, may not be the dealbreaker we've thought it to be in parapsychological investigation. It may even be a feature, not a bug, of the magical process. In this episode of Weird Studies, JF and Phil talk to Lionel Snell about trickster magic, and all we miss out on when we make rational truth the only measure by which we know reality. Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], "The Charlatan and the Magus" Darren Brown, Tricks of the Mind Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Phil Ford, “Birth of the Weird" Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], How to See Fairies: Discover Your Psychic Powers in Six Weeks Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], S.S.O.T..B.M.E. John Keats, Negative Capability Weird Studies, Episode 9: "O

Phil stops by JF's Canadian homestead for a raucous IRL conversation on the idea of presence. The range of topics includes objects of power, the magic of books, the mystery of the event, modernity's knack for making myths immanent, genius loci, the mad wonder of Blue Velvet, and the iron fist of the virtual. REFERENCES Gil Scott-Heron, "The Revolution Will Bot Be Televised" Louis CK on smart phones at the ballet recital Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory, Creative Evolution Gilles Deleuze on the virtual: see Bergsonism, Proust and Signs, The Logic of Sense, Difference and Repetition, Cinema II: The TIme Image Expanding Mind with Erik Davis, "Being Anarchist" JF Martel, "Reality is Analog" Jason A. Josephson-Storm, The Myth of Disenchantment (and Gyrus's review) Gyrus, North: The Rise and Fall of the Polar Cosmos William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture Geoffrey O’Brien, Phantom Empire David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch Keeps His Head” D

American philosopher Joshua Ramey, author of The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal, and Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency, joins Phil and JF to discuss a philosophical project whose implications go deep and weird. In his books and articles, Joshua proffers the vision of a world where divination -- whether or not it is recognized as such -- isn't just possible, but necessary for advancing knowledge, creating art, and forming communities. And his research has revealed that the wardens of our neoliberal order know this all too well. As he writes in an essay discussed in this episode, the mandate of a weird age ought to be clear: "Occupy, and practice divination." **REFERENCES Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal Joshua Ramey, Politics of DIvination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux" (abstract) Vanessa de Oliveira Andreott

The writings of underground filmmaker Jack Smith serve as a starting point for Phil and JF's second tour of the trash stratum. In their wanderings, they will uncover such moldy jewels as the 1944 film Cobra Woman, the exploitation flick She-Devils on Wheels, and (wonder of wonders) Hitchcock's Vertigo. The emergent focus of the conversation is the dichotomy of passionate commitment and ironic perspective, attitudes that largely determine whether a given object will turn out to appear as a negligible piece of garbage... or the Holy Grail. By the end, our hosts realize that even their own personal trash strata may give off shimmers of the divine. Jack Smith, Flaming Creatures Robert Siodmak (director), Cobra Woman (1944) Jack Smith, "The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez" Roger Scruton, English philosopher Mystery Science Theater 3000 (TV series) Kenneth Burke, American literary theorist Alfred Hitchcock (director), Vertigo (1958) Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground Charles Ludlam's Theater

Is the Holy Grail a crushed beer can in the gutter? JF and Phil consider the implications of Philip K. Dick's line, "the symbols of the divine initially show up at the trash stratum." Gnosticism, Aleister Crowley's Thoth tarot, Thomas Ligotti's "The Order of Illusion," Jack Smith's glorification of moldy glamour, saints' relics that look like beef jerky -- all this and more in the first of a two-part conversation. REFERENCES Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth Phil Ford, "What Good News Do You Bring?" Philip K. Dick, The Exegesis Philip K. Dick, VALIS Stanislav Lem, Microworlds Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels Thomas Ligotti, Noctuary Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy Frank Darabont (dir.), The Shawshank Redemption Weird Studies podcast, On Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' Part 1 and Part 2 Richard Wagner, Parsifal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Tert

JF and Phil finally get down to brass tacks with William James's essay "Does Consciousness Exist?" At the heart of this essay is the concept of what James calls "pure experience," the basic stuff of everything, only it isn't a stuff, but an irreducible multiplicity of everything that exists -- thoughts as well as things. We're used to thinking that thoughts and things belong to fundamentally different orders of being, but what if thoughts are things, too? For one thing, psychical phenomena (a great interest of James's) suddenly become a good deal more plausible. And the imaginal realm, where art and magic make their home, becomes a sovereign domain. REFERENCES William James, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" Steven Shaviro, The Universe of Things Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego William James, Essays in Psychical Research Weird Studies D&D episode Proust, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu The Venera 13 probe's photos of the surface of Venus Wallace Stevens, "A Postcard from the Volcano" Le

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 touches on the political charge of the concept of consciousness, the unholy marriage of materialism and idealism ("Kant is the ultimate hipster"), the role of consciousness in the workings of the weird -- basically, anything but the essay in question. That will come in part two. Header image by Miguel Bolacha, Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES William James, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained Daniel Pinchbeck, author and founder of Reality Sandwich Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture Scott Saul, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency Matt Cardin - author and editor, creator of The Teeming Brain Learn more about your ad choices. Vi

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 practitioner ("a shit buddhist") with many hours of meditation under his belt, Phil draws on personal experience to dig into Dogen's strange and startling answers, while JF speaks from his perspective as a "decadent hedonist." "When one side is illumined," says Dogen, "the other is dark." For proof of this utterance, you could do worse than listen to this episode of Weird Studies. REFERENCES Dogen Zenji, Genjokoan Shohaku Okumura and the Sanshin Zen Community in Bloomington, Indiana Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life Weird Studies, Episode 8: "On Graham Harman's 'The Third Table'" Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement Image Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling Joris-Karl H