Structured Rambling

In John Steinbeck's Great Depression novel  Of Mice and Men , Chapter 4 is dedicated to the interaction of four marginalized characters: a man-child with superhuman strength, an old man with one hand, a black man with a crooked spine, and a woman in an unhappy marriage. This episode is a microcosm of the book's overall themes.  Steinbeck, John.  Of Mice and Men.  New York: Penguin, 1993....

Not exactly as ambitious as it sounds, but Paul talks about the importance of the bible generally as a text, and how it's often hard for non-believers to get around the whole matter of faith thing. Discussion about the contradictory interpretation of both Testaments together occurs as well.  The inspiration for this comes in the form of a reference Paul makes to the book  The Year of Living B...

In honour of Remembrance Day, Paul looks at some of the philosophical passages in the great World War 1 novel  All Quiet on the Western Front by  Remarque. Remarque, Erich Marie.  All Quiet on the Western Front.  Toronto: Balantine Books, 1982 "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae, read by Leonard Cohen. Courtesy  Legion Magazine 's YouTube channel. 

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is a great book and a nerd's delight, but the first two books of it--which comprise Fellowship-- really are a sequel that shouldn't have worked. A short children's fantasy gets followed by a thousand pages that essentially retcons your memories and makes them something else. As a sequel to The Hobbit, Fellowship is a mess. Fortunately, it was...

Paul--an agnostic at best--talks the importance of writing the faithful honestly and credibly in fiction, especially in a world that looks down upon faith. 

Paul's first true step into the deep and muddy pool of historical fiction. He reads Robert Grave's masterpiece  I, Claudius , a book about those crazy Roman emperors and the women who killed them, plus the little boys who killed them. Depravity! Politics! Statecraft! And asides to talk about possessive apostrophe usage!

Paul talks audiobooks.  And why  Moby Dick  sucks. 

Why do we read Shakespeare? Why does a poet and dramatist from London 400 years ago still play such and important part in our life? Answer: because we have to have the best. Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999. Branagh, Kenneth. Hamlet.  USA/UK: Columbia Pictures, 1996 McTiernan, John.  Last Action Hero.  USA: Columbia Pictures, 1993. Shakespears...

Discussing the greatest comic book ever and one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century: Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Why is this such a great book? Why does it stick around despite being such a product of the mid-80s Cold War? It's been adapted (semi-successfully) as a film and sequeled (semi-bizarrely) as an HBO series, but it remains a comic book's comic book, and a wor...

Paul discusses what IS home and how characters can go home again, in a sense. "Hell Broke Luce" by Tom Waits "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell (incorrectly referred to as "The Hero's Journey" in the podcast but Paul is too lazy to fix it) "Home For a Rest" by Spirit of the West

Delving into one of Paul's favorite earths: Middle! Texts: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit by Corey Olsen The Annotated Hobbit by Douglas A. Anderson. 

Discussing the major ideas in Plato's dialogues, especially his major work The Republic. What was this Socrates' guy's deal, anyway? Exploring the foundations of Western Civilization. 

Animals! Religions! Survival! Hyenas! Zebras! Tigers! Oh, my! And in a book about what we're willing to believe, would you believe the Easter Egg about the crossover with the Amazing Spider-Man?

Paul discusses what's great about Star Wars and where it all went wrong. (HINT: It's the mouse's fault!) Star Wars Theme by John Williams Imperial March by John Williams

Some words of hope for the youth.

There are different ways to read a book, but to truly  analyze a text, you need to have an approach. Paul analyzes  The Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald using the three levels of inquiry from  The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer. This is a twist on the agent Greek Trivium. How do we read, think, and talk about a book? Like this. Structured Rambling: Website:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/...

Paul discusses movies and books using the news to tell a story. The Post , The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , Citizen Kane --that's right, Citizen Fah-reakin' Kane--The Newsroom and more. 

Paul talks about nothing less than his favourite novel of all time. 

Paul chats about creative ideas, and especially, the three most un-creative ideas in his infamous VVZ rule. Special pandemic episode!

In an ambitious single-episode, Paul discusses both the Iliad and  the Odyssey,  focusing on the characters, the themes, why they're timeless and why we have to look at them as products of their times. As well, he expresses concerns over their modern over-internalizing in masculine circles. 

Last November, famed director Martin Scorsese penned an article in the New York Times attacking the cinematic virtues of the MCU and similar franchises. In this episode, Paul attempts to defend the merits of the films, their source material, and touches on everything from comics to myth to Star Wars . 

In the series opening, Paul discusses his intentions for the podcast and then proceeds to look at Margaret Atwood's  The Handmaid's Tale  in honour if International Women's Day.