‘funny,’ not funny

Dr. Christopher K. Coffman is Master Lecturer in Humanities at Boston University. He has published on a wide variety of topics in literature and music, and has increasingly been focusing in his research on points at which the two fields intersect. The author or editor of four books, Coffman's current project is a study of the Grateful Dead in relation to the literary tradition. Lionel and Jim...

Abby Altman, Club Manager of Passim joins us to talk about her experience guiding the iconic music club, located in the heart of Harvard Square Cambridge, MA through its many programs. We discuss the mission and history of the club and its importance to the music scene not only in the Boston area, but worldwide. Abby is the second millennial to appear on our podcast. We look forward to talking mor...

We begin by talking about Hundreds of Beavers and move into Jim’s experience with the Raw Diet and Johnny Gottado. From there we talk about food delivery and inactivity. We talk about A Complete Unknown and Dylan’s life in general from Jim’s recollections of interviewing Dave Van Ronk, and Jim’s reading of Dylan’s autobiography Chronicles. We touch on the band Boston...

The amazing, wonderful, comedian, storyteller, songwriter, performer, author, and great friend to have, Don White joined us this week to talk all about his process, his art, and his life as a student of the craft. We begin talking about the Naked City, where Jim and Don first met, and move on to discuss the music and comedy blendings of Catch A Rising Star. Don fill us in on his method stories fro...

In this episode, our guest Matthew Roazen returns to talk to us about his time in Russia, and gives us a lesson in what was happening in Russia during the 1990s and early 2000s. Matthew explains the rise of the Russian Oligarchy and how it was linked to guarantees to banks via the IMF. This effected not only all the small businesses in Russia, but also foreign business and investment in Russia tha...

Matthew Roazen, lawyer, and Russian history & linguistics expert, who lived in Russia for 16 years talks about his time in Moscow during the 1990s and 2000s. This is part one of a 2 part conversation with Matthew about what things are like in the country with the largest landmass in the world. We talk about his time managing a blues band in Moscow, the beginning of the perceived western bonanz...

We discuss the making of video clips for promoting our podcast and the futility thereof. The unruly beard is disparaged. Lionel brings up an episode of CSI where a civil war re-enactor was killed and found to be wearing a girdle as a response to Jim's thought experiment of having to be sewn into his clothes like foot soldiers in the civil war. We talk about the history men's fashion, men...

Do billionaires deserve our empathy? We passively mention the Brian Thompson murder, and Jim’s portrayal of The Vengeance in his books. Do we need the profit motive to create new drugs and medical treatments? Cialis, Viagra, and Ozempic all started out as drugs for different things than what they were intended. It’s the Bell Labs situation in another instance. Were the inventions from...

Lionel and Jim discuss a myriad of subjects this week with a subtile common thread. We move from Jim's recent experience with jury duty to return to discussing the novel The Devil’s Broker by Frances Stonor Saunders . From there we revisit the Steerswoman series with Jim's experience reading book 3: The Lost Steersman. Lionel has been left behind on these books, but talks about The...

Lionel and Jim talk about the book "The Devil's Broker" by Frances Stonor Saunders and about mercenaries and what happens when peace breaks out and they don't get paid. We also discuss Laurie Anderson, the dawn and death of classical synthesizer music, Dune Prophecy, briefly - more on this later, the Prague Diaries TV series, Firefly, and books by Stanislaw Lem. A rollicking good time.

Encore episode from January 2023Jim Rosen, Catherine Pilfrey, Matthew Bellows, and Jim Infantino have been teaching meditation online for almost 3 years as part of a twice weekly session that meets Tuesdays and Thursdays called Mindful Aware. In this episode, Matt, Jim, Jim, and Catherine answer Lionel’s questions about meditating online and discuss the practice of teaching meditation from a...

We discuss two novels in this episode, the first, The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein , was suggested to us by Sarah Elkins. The second, The City & The City by China Miéville was suggested by Jim to Lionel and then by Lionel to the group. This four person book series seems to be a thing with us. We enjoyed ourselves, I hope you do too.

Monty joins the pod and we talk about his experience playing music, going to folk conventions, his “no-case” showcase at NERFA, playing, and Monty’s songs. Montgomery Delaney is an unusual performer in the folk world. Later in the show the conversation takes a turn, as we talk about how Monty was banned from Cafe Lena one time because of his political beliefs. We discuss what it...

David decided after graduating NYU in the late 80's that he did not want a traditional desk job. He joined the Seafarers International Union as an unlicensed deckhand. Eventually he joined the Sailors' Union of the Pacific and finally got his officer's license in 2013. He has sailed all over the world on US flagged vessels. He worked as a licensed deck officer in the Masters, Mates...

This conversation would qualify for ASMR in terms of the pacing and tone, except that we discuss the movie Vice with Christian Bale. Jim talks about his impressions of it and Lionel talks about a number of books and movies he's been watching, including 'Mordecai,' and Isaac Asimov's 'The Gods Themselves.' We talk about our viewings of The Americans, comparing the espi...

Subject: A Night In The Lonesome October by Roger ZelaznyGuests: Julia Tenney, Sarah ElkinsThis curious summary was generated by AI:The conversation explores various themes including biking adventures, car troubles, and the legacy of Subaru. It transitions into a discussion about the book 'A Night in the Lonesome October', focusing on character dynamics, plot unfolding, and the role of a...

This one has a big, red E on it. Take the kids to the bunker before hitting play. Eric Schwartz is possibly the only artist in the history of the world to get raves from Gloria Steinem and Hustler Magazine. His songs are alternately heart warming and ... something else. We sit down and talk about his work, his feelings about his craft, and what it all means. In addition to rude mentions of body pa...

Lionel and Jim talk about producing this podcast for video, which you can see in a separate post. The thumbnail did not show up but it's available from youtube - unlisted as of this posting. We also discuss transitions and productivity at work and our trip down the Empire Trail in New York State. We end up discussing two films which were first timers for Lionel and repeats for Jim: Mystery Me...

Lionel and I were talking about all our druthers in the literary and streaming world when I got a phone call from Chris Chandler, and I invited him on the pod to just talk about whatever was happening with him. We did discuss Hurricane Helene and our friends in the Asheville area as well as Chris' tour schedule and our upcoming visit to San Antonio to honor the late Monk Wilson.

This week we are joined by playwright, rowing coach, meditation teacher, songwriter/singer and all around fascinating human being, Mark Basquill to predominantly discuss the play he co-wrote with Jay Sefton. Unreconciled is the true story of an adolescent actor cast as Jesus in a school play directed by a parish priest. The story chronicles a survivor’s journey as he confronts his past, navi...

For music makers, a producer/engineer can be a unique sort of friend. For all of us, except Lionel in this conversation, that unique friend came with the name "Ducky Carlisle" and helped us make the best music we could make, all while having the time of our lives. Bleu McAuley, Shaun Wortis, Mike Gent, and Jim tell the tales of the studio days and nights with the late great Duck Carlisle and we pl...

This week we were fortunate to have songwriter, singer, producer, creator, Jeff Tareila on the pod. Jeff has toured internationally with his band and solo, has recorded and produced "tons of records" in his words, and shared a history back in the distant past with Jim, stomping around the SoHo folk scene in New York City. He talks about the creation of his own releases as well as work he's be...

This one was recorded while Jim was in New York City at Rivendell (Peter Cooper Villiage) in the last homely house (his mom's apartment) with his daughters visiting his mom. We talk about Norman Cantor's In the Wake of the Plague, and touch on some other books about similar subjects before veering off to discuss Napoleonic surgeons, The Watchmen, and Lionel's idea for R.U.N.A.I. Ref...

This week Lionel and Jim talk about the TikTok algorithm, Roy Casagranda, AB testing at PayPal in the 2000s, Survey Groups and Polling, The Bonfire of The Vanities ny Tom Wolfe, the real date of the Fall of the Roman Empire, The Printing Press As An Agent Of Change by Elizabeth Eisenstein, and Autonomous by Analee Newitz. References here: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S5~dot~02-Bang-on-...

We start our fifth season by considering a change of genre for our podcast, either to sports or economics, but ultimately settling on not giving a crap. We move on to considering the difference and origins of both Science Fiction and Fantasy, and then ponder the origins of Vanishing Point Perspective Drawings and whether human beings are biologically the same from a few thousand years ago to prese...