‘funny,’ not funny

This week, we talk with Robert Blake Whitehill , the author of the Ben Blackshaw thrillers . Deadrise , the first book, takes place in the Chesapeake Bay , on Smith and Tangier Island s and the surrounding areas. We talk about this history of those islands in relation to the books, as well as the meaning of the title, and boats called Deadrise , and work boats like the Winnie Estelle . Our convers...

Podcaster, musician, songwriter, artist, writer, thought leader, and our somnolent listener, James O’Brien joins the pod to talk about his many projects and how he gets it all done. We talk about his podcast, All Your Days , Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Pump Club project , and his documentary about Betsy Siggins, Long Ago Way . We talk about the Wes Anderson film, The Wonderful Story of Hen...

Jim starts talking about his adventures in social media and James O’Brien’s wisdom on how not to get noticed there. We tell 2 jokes and Lionel talks about discovering Literacy CNY at his local library and his volunteer work in digital literacy. Jim and Lionel talk about Lionel’s upcoming trip to Boston. They talk again about The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. They talk about...

In this episode, we welcome Nick Bruel. Nick is the New York Times best selling author and illustrator of Boing , Who Is Melvin Bubble , and the Bad Kitty books . We start the discussion with Jim and Nick's history together from first grade, where they met their common nemesis and how it continued in college, where Nick drew a comic strip called Kawala Bob for the bi-college newspaper. We tal...

Jim starts things off by sharing his impressions of The Day of the Jackal , and Lionel and he talk about the historical background, touching briefly on Albert Camus and the feel of the film, the pacing and the cinematography. We split off into the genre the film pioneered. They move on to an initial impression of Deadrise by Robert Blake Whitehill . Jim talks about getting up at 5am and doing yoga...

Jim launches into a diatribe about the use of the word ‘ mindset ,’ matcha vs. coffee for increasing combativeness, the Clover Machine that used to be at Starbucks , Lattes and the word puerile . Lionel extols the virtues of Syracuse and its surrounding towns, replicable results in chain cafes, and the conversation continues from there. References to: Too Much Coffee Man by Shannon Whe...

It was Lionel’s big birthday when we recorded this one. We talk inexpertly about cigars and the crash of 2008, Jim being mistaken for Stanley Tucci, the Bats Man, the J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies, Piranesi (BIG SPOILERS), and our first email from a listener. Warning to people who haven't read Piranesi, you might want to skip this one. Also, Jim’s mic was all wrong during th...

Sarah and Ben met with us once before to discuss Jim's novels, and now they return to talk about what they've been reading. The books and movies are too numerous to list here but we start our conversation with the novel Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle and move on through the new Teen Age Ninja Turtles movie to Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk and Ho...

This episode is resplendent with expletives. You have been warned. Greg Olear joins the pod to discuss his novel “ Empress: The Secret History of Anna K . ” Greg Olear is an author, novelist, journalist, and podcaster. His substack, PREVAIL tackles the currently mad political news cycle as both weekly articles and podcast episodes. His Friday YouTube podcast is called The Five 8 featur...

While Lionel gets settled in to his new home in the northeast, enjoy this episode from 2022. We will be back with a new epsiode next week. Bill is a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard and the co-director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. Jim met him while on tour with Jim’s Big Ego in London. We talk about English Football, Thanksgivin...

Ellis Paul joins the pod and we discuss his new album “55” as well as what it was like growing up in northern Maine, how his work changed during the pandemic, reacting to the Beatles documentary, transitioning from competitive running to playing guitar, bad study habits, TransAtlantic by Colum McCann, Ellis’s upcoming retreats in Connecticut, England, and Ireland, and the book Vi...

This episode is our Season 3 closer, released late, due to the total collapse of my (Jim's) Mac. We start by talking about the website Slaps.com and move on to Jim's depressing read of The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen, which launches us into a discussion of the history of stratigraphy, and a questioning of the origins of the scientific process and the delay of discovery in the west...

Kurt joins the pod again to review the work Jim and he did on the album Utopia Revisited, which is available now, streaming everywhere and on bandcamp. We talk about the process, how it was different for both Kurt and Jim, how being in Iceland informed the sound, the nature of ambient music, production techniques, happy accidents and Kurt's laser show.

This week we talk with James Meyer, a photographer and artist who did 12 deployments in Afghanistan as a flight engineer on C130s, moving cargo during the war. We talk about his life as an artists and how his tours of duty inform his work.

Lionel and Jim talk about the release of Utopia Revisited by Jim, which is the album he recorded in Iceland. Jim has created a video out of stock clips. We talk about the possibility of doing a podcast from the road as Lionel drives north. Then we get Lionel’s take on Foundation on Apple TV as well as Silo , comparing both to The Expanse , which still remains a favorite . We discuss the Netf...

Lionel and Jim talk about Jim’s experience at the Hollywood premiere of The Flash , the upsides and downsides of cloud storage, The Silo novels and TV show, Wayward Pines , Mr. Beast , Work as narrative, the Apple Vision Pro, Hard Fork , the question of who owns your information in government and non-government organizations, the TV show Reality , and why you don’t want to get on the w...

This week Lionel and Jim talk with Keith Smith, longtime friend of Jim and Lead Engineer at MongoDB. We talk about Jim's misconceptions of noSQL databases (see the title) as well as Gotham and the history of New York City including a little bit about Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town where Jim and Keith grew up. Keith is a fantastic guy and we were glad to have him on to talk super-ner...

Lionel and Jim talk about Birkenstocks, Uggs, scorpions (not the band), the Men at Work lawsuit, Borges & The Lottery of Babylon , algorithms and black boxes, Mozart In Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling, Walkaway by Corey Doctorow, the problem of explainers in speculative fiction, The Diplomat on Netflix, Hugh Howey’s Wool and the Apple TV show Silo , The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawk...

Jim and Lionel talk about the Andy Warhol case at the Supreme Court, discussing parody vs sampling, Two Live Crew, artists and inventors who began with a craft, graft, difficult listening hour, Meghan O'Gieblyn's book God, Human, Animal, Machine, The Book of Job, more stuff in The Bible, Calvinism, Jim's invitation to an LA premiere, the origins of The Flash, Carmine Infantino'...

Matt Smith, the managing director of Club Passim joins us to talk about his love for vinyl records, outdated recording formats, and his history of involvement at Club Passim. This is a follow up to our previous episode and fills out the history of the club and the evolution of the music scene in Harvard Square. At the end, we decide to have Matt and Abby back some day to talk about their love of S...

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...

Jim, the producer’s note: I almost didn't put this one out - it didn’t feel like an episode until I listened to it. So here it is. We talk about Lionel’s impending move away from Texas to upstate New York, new book recommendations, Jim’s vinyl pressing adventures, progress on book 3 of the Wakeful Wanderer’s Guide, Orchestral maneuvers, Bob’s new car, The G...

Lionel and Jim start with an abortive return to the horrors of AI and pivot to talk about a new book Lionel is enjoying about the Osage tribe in the 1920s when we get a surprise call from Ellen, who will be helping out with running the podcast in the future. The three of us talk about her experiences in Ecuador, cartoons she’s watching with her daughter, notably My Little Pony, and talk abou...

This interview was mind blowing. Phil is creating 24 hours of music 5 minutes at a time and it's amazingly good. Lionel and I talk with him about his very detailed process and the story behind some of the songs starting at 12am and continuing until 2:59am as of the time of this podcast. That may sound confusing, but all becomes clear as we talk with Phil. Listen to the full project here: http...

Jim starts by talking about his recent substack article about AI and the end of money. Lionel takes off with his ideas about the importance of work in society, and what its end might mean to us all. We talk about how we might move forward in the presence of super-expert thinking machines.