‘funny,’ not funny

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.

Jim was down in North Carolina last week and recorded this conversation with David Wilcox in his home studio. Lionel joined us from San Antonio. We talk about songwriting, the lightness and darkness behind the songs, emotional buoyancy, and just soak up the perspective of this singular artist. All song samples included with permission from David Wilcox.[contains fbombs]

Lionel and Jim continue their discussion of AI, and move into the idea of human understanding through modeling, Isomorphism, stories, and the importance of forgetting.

In this episode, Jim and Lionel talk about what everyone is talking about, the advances made in AI this month. We tackle questions like “what are we going to do?” and “does it have agency?” and “what is compassion?” and “how do we know what we want?” as well as diving into the cheerful subject of how we are killing the planet. An uplifting listen, if...

John Chin is a Jazz musician and composer based in New York City. He has 4+ albums available and is working on a new live album recorded during the pandemic. His recent release “Anything Mose” was recorded with guitarist and vocalist Richard Julian. We dig into that album, as well as two of his other albums, “Undercover,” and “Fifth.” Check out his music at http...

Jim invites Lionel, Sarah Elkins, and Ben Burnes to tear into his novels The Wakeful Wanderer’s Guide series, to his own horror and delight. Lionel, Sarah, and Ben share their reactions to Jim’s novels with honesty and candor. What transpires is a lively discussion about not only the books, but thoughts on meritocracy, villains and heroes, self-deception and forgetting, names and ident...

Jim and Lionel take a moment to dig into the things that keep coming up in our recent conversations. We talk about the nature of money, work, AI, worth, what we want, what we should do, what do we want to be.

Chuck Robinson of Peepers Puppets stops by to talk about the creative side of coding. We get into food choices in New England vs Texas and Georgia, the nature of coding, and the process of building something that works. We end with some discussion of the rise of the machines and end up wondering where the nearest bunker can be found. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~08-W...

Recorded February 15 from TónLab studio (recorded on my ipad for convenience). Jim went to Iceland to record a collection of songs with producer Kurt Uenala. We discuss the first three songs we recorded, an ambient music event in Reykjavik, swimming in Iceland’s hot springs, a couple of books, Brian Eno’s process, and more. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3...

Lionel and Jim talk about Jim’s upcoming trip to Iceland to record a “phonogram” with Kurt Uenala, we talk about The Scottish Play, The All Thing, volcanic gardens, whiskey and the history of that drink, the steam engine, Otto von Guericke, drinking at Iota with Steve Negrey, extremely expensive bourbon, Louisiana cuisine, the music of Mike West, the problem of flying with guitar...

Lionel and Jim discuss email woes, Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis, Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson, more Neal Stephenson, The Cloud, Jim’s reading of Chromaspace Conscript by Megan Alnico, the nature of money, and Jeff Bezos’ yacht (again.)Photo credit: Fred Romero from Paris, France , CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/...