‘funny,’ not funny

Brothers revisited! This week, Lionel’s brother Damian joins us to talk about big construction, data centers for crypto mining and AI, modern art in the Hudson Valley, The M1 Abrams Tank, hybrids vs. electric cars, problems with money and guns, the end of work, and what’s still great about the United States of America. References: Here

We have our first caller! How this happened is a mystery, I suppose. Perhaps it’s all fake. However it happened, we ended up with a lively conversation with Tim on line one. We discuss phone hacking viruses, the future of crypto, DJs, record stores, tastemakers in the age of instant access, leisure, work, and the pandemic response. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~...

Jim 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 western perspective. References...

A new season for the new year! Professor Donald Smith returns to the pod, post haste to deal with Jim’s misconceptions about gravity, a discussion of neutron stars and the James Webb Telescope, mental models in physics, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Ptolemy, and more. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~01-Donald-Smith-2/

Lionel and Jim look back at a little more than a year of making this podcast. We remember conversations with our guests, our growing reading lists, talk about the origin of the podcast and what we want to see in 2023.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~14-Johnny-Gottadoo/

Donald Smith manages Guilford’s introductory and advanced physics laboratories, laser optics laboratory, and rooftop observatory. He joined us to talk about Chat GPT and education challenges, the search for life and the startling size of the universe, German Science Fiction currently streaming, and his reading list. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~13-Donald-Smith/

We touch on two books Jim is reading, A Canticle for Leibowitz , and The City & The City , as well as The Hunger Games , which Jim is reading to his daughters. Then we talk about the new Texas Governor’s governmental bans on TikTok and certain types of drones. From there, we move on to topics we don’t fully understand and get lots of things wrong, including Quantum Computing (Lione...

Ben is a musician and game developer who focuses his energy on creativity, positivity, and community. Ben does a weekly YouTube show called the Two Hour Music Challenge. We talk about his music work and what he's reading and watching and just generally chill out to a selection of his hundreds of tunes. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~11-Ben-Burnes/ All song samples...

Jim and Lionel return to the subject of the traditional Thanksgiving feast, discuss Riddley Walker, A Clockwork Orange, possible shortcomings of The Peripheral TV series, Andor & Rogue One, Iceland travels, and Heima, by Sigur Ros. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~10-Upside-Down/

Kurt Uenala (aka null+void & Kap10Kurt) has produced, programmed, mixed, and remixed giants like Depeche Mode, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Kills, Dave Gahan, Soulsavers, Yelle, Erasure, The Ravonettes, The Kills, The Big Pink, and Moby. We talk about his gadgets (heavy nerd warning), touring with Jim, his recording process, alarms going off in the middle of the night, learning Icelandic,...

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, Thanksgiving from a UK perspective, Doctor Who, Billy Butcher, Frank Herbert, Zombie Math, and the World of Warcraft disease. You might recognize his...

We are joined by the amazing Vance Gilbert and talk about nostrils, voting in MA and TX, Vance’s Monday Acoustic Pajama Party, his incredible songs, the songwriting scene in the Boston of the 90s, our favorite songwriters from that time, especially David Goldfinger, being on tour with a comedian and more. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~07-Vance-Gilbert/ All song...

Jim starts by telling us about his favorite hot sauce . Then he talks about the extensive references page on the website , which is still in process, thanks to Johnny Gottadoo. Then they launch into a discussion of The Peripheral on Amazon Prime, and discuss the book Educated by Tara Westover, before finishing with some concerns about the inevitable demise of Affirmative Action by SCOTUS.Reference...

John Infantino is a writer and director, known for Regular Show , Star vs. the Forces of Evil , and Despicable Me , as well as his work on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack , Adventuretime , Chowder , and Camp Lazlo, to name a few. He is also Jim’s brother. John talks with us about creating cartoons, writing the stories we watch, adaptations & mutations, shows he’s watching,...

Jim and Lionel discuss streaming shows and books including the Rings of Power, the upcoming show based on William Gibson’s The Peripheral, Chef’s Table: Pizza, N.K. Jemisin ’s The Broken Earth Trilogy , Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza , and Hero of Two Worlds : The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution by Mike Duncan. Listen to The History Happy Hour Podcast with Mike...

Jim starts by sharing his weight loss hack for getting on the scale in the morning, which leads into a discussion of The War of Jenkin’s Ear, which leads into a discussion of the role of money in the creation of multicultural cities, which leads to a talk about barter, goats on drones, the library of things, torx wrenches, rat tail files, super yachts & the economy, and tries to get back...

Dan Cantor, drummer, songwriter, producer of rock, folk, hip hop, and world music, visits the podcast to tell tales of recording overseas and in his studio, problems with travel and food, the power of rap music, and more. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~02-Dan-Cantor/ All song clips included with permission from Dan Cantor.

Lionel and Jim discuss the end of summer, Mark Leyner, Kate Bush and the return of the 80s, New shows, old movies, Sherlock Holmes, Wars and our sense of humanity, The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, and how to save the world with either a new religion, compassion for future generations, or AI.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S2~dot~01-The-Will-of-Landru/

Lionel and Jim talk about what makes a great character in a story. What works? What appeals? Why do some fall flat? Why do some capture us? They also speak a little about their upcoming discussion of The Ministry For The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~27-Imperfect-people-being-uncomfortable/

Sarah Elkins has been in science fiction fandom since putting on a Doctor Who convention in the 80s. She joins the podcast this week to continue our coversation about science fiction and feminism. We discuss books by Vonda Macintyre, Ann Leckie, Octavia Butler and more. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~26-Sarah-Elkins/

Amy Robinson is our guest on the pod this week. Amy is a creator of puppets, an engineer, a mom person, a creative thinker and maker of things, and a knower of cool books and refined queries, a frequent guest on The Morning Stream. You can find her brand of puppets at peeperspuppets.com . We talk about creativity, puppets, coding, and narcolepsy. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/...

Thank you to Patron Sarah Elkins for suggesting the book The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood to us. We spend most of our time trying to suss out the meaning of that tremendous book by James Gleick in this episode. Discussed are entropy, encryption, memory, logic, and language. In short we manage to mangle a lot of deep thinking. References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot...

Julia Tenney joins us again with a conversation about feminism and science fiction and what makes a science fiction story feminist. We discuss Starhawk, Margaret Atwood, Marge Piercy, Vonda N. McIntyre , Ursula LeGuin, and decide we need more reading material to continue this conversation at a later date. Send us book recommendations from the contact form on our website. References: https://funnyn...

Lionel and Jim talk about Riverside.fm , our podcasting platform, Claude Shannon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon, Lionel’s new home full of stuff, Swat Teams & Active shooter drills in Boston, Jim’s short story in progress about the super volcano under Yellowstone park, Lionel’s new synthesizer, inspirational musicians and what is accessible in music, and burger...

Dar joins the pod to tell us about her experience writing What I Found In A Thousand Towns, her songwriting and creative process, her experience in Beacon New York with Roger Ailes, the remarkable Jaimie Raskin, our relationship to art, the environment, and each other, Active Citizenship, and so much more. I could not find the live performance of The Mark Rothko song. If someone knows where it is,...