The Projectionist's Lending Library

Lithe and listen, gentlefolk! The year is 1193, or thereabouts, anyway sometime in the reign of “Good King Richard” (the Lionheart, good for some and not so good for others). The place is merrie olde England—more precisely, Nottingham and its environs, under an enormous, ancient tree. The subject: Robin of Locksley, Robin o’ the Hood himself. You know the basic story—robs from the rich, gives to t...

Nathanael and Erik continue their brief foray into medieval verse with the late 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the 2021 film adaptation The Green Knight directed by David Lowery and starring Dev Patel and Ralph Ineson. This episode's music comes from the album In a Medieval Garden by the Stanley Buetens Lute Ensemble, available at the internet archive. Nathanael referenc...

A new season begins! Horror has come to Hrothgar’s Hall. Grendel the monster,hated by God, has laid waste his mead-hall, slaughtered his men. Now comes the champion, claiming renown: Beowulf the Brave,bringing his band to battle the monster, slay the beast. Today on The Projectionist's Lending Library , we discuss the epic poem Beowulf, the 1976 novel Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton, and th...

Kline and Booth are joined by special guest Mark Brenden to discuss Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Mark gives insight into the novel and movie as examples of what he calls "The Bush Western"--a Western written during and responding to the early years of the War on Terror. Music Used: The Old Country Church A Cowboy Serenade

It's a Christmas episode! Today we look at the short story "The Three Godfathers" and two adaptations--one very loose--of it: John Ford's 1948 3 Godfathers and Satoshi Kon's 2003 Tokyo Godfathers . Explore with us the mystery of grace and humanity in this desperate season of grace and humanity. Resource: Julia Serano

Some seek enlightenment in self-abasement; others, in surrender to the senses; still others, in a contemplation of time and eternity. The protagonist of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha does all three. Today, on The Projectionist’s Lending Library , we examine Hesse’s 1922 novel, a kind of parallel life of the Buddha, and the 1971 electric Western Zachariah— perhaps the wildest adaptation we have looked...

Beneath the surface of ordinary life is another world—the world of the vampire. While you go about your day—shopping, working—the vampire sleeps until the moment when, the sun fallen, he can emerge from his crypt and feast. Down these bloodsucking streets go men who are massive, giants with their own towering emotions. They live hard, drink hard, love hard, because they know that any night might b...

The stars of the West are all larger than life: Wyatt Earp, Wild BillHickock, Billy the Kid. Among the brightest of these stars is Jesse James, an outlaw who became a legend in his own lifetime—and, through his death, ascended into the pantheon. But, of course, Jesse James was a man, and not a particularly good one; and his murderer, Robert Ford, was also a man. Their story is much less one of cla...

In 1872, Polly Bemis came to America. She did not come, as so many have, out of hope of beginning a new life; she was forced here, sold into slavery (as the story goes) to a man named Hong King. One she arrived, however, she set about building a life for herself almost in spite of the men around her: she gained her freedom, she married Charlie Bemis, she settled down. These are details in the life...

This is part two of a two-part episode on Edna Ferber's GIANT (1952) and the 1956 film adaptation of it starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. In part two, Erik and Nathanael discuss the film, its historical significance, and its contemporary resonance, as well as its notoriety as James Dean's last film.

PART ONE OF TWO Please note that we had minor technical issues with recording on these episodes. We have to the best of our ability edited around them. They say everything’s bigger in Texas—the land, the sky, thehair, the ambitions, the hopes, the fears…. GIANT is a novel about that bigness, a novel about the way that immensity can overwhelm a person…. Virginian Leslie Benedict—nee Lynton—follows...

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner concluded his speech on “TheSignificance of the Frontier in American History” with these words: “What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and tothe nations of Europe more remot...

In 1865—or perhaps it was 1833—Horace Greeley gave the famous advice to “go west, young man, and grow up with the country.” He said it in print—or to a young acquaintance—like most legends of the American West, the details are vague. All the same, over the course of the 19th Century many young men answered his call. One of them was Will Andrews, the protagonist of the novel we will be discussing t...

Just in time for Pride Month, we are joined by Jennie Lightweis-Goff to talk about Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain" and the 2005 movie based on it. Please note that, of all our episodes, this one earns its "explicit" tag with a frank discussion of sex and hate crimes. High in the mountains, anything can happen. Men, separated from society, find themselves seeking comfort in each oth...

It's spooky season! In their October episode, Nathanael and Erik discuss the figurative and literal body horror seen in Kafka's absurdist novella THE METAMORPHOSIS and Cronenberg's visceral cult classic THE FLY.

Will Murray joins Erik and Nathanael to discuss John Ball's novel In the Heat of the Night and the 1967 movie based on it. Join us as we discuss the idea of the American South as branding and as scapegoat, interrogate the limits of generic forms, and answer the question of whether In the Heat of the Night is a feel-good movie. [Production note: there are some issues with sound here and there in th...

In the second episode of their Western season, Nathanael and Erik discuss Sherman Alexie's short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven as well as Alexie's adaptation of his own work in Smoke Signals. As the second installment of the season, they consider how a contemporary collection centered around the Spokane Indian Reservation responds to the American Western my...

Hi, everyone. Over the coming days and weeks you may see old episodes unexpectedly reappearing in your feed. This is because we have been asked to re-edit them to remove some copyrighted material. Though we are not at this point monetized and believe that all we do is in good faith, we do wish to respect the TOS of Spotify and the rights of creators, and so we have taken the opportunity to slightl...

Hi, all. No, you're not going back in time. We're slightly re-editing and re-uploading some episodes to comply with Spotify's ToS.

For our season finale, we delve into the world of dreams by looking at Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven and the 1980 PBS movie based on it. What if your dreams could change the world--not in a metaphorical sense, but in a concrete way? What responsibility would you have? In this wide-ranging discussion we talk about Taoism, overpopulation discourse (again!) and the importance of public...

Nathanael and Erik are rejoined by guest Carl Watts in this episode covering the celebrated novel, iconic film, and its more contemporary sequel. Our conversation today touches on ideas of belief and fraudulence and, in the spirit of PKD, questions of reality and ontology. In addition, as this is our annual holiday episode, we discuss why BLADE RUNNER 2049 is, in fact, a Christmas movie. Show note...

Erik and Nathanael are joined by special guest Elizabeth Allen to discuss 2001: A Space Odyssey , a somewhat unique collaboration between two giants in their respective fields. We discuss midcentury fears of overpopulation, the destiny of humanity, and the possibilities (and dangers) of transcendence. Links: Scout Tafoya and Tucker Johnson on Kubrick, Spielberg, and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence F...

Happy Halloween! Come in out of the cold and cozy up to the blazing outpost as Erik and Nathanael discuss John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There" and the movie(s) based on it. Golden Age S.F., the limits of science and language, and very butch men battle it out in a struggle for dominance in the frozen wastes.

Welcome to the Erik Kline show! Today we look at William S. Burroughs, David Cronenberg, and Naked Lunch . We talk biography, we talk drugs, we talk obscenity. Everything is on the table and nothing is forbidden, so strap in for a bumpy journey into the Interzone. Burroughs lecture on the paranormal. Here's the YouTube video Booth mentions.

Booth and Kline are joined by returning guest Matthew Wells to discuss Slaughterhouse-Five , war, and time. Heavy topics, but done with a light touch since, after all, you can't spell "slaughter" without "laughter." Music: "Cheerio," performed by the Manhattan Beach Coast Guard Band