What Do You Want to Talk About?

Joy thought Norm's special was a middling show; I liked it and found it creative...which goes to show we have different tastes. One thing we agreed on, uncle Norm sure makes you think about things differently! So what about Hitler's dog? Is the title of the special a theme that runs through the whole special or something he thought of in the last second?

Have you seen Judah Friedlander's special "America is the Greatest Country in US" The line already tells you that this comic is one who smart comedy is delivered by seemingly stupid sentences, which is hard to pull! The special is so different from other specials: no intro, all black and white, you don't get to see the audience, and all close up shots. Judah is the homeless guy w...

This is about grief, about how grief can be both a self-centering and self-erasing process. We talk about the story telling itself, makes you marvel at the storytellers, whose exceptional skills is in its subtlety. And then the fascinating life of the author, whose story when I first heard it I thought I was hearing the plot of a short story written by Mishima, when it was actually his bio. If the...

Can stories save us? It's a 3 hour movie without anything blowing up, but Hiroshima is in the background, great loss that radiates in the main characters? Can a story rescue us? Sometimes we tell stories to run always from "reality." Sometimes it can reorient us in our reality. And isn't our reality also a series of stories? What story keeps you going?

We read two poems recently featured at Poetry Unbound. They both talk about food. They are sensuous and makes your mouth water, but they also make you think about what it means to be a human being in relationship. After all food is a communal act, its about making up, deepening relationships. Because food is about survival, it is also about pleasure, family, and friendship.

First time talking about art. Both a bit nervous in that we don't have the art piece before us, or before you, our listeners. Lot of interesting insights into the aesthetic experience. We both agreed that the physicality of painting is part of the experience, especially when it come Rothko's piece. And being non-representational, it creates space for greater subjectivity and a transcendent...

We are both smitten by Ocean Vuong, his poetry surprises us, his metaphors are both violent and compassionate. His poetry is not just the weaving of a skilled professional, but emerges from a vulnerability of the spirit. We read two poems from his latest book, and just spent time living in them. Read along and join the conversation. https://placesjournal.org/article/in-newport-i-watch-my-father-la...

The German-Korean Philosopher, Byung Chul Han, warns against the proliferation of non-things, how as we lose "posession" the lingering care required in having things, because we moving to non-things of the digital world, where accesss & information supercedes ownership & truth, are losing something about what it means to be a human person. It's a fascinating reading. It does...

I (Sam) loved it, Joy didn't like it. At the end of the conversation, does Joy change her mind about it? What did you think of it? It isn't your typical stand up. Does it stretch the form? Or does it fail and imitating another form pretending to be comedy? What makes a one-man show a comedy special? And if you confess your secret in public, does it become insincere? Does performance actual...

Joy and I (Samuel Lee) talk about the poem "Study of Two Figures" by Monica Youn. Have you read it? It is unlike most other poems we read. It's such a logical argument, building up incrementally. Yet, there is a poetic assurance and at the end all of these seemingly dry lines come to create a powerful poetic experience. And so many "hot button" subjects are presented to the...

Joy is in Oxford to conduct interviews for research. I am stuck in Louisville. We don't start talking about the movie until later, but all the touching base conversation on the stupidity of the pageantry of British Coronation we were going to edit, just left in.

This is our first recording. Hooray! I love engaging in all sorts of topic with my friend, Joy Nam. She is constantly dis/re-orienting me, making me see things in different vantage points. And we both loved Beef, and wanted to talk about it. So this podcasting is really for ourselves...but let's see where it goes. This is two non-experts talking together to understand why we like the things we...