Diet Soap Update: comedy dennis perrin george carlin jonathan winters michael o'donoghue stand-up
by douglaslain
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Diet Soap Podcast #181: The Low Art of Comedy
Dennis Perrin is the guest this week and we discuss the low art of comedy. Dennis is the author of Mister Mike the Man Who Made Comedy Dangerous, a stand-up comic himself, and a regular on the Diet Soap podcast.
I’d like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, and Ted F. Also, if you’re a fan of the Diet Soap Podcast why not leave a review on iTunes? If you’d like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com but keep in mind that my Kickstarter campaign for the Diet Soap Tour “Think the Impossible” is coming soon.
There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Michael O’Donoghue, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, Robin Williams, and a bit of stand-up from Mr. Perrin himself.
Here’s a clip from an essay Perrin recently penned for the online comedy magazine Splitsider:
I can’t think of an American comedian more revered and respected than Jonathan Winters. (There’s Jack Benny, for those who remember him.) Winters created a world where you were welcome, but you had to keep pace. His rapid-fire mind took hairpin turns. The inattentive might be left in his dust.
Winters was one of the more offbeat performers in mainstream comedy. He was as polished as Hope. As graceful as Gleason. As biting as Rickles. Yet Winters pushed it further. Breathed different oxygen. No matter how far out he went, Winters was accepted and cherished in the most conservative venues.. Read More at Splitsider.
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Diet Soap Update: Arrested Development Final Countdown Hegel Hipsters Illusion Michael Bluth philosophy
by douglaslain
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Diet Soap Podcast #180: Hegel, Self-Conceit and Michael Bluth
This week instead of an expert interview you’ll hear my son Benjamin and I discuss the television show Arrested Development, Hipsters, and Hegel. We cover the section on the Law of the Heart in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and try to make sense of gibberish like this:
“This ordinance is the sphere of perversion. For in that this ordinance is the law of all hearts, in that all individuals are immediately this universal, it is a reality which is only that of self-existing individuality, i.e. of the heart. When consciousness therefore sets up the law of its heart, it finds itself resisted by others because it conflicts with the equally individual laws of their heart; and the latter in opposing it are doing nothing else but setting up in their turn and making valid their own law.”
You can also find me discussing similar subject over on Jason Horsley’s new website Crucial Fictions.
I’d like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly again. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, Tracy V, and Ted F. If you’d like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com but you might consider that my Kickstarter campaign for the Diet Soap Tour “Think the Impossible” is coming soon. There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Arrested Development, Norman Mailer, Dairy Queen, Europe, and the youtube star Kazookeylele.
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Diet Soap Update: freud Hegel jason horsley philosophy trauma whitley strieber
by douglaslain
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Diet Soap Podcast #179: The Necessity of Trauma
The guest this week is Jason Horsley and we start to discuss his most current project called “Crucial Fictions” and specifically a chapter of his book “The Prisoner of Infinity” wherein he examines Whitely Strieber’s reported experiences as it relates to Horsley’s own conceptions of trauma, but we quickly diverge from his text as we spiral around the central concept of trauma itself. Jason Horsley is the author of many books including Matrix Warrior: Being the One and The Secret Life of Movies, and he is a regular guest on the Diet Soap podcast. If you visit his website crucialfiction.com you’ll be able to listen to the raw recording of this conversation in its entirety.
I’d like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly to the podcast. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, Tracy V, and Ted F. If you’d like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com, however I’ll be running a Kickstarter campaign in June and July and people who are thinking of donating might hold off and help out with that.
There are many sound clips in this episode. You’ll hear from Alenka Zupancic, Slavoj Zizek, Ryan Gosling in the movie Half Nelson, Sebastian Horsley discussing his propensity to cause himself trouble, and the Sesame Street Pinball song.
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Pop the Left #5: More Thoughts on Zerzan
John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. He is a critic of civilization and especially agriculture and he wants to return to a more primitive collective life. He advocates the nomadic life of prehistoric hunters and gatherers as a potential future.
Zerzan was the guest on Pop the Left #4 where we discussed the idea of reification and took a close look at Zerzan’s own notion of nature. This month on Pop the Left C Derick Varn and I speak briefly about the Zerzan interview.
Clips from an interview with Steven Vogel on the radio program Against the Grain, of George Bush singing an REM song, and from Monty Python’s Life of Brian can be heard in this one, and Varn and I discuss potential future guests.
Nicholas Pell is again absent, but plans to return for a future episode wherein we’ll discuss historical materialism.
You can now leave a voicemail message for Pop the Left and participate in the show. Just head to speakpipe.com/poptheleft and leave us a message.
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