Episodes and Blog Entries
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Episode 176: On Charles Burns' 'Black Hole' and the Medium of Comics
Episode | September 25th, 2024 | 1 hr 21 mins
art, body horror, comics, formalism, grotesque
JF and Phil discuss Charles Burns' masterful graphic novel "Black Hole."
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Mid-Break Bonus: The Quiet Earth
Episode | August 21st, 2024 | 1 hr 1 min
art, bonus episodes, cinema, clowns, literature, speculative fiction
A rollicking ride of a bonus episode, previously exclusive to our Patreon supporters.
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Episode 175: Don't Look Now: Live at Lily Dale
Episode | August 7th, 2024 | 1 hr 58 mins
death, ghost stories, grief, literature, live recordings, paranormal, time
At Shannon Taggart's annual Symposium on the Science of Things Spiritual in Lily Dale, New York, Phil and JF record a live episode on Daphne du Maurier's experiment in unreality, "Don't Look Now."
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Episode 174: Magick and Enlightenment, with Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford
Episode | July 24th, 2024 | 1 hr 29 mins
enlightenment, magic, metaphysics, occult, religion
Magical practitioners Duncan Barford and Alan Chapman join JF and Phil to talk about magic, truth, and the Holy Guardian Angel.
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Episode 173: By Heart: On Memory, Poetry, and Form
Episode | July 10th, 2024 | 1 hr 18 mins
aesthetics, formalism, literature, memory, poetry
JF and Phil try to recite classic poems by heart in this discussion on the magic of memory.
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Episode 172: Head Over Heels: On the Hanged Man of the Tarot
Episode | June 26th, 2024 | 1 hr 19 mins
archetypes, occult, psychology, religion, tarot
Phil and JF continue their series on the tarot with a discussion of the twelfth major arcanum.
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Episode 171: The Beauty and the Horror
Episode | June 13th, 2024 | 1 hr 8 mins
aesthetics, beauty, cinema, literature, metaphysics, music
JF and Phil discuss the interplay between beauty and horror in art, examining how each enhances the other.
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Episode 170: Art is Another Word for Truth: On Orson Welles's 'F for Fake'
Episode | May 29th, 2024 | 1 hr 25 mins
aesthetics, art, cinema, forgery, magic
JF and Phil discuss Orson Welles's 1973 film essay on the strange overlap of fraud, art, and truth.
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Episode 169: On Free Expression
Episode | May 15th, 2024 | 1 hr 37 mins
art, philosophy, politics
Phil and JF tackle the thorny issue of freedom of expression in politics, academia, and the arts.
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Episode 168: Visions of the Wasteland: On George Miller's 'Mad Max' Films
Episode | May 1st, 2024 | 1 hr 20 mins
apocalypse, cinema, civilization, science fiction
JF and Phil find glimmers of the Weird in George Miller's post-apocalyptic outback.
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Episode 167: The Hand of Ithell, with Amy Hale
Episode | April 17th, 2024 | 1 hr 28 mins
aesthetics, art, celticism, goes episodes, occult, scholarship, surrealism
Independent scholar Amy Hale joins Phil and JF to discuss the life and work of esoteric artist Ithell Colquhoun.
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Episode 166: Make Believe: On the Power of Pretentiousness
Episode | April 3rd, 2024 | 1 hr 13 mins
creativity, criticism, culture, methodology
JF and Phil discuss pretentiousness as both an occupational hazard and a virtue of creative work.
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Episode 165: Tatters of the King: On Robert Chambers' 'The King in Yellow'
Episode | March 20th, 2024 | 1 hr 26 mins
cosmic horror, decadence, literature, religion
Phil and JF discuss four stories from Robert W. Chambers' pioneering work of weird fiction.
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Episode 164: Towards a Weird Materialism: On Expressionism in Cinema
Episode | March 6th, 2024 | 1 hr 29 mins
aesthetics, cinema, expressionism, literature, metaphysics, music, visual art
JF and Phil discuss the expressionist sensibility in the history of film.
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Episode 163: The Source of All Abysses: On the Devil Card in the Tarot
Episode | February 21st, 2024 | 1 hr 10 mins
divination, esotericism, evil, religion, tarot, the devil
Phil and JF continue their occasional series on the major trumps of the tarot with a discussion on the fifteenth Arcanum, the Devil.
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Episode 162: The Incarnation of Meaning: Greenwich Village After the War
Episode | February 7th, 2024 | 1 hr 18 mins
america, art, cities, decadence, film, history, literature
JF and Phil discuss post-war Greenwich Village, by way of Anatole Broyard's "Kafka Was the Rage" and John Cassavetes' "Shadows."