Weird Studies - Episodes Tagged with “Buddhism”

Episode 183: On Hermann Hesse's 'Siddhartha'

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 10:30:00 -0500

Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha is one of the great novels of the twentieth century and a prime example of literature that transforms the deeply personal into something universal. For Phil and JF in this episode, the novel serves as the foundation for a discussion on spiritual journeying, the ideal of enlightenment, and the challenge of living in an ensouled universe.

Sign up for JF's new Weirdosphere course on the supernatural, starting on February 6th, 2025.

Purchase tickets to the Weirdosphere screening of Aaron Poole's Dada on February 1st, 2025.

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Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page.
Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia.
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REFERENCES

Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
Christopher Theofanidis and Melissa Studdard, Siddhartha
Gustav Holst, The Planets
Richard Wagner, Parsifal
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Colin Wilson, The Outsider
Adam Kirsch, “Herman Hesse’s Arrested Development”
Dogen, Genjakoan
Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

Episode 159: Three Songs, with Meredith Michael

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 11:15:00 -0500

Every once in a while, JF and Phil like to do a “song swap.” Each picks a song, and the ensuing conversation locates linkages and correspondences where none was previously thought to exist. In this episode, they are joined by the music scholar Meredith Michael – Weird Studies assistant, and co-host of Cosmophonia, a podcast about music and outer space – to discuss songs by Lili Boulanger, Vienna Teng, and Iron & Wine. Before long, this disparate assortment personal favourites occasions a weirdly focused dialogue on time, impermanence, control, (mis)recognition, and the affinity of art and synchronicity.

Support us on Patreon.
Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page.
Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia.
Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop
Find us on Discord
Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau!

REFERENCES
Iron and Wine, “Passing Afternoon”
Vienna Teng, “The Hymn of Acxiom”, (and here is the live version)
Lili Boulanger, Vieille Priére Bouddhique
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Karol Berger, Bach’s Cycle Mozart’s Arrow
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Vladimir Jankelevitch, Music and the Ineffable
Hector Berlioz, Fugue on “amen” from La Damnation du Faust
Slavoj Zizek, A Pervert’s Guide to Idiology
Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic
Shepard Tone
Rudolf Steiner, The Influces of Lucifer and Ahriman Special Guest: Meredith Michael.

Episode 115: Transience & Immersion: On Brian Eno's 'Music for Airports'

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 09:00:00 -0500

Soft, soothing, and understated as a rule, ambient music may seem the least weird of all musical genres. Not so, say JF and Phil, who devote this episode to Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports, the 1978 album in whose liner notes the term "ambient music" first appeared. In this conversation, your hosts explore the aesthetic, metaphysical, and political implications of a kind of music designed to interact with the listener -- and the listener's environment -- below the threshold of ordinary, directed awareness. Eno and Peter Schmidt's famous Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards designed to heighten and deepen creativity, lends divinatory support to the endeavor.

Support us on Patreon
Find us on Discord
Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau!
Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.)
Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop
Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack

REFERENCES

Brian Eno, Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Gabriella Cardazzo, Duncan Ward, and Brian Eno, Imaginary Landscapes
Oblique Strategies Deck
Theodore Adorno, Introduction to the Sociology of Music
Marc Auge, Non-Places
Anahid Kassabian, “Ubiquitous Music”
Sigmund Freud, “On Transience”
Weird Studies, Episode 104 on Sgt. Pepper
Joris Karl Huysmans, A Rebours
Roger Moseley, Keys to Play