Weird Studies - Episodes Tagged with “Nature”

Episode 102: On Pan, with Gyrus

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 10:30:00 -0400

"What was he doing, the great god Pan, down in the reeds by the river?" With this question, the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning opens her famous poem "A Musical Instrument," which explores nature's troubling embrace of savagery and beauty. It seems that Pan always raises questions: What is he doing? What does he want? Where will he appear next? Linked to instinct, compulsion, and the spontaneous event, Pan is without a doubt the least predictable of the Greek Gods. Small wonder that he alone in the Greek pantheon sports human and animal parts. In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by Gyrus, author of the marvellous North: The Rise and Fall of the Polar Cosmos, to capture a deity who, though he has made more than one appearance on Weird Studies, remains decidedly elusive.

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REFERENCES

Gyrus, "Sketches of the Goat God in Albion"
Gyrus, North
James Hillman, Pan and the Nightmare
Pharmakon, philosophical term
Stanley Diamond, In Search of the Primitive
Philippe Borgeaud, The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece
Hellier, television docuseries
Weird Studies, Episode 98 on exotica
Pink Floyd, Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
Clayton Eshelman, Juniper Fuse
Plutarch “On the Silence of the Oracles”
Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger
D.H. Lawrence, “Pan in America”
Jim Brandon, The Rebirth of Pan

Episode 59: Green Mountains Are Always Walking

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 10:30:00 -0500

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around a lake." This line from Wallace Stevens' "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" captures something of the mysteries of walking. It points to the undeniable yet baffling relationship between walking and thinking, between putting one foot in front of the other and uncovering the secret of the soul and world. In this episode, JF and Phil exchange ideas about the weirdness of this thing most humans did on most days for most of world history. The conversation ranges over a vast territory, with zen monks, novelists, Jesuits and more joining your hosts on what turns out to be a journey to wondrous places.

Header image by Beatrice, Wikimedia Commons

REFERENCES

Dogen, The Mountains and Waters Sutra
Weird Studies listener Stephanie Quick on the Conspirinormal podcast
Weird Studies episode 51, Blind Seers: On Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood'
Lionel Snell, SSOTBME
Henry David Thoreau, "Walking"
Arthur Machen, "The White People"
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Vladimir Horowitz, Russian panist
Gregory Bateson, cybernetic theorist
The myth of the Giant Antaeus
Wallce Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction"
Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life
John Cowper Powys, English novelist
Will Self, English writer
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait”
Paul Thomas Anderson (director), Punch Drunk Love
Viktor Shklovsky, Russian formalist
Patreon blog post on Phil’s dream
David Lynch (director), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Episode 55: The Great Weird North: On Algernon Blackwood's 'The Wendigo'

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 11:30:00 -0400

No survey of weird literature would be complete without mentioning Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951). As with all masters of the genre, Blackwood's take on the weird is singular: here, it isn't the cold reaches of outer space that elicit in us a nihilistic frisson, but the vast expanses of our own planet's wild places -- especially the northern woods. In his story "The Wendigo," Blackwood combines the beliefs of the Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands with the folktales of his native Britain to weave an ensorcelling story that perfectly captures the mood of the Canadian wilderness. In this conversation, JF and Phil discuss their own experience of that wilderness growing up in Ontario. The deeper they go, the spookier things get. An episode best enjoyed in solitude, by a campfire.

Header Image: "Highway 60 Passing Through the Boreal Forest in Algonquin Park" by Dimana Koralova, Wikimedia Commons

SHOW NOTES

Glenn Gould, The Idea of North
Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo"
Game of Thrones (HBO series)
Weird Studies, Episode 29: On Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition"
Fritz Leiber, The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Richard Wagner, Parsifal
David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return
Peter Heller, The River: A Novel
The Killing of Tim McLean (July 30, 2008)
Weird Studies, Episode 3: Ecstasy, Sin, and "The White People"
Mysterious Universe: Strange and Terrifying Encounters with Skinwalkers
Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds
Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy
Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy