Paula Cole Discusses Songwriting: Stream the Nakedly Examined Music Interview Online

in Music, Podcasts | February 24th, 2022

This week’s Naked­ly Exam­ined Music pod­cast fea­tures the Gram­my-win­ning singer-song­writer Paula Cole. After back­ing Peter Gabriel in the ear­ly 90s on his Secret World tour, she had major hits with “I Don’t Want to Wait” (lat­er the theme song of Daw­son’s Creek) and “Where Have All the Cow­boys Gone.” She has released ten stu­dio albums since 1994.

On this pod­cast, you’ll hear four full songs with dis­cus­sions of their details: “Blues in Gray” from Rev­o­lu­tion (2019), “Father” from 7 (2015), and “Hush, Hush, Hush” from This Fire (1996), plus “Steal Away/Hidden in Plain Sight” from Amer­i­can Quilt (2021). Intro: “I Don’t Want to Wait,” also from This Fire. For more, see paulacole.com.

After her hit-mak­ing, her style took a rather sharp turn with the 1999 Amen album; here’s “I Believe in Love,” a dis­co tune from that. Her Rev­o­lu­tion album has some much more direct­ly polit­i­cal songs like its title track. She’s done some jazz and folk cov­ers with her recent Amer­i­can Quilt and Bal­lads album, like this tune. Here she is live in 1998 and a more recent stripped-down appear­ance. She can still sing “I Don’t Want to Wait” with pret­ty much the same tone, and in fact the ver­sion used to intro­duce the pod­cast is the artist’s re-record­ing, not the orig­i­nal.

Pho­to by Ebru Yildiz. Inter­view edit­ing by Tyler His­lop of Pix­el­box Media.

Naked­ly Exam­ined Music is a pod­cast host­ed by Mark Lin­sen­may­er, who also hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast, Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast, and Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv. He releas­es music under the name Mark Lint.

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The Enduring Appeal of Schulz’s Peanuts — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #116

in Comics/Cartoons, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | February 18th, 2022

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Animator/musician David Heat­ley, come­di­an Daniel Lobell, and academic/3anuts author Daniel Leonard join your Pret­ty Much Pop host Mark Lin­sen­may­er to dis­cuss Char­lie Brown and his author Charles Schulz from Peanuts’ 1950 incep­tion through the clas­sic TV spe­cials through to the var­i­ous post-mortem prod­ucts still emerg­ing.

What’s the endur­ing appeal, and is it strict­ly for kids? We talk about the chal­lenges of the strip for­mat, the char­ac­ters as arche­types, Schulz as depressed exis­ten­tial­ist, reli­gion in Peanuts, and whether the strip is actu­al­ly sup­posed to be fun­ny.

Some arti­cles we used for the dis­cus­sion include:

Also, RIP Peter Rob­bins (the day before we record­ed this). Here’s the 1982 Rerun com­ic Daniel Leonard reads us near the begin­ning. The biog­ra­phy that we keep refer­ring to is David Michaelis’ Schulz and Peanuts: A Biog­ra­phy. Yes, Don­di was a real (bad) com­ic strip.

Check out David’s new album and oth­er projects at davidheatley.com. Fol­low him @heatleycomics on Twit­ter and @davidheatley on Inst­gram.

Get Daniel Lobel­l’s Fair Enough com­ic at fairenoughcomic.com and read about the rest of his activ­i­ties at dannylobell.com. Fol­low him @DanielLobell on Twit­ter and @daniellobell on Insta­gram.

Read Daniel Leonard’s 3anuts, and buy Peanuts and Phi­los­o­phy, which con­tains one of his essays. Fol­low on Twit­ter @3anuts.

Here’s a 3eanuts exam­ple. Leav­ing off the last pan­el leaves us in despair!

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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The Philosophy of Games: C. Thi Nguyen on the Philosophy vs. Improv Podcast

in Games, Philosophy, Podcasts | January 18th, 2022

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Thi Nguyen (pro­nounced “TEE NWEEN”) teach­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah, and his first book, 2020’s Games: Agency as Art, makes a case for games being treat­ed as a seri­ous object of study for phi­los­o­phy. Thi sees game analy­sis as not just a sub-divi­sion in the phi­los­o­phy of art (aes­thet­ics), but in the phi­los­o­phy of action. How do games relate to oth­er human activ­i­ties with con­straints, like cus­toms, lan­guage, and more specif­i­cal­ly per­for­ma­tive acts with­in lan­guage (like say­ing “I do” dur­ing a mar­riage cer­e­mo­ny, where you’re not just describ­ing that you do some­thing, but actu­al­ly tak­ing action)?

On this record­ing (episode 24 of the pod­cast), Thi joins phi­los­o­phy pod­cast­er Mark Lin­sen­may­er of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life and impro­vi­sa­tion­al com­e­dy coach Bill Arnett of the Chica­go Improv Stu­dio to talk about games and improv, and to engage in a cou­ple of improv scenes that explore the con­nec­tion between the two.

This is the third phi­los­o­phy guest for the Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv pod­cast, which alter­nates between guests from the improv world, guests from the phi­los­o­phy world, and no guest at all. The over­all for­mat involves a les­son from each host, which they teach to each oth­er (and the guest) simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. This often results in unex­pect­ed syn­chronic­i­ty giv­en the con­nec­tions between two dis­ci­plines that stress the analy­sis of lan­guage, liv­ing delib­er­ate­ly, and quick think­ing.

For anoth­er philo­soph­i­cal­ly rich episode, see episode #20 in which St. Lawrence Uni­ver­si­ty’s Jen­nifer L. Hansen appeared to dis­cuss the many aspects of the con­cept of “The Oth­er” in phi­los­o­phy.

Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv is a pod­cast host­ed by Mark Lin­sen­may­er, who also hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast, Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast, and Naked­ly Exam­ined Music. 

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The “West Side Story” Story — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #114

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Theatre | January 14th, 2022

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Did it make sense for Steven Spiel­berg to remake one of our nation’s most beloved musi­cals (with music by Bern­stein and Sond­heim!), attempt­ing to fix the parts that did not age well polit­i­cal­ly? Is the new ver­sion a mod­ern clas­sic or a doomed Franken­stein?

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by Broad­way schol­ar, the­ater crit­ic, and actor Ron Fassler; Remakes, Reboots, and Revivals co-host Nicole Pomet­ti; and Broad­way actor and long-time PEL friend BIll Youmans.

Ron regales us with facts about the orig­i­nal 1957 musi­cal and the 1961 acclaimed film ver­sion. We con­sid­er the choic­es for the new film in film­ing, chore­og­ra­phy, cast­ing, and how the script was com­plete­ly rewrit­ten by play­wright Tony Kush­n­er with lots of con­sul­ta­tion with the Puer­to Rican com­mu­ni­ty to ensure that the rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al mis­takes of the old­er ver­sions were cor­rect­ed. Also, why is this not doing so well at the box office, and what does this mean?

We also touch on oth­er recent movie musi­cals includ­ing In the Heights and Cats, and think about in gen­er­al how gen­res and tropes pop­u­lar in the past are far­ing today.

Some of the arti­cles we con­sid­ered in prepar­ing for this episode includ­ed:

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

 

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The Matrix Regurgitated — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #113

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi | January 7th, 2022

In light of the release of The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions, we talk through the fran­chise as a whole. What made the first one remark­able, and does that a bar that any sequel can reach? We talk through the choic­es that fed into the new film, why peo­ple don’t seem to care about their matrix fam­i­lies, the end­less fight scenes, and more. Who will choose the blue pill?

This very spe­cial hol­i­day episode of Pret­ty Much Pop reunites the full sea­son one pan­el: Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Bri­an Hirt and Eri­ca Spyres, and fea­tures the pod­cast­ing debut of Mark’s son Abe Lin­sen­may­er.

Some arti­cles we con­sid­ered includ­ed:

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Asleep at the Wheel Frontman Ray Benson Discusses Half a Hundred Years of Songwriting: Stream the Nakedly Examined Music Interview Online

in Music, Podcasts | December 30th, 2021

This week’s Naked­ly Exam­ined Music pod­cast fea­tures the Gram­my-win­ning Texas swing band, Asleep at the Wheel, which Ray found­ed in 1969. They’ve released 26 albums of orig­i­nal tunes and clas­sic cov­ers while tour­ing con­stant­ly, with Ray being the only con­sis­tent mem­ber through their var­i­ous line-ups.

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er talks with Ray about the title track from Half a Hun­dred Years (2021), “Ped­er­nales Stroll” from Keepin’ Me Up Nights (1990), and “Am I High” from The Wheel (1977). Intro: “The Let­ter (That John­ny Walk­er Read)” from Texas Gold (1975). Clos­er: “The Road Will Hold Me Tonight” feat. Emmy­lou Har­ris and Willie Nel­son, record­ed in the ear­ly 80s but only released now on the new album. Learn more at asleepatthewheel.com.

Watch the video for “Half a Hun­dred Years.” Watch “Am I High?” live on 80s TV. Here’s the band live recent­ly at the Paste Stu­dio and play­ing their 25th Anniver­sary show on Austin City Lim­its in 1996. Their most famous tune is “Hot Rod Lin­coln.” Here they are with Willie Nel­son. Here’s a very old TV per­for­mance of “Take Me Back to Tul­sa.” Hear all of “The Let­ter (That John­ny Walk­er Read).”

Image by Mike Shore.

Naked­ly Exam­ined Music is a pod­cast host­ed by Mark Lin­sen­may­er, who also hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast, Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast, and Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv. He releas­es music under the name Mark Lint.

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Class Critiques in Squid Game, Succession, etc. — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #112

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | December 22nd, 2021

Pop­u­lar shows have com­ment­ed on wealth inequal­i­ty by show­ing how dire the sit­u­a­tion is for the poor and/or how dis­con­nect­ed and clue­less the rich are. How effec­tive is this type of social com­men­tary?

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by philoso­pher and NY Times writer Lawrence Ware, nov­el­ist and writ­ing pro­fes­sor Sarahlyn Bruck, and edu­ca­tor with a rhetoric doc­tor­ate Michelle Par­rinel­lo-Cason to dis­cuss the appeal of both real­i­ty show (“fish­bowl”) hor­ror and satire. Is it OK if we don’t like any of the char­ac­ters in Suc­ces­sion? Does Squid Game actu­al­ly deserve its 94% on Rot­ten Toma­toes? Are we even capa­ble as Amer­i­can view­ers of appre­ci­at­ing what it’s try­ing to do?

We also touch on White Lotus, The Hunt, Schit­t’s Creek, tor­ture porn, social com­men­tary in songs, and more. Lurk­ing in the back­ground here are foun­da­tion­al works for this trend: Par­a­site, Get Out, Bat­tle Royale, and The Hunger Games.

A few arti­cles we may have drawn on for the dis­cus­sion:

Hear more from our guests on past episodes: Law on var­i­ous PEL dis­cus­sions on race and reli­gion, Sarahlyn on PMP on soap operas, Michelle on PMP on board games. Fol­low them @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck and @DaylaLearning.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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The Dune Franchise Tries Again — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #110

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | December 16th, 2021

The world now has anoth­er Dune film, and this time Warn­er Bros. is seri­ous about a fran­chise, with at least one sequel planned and a pre­quel TV series in the works. With thou­sands of years worth of world build­ing, the books by Frank Her­bert and the world now being fleshed out by his son Bri­an Her­bert with Kevin J. Ander­son offer more source mate­r­i­al than Star Wars for poten­tial film­mak­ers to play with, but is this world any­where near as fun?

Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Bri­an Casey (broth­er of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life’s Dylan Casey) and Three if By Space senior edi­tor Erin Con­rad to talk about whether this series is real­ly adapt­able to the screen at all, and we con­sid­er past attempts by David Lynch and Ale­jan­dro Jodor­owsky (rather slight­ing the tedious TV ver­sion). Is the new ver­sion more suc­cess­ful? More fem­i­nist? Less colo­nial­ist?

Is the lore just too packed into the books to con­vey ade­quate­ly? When Frank Her­bert jumps for­ward 3000 years, is that a path that movie­go­ers will want to fol­low, even if famil­iar char­ac­ters can still be present as talk­a­tive ances­tral mem­o­ries in new char­ac­ters’ heads or come back as clones?

For points of com­par­i­son, we touch on not only Star Wars, but Out­lander, Picard, The Orville, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Walk­ing Dead, The Dark Tow­er, and more.

Some arti­cles that fed into our dis­cus­sion include:

Fol­low Erin @ErinConrad2.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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