Pretty Much Pop #18 Discusses Stephen King’s Media Empire

in Film, Literature, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | November 6th, 2019

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Is the most pop­u­lar writer of our time actu­al­ly a good writer? Or maybe he used to be good but has long since run out of inspi­ra­tion? What are the most effec­tive ways to adapt these very read­able short sto­ries and nov­els? Does show­ing us the evil in a film lessen its impact? While you’ve been think­ing about those ques­tions, King has already writ­ten anoth­er book.

Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt share their expe­ri­ences with and opin­ions about King’s oeu­vre and the films and shows that have come out of it, includ­ing It, “The Body” (aka Stand By Me), The Shin­ing, In the Tall Grass, The Dark Tow­er, The Stand, Chil­dren of the Corn, From a Buick 8, Under the Dome, The Out­sider, Mr. Mer­cedes, Cas­tle Rock, Pet Sematary, Mis­ery, The Shaw­shank Redemp­tion, and more.

Some arti­cles we read to pre­pare for this dis­cus­sion include:

If you’ve nev­er actu­al­ly read a Stephen King novel­la, go ahead and read “The Body.”

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. 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 or start with the first episode.

 

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Are Stand-Up Comedians Our Modern Day Philosophers? Pretty Much Pop #17 Considers

in Comedy, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | October 30th, 2019

In an age where the aver­age per­son can’t name a liv­ing aca­d­e­m­ic philoso­pher, it’s been claimed that the social role of an indi­vid­ual orat­ing to the mass­es and get­ting them to think about fun­da­men­tal ques­tions is actu­al­ly not per­formed by aca­d­e­mics at all, and cer­tain­ly not by politi­cians and reli­gious fig­ures who need to keep on mes­sage in one way or oth­er, but by stand-up come­di­ans.

This is the premise of the Mod­ern Day Philoso­phers pod­cast, where come­di­an Daniel Lobell inter­views some of our best known and loved comics. How­ev­er, as Daniel has dis­cov­ered in the course of that show, only some come­di­ans are try­ing to express orig­i­nal views on the world. Many are just try­ing to tell good jokes. So do the rou­tines of those more idea-based come­di­ans count as phi­los­o­phy? Or does telling the whole truth (instead of a fun­ny one-side or exag­ger­at­ed take on truth) rule out being fun­ny? 

Daniel joins your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er (of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast), actor Eri­ca Spyres, and sci-fi author/linguist Bri­an Hirt to con­sid­er ques­tions of authen­tic­i­ty and offen­sive humor.  We look at how philoso­phers and comics can use some of the same com­mu­nica­tive tools like invent­ing new words, irony, and auto­bi­og­ra­phy. We touch on Dave Chap­pelle, Bill Burr, Han­nah Gads­by, George Car­lin, Emo Phillips, Rod­ney Dan­ger­field, Louis CK, Between Two Ferns, Berke­ley, Socrates, Kierkegaard, and more.

A few sources:

Find out about Dan­ny’s pod­casts, graph­ic nov­el, album, and videos at dannylobell.com.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion (includ­ing some out-takes from the inter­view where we got too off-top­ic) that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

 

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Pretty Much Pop #16 Considers the Sitcom “Friends” 25 Years Later

in Pretty Much Pop, Television | October 25th, 2019

Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt exam­ine the con­ven­tions, tech­niques, and stay­ing pow­er of the beloved ’90s sit­com. Are we sup­posed to iden­ti­fy with, or idol­ize, or mere­ly like these peo­ple? What makes the for­mu­la work, did it sus­tain itself over its 10-year run, was it suc­cess­ful­ly repli­cat­ed (like by How I Met Your Moth­er or by Chuck Lorre?), and what parts haven’t aged well?

We reviewed a ton of arti­cles to prep for this that you may want to read:

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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Is Opera Part of Pop Culture? Pretty Much Pop #15 with Sean Spyres

in Music, Opera, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Theatre | October 23rd, 2019

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Opera used to be a cen­tral part of Euro­pean pop cul­ture, Pavarot­ti was as big a pop star as they come. But still, it’s now the quin­tes­sen­tial art-form of the wealthy and snob­bish. What gives?

Guest Sean Spyres from Spring­field Region­al Opera joins his sis­ter Eri­ca along with Mark and Bri­an to dis­cuss oper­a’s place in cul­ture (includ­ing its film appear­ances), how it’s dif­fer­ent from music the­ater, the chal­lenges it faces and how it might become more rel­e­vant.

Some arti­cles:

Watch the Shaw­shank Redemp­tion opera scene or per­haps the Pret­ty Woman scene. What Is pop opera? Here’s Ranker’s list of artists. Paul Potts sings that famous song on Britain’s Got Tal­ent. Plus, check out albums from broth­er Michael Spyres. Yes, you can hear an opera-singer sing “Take Me Out to the Ball­game,” but you prob­a­bly should­n’t.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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The Appeal of UFO Narratives: Investigative Journalist Paul Beban Visits Pretty Much Pop #14

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi, Television | October 9th, 2019

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TV news reporter Paul Beban (ABC, Al Jazeera, Yahoo, and now fea­tured on the Dis­cov­ery Net­work’s Con­tact) joins your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt to dis­cuss the pub­lic fas­ci­na­tion with UFOs, both at the peak of their pop­u­lar­i­ty in the 50s and in the cur­rent resur­gence. Do accounts of sight­ings nec­es­sar­i­ly make for good TV? Do you have to believe to be enter­tained? Is belief in UFOs relat­ed to reli­gious belief? To beliefs in con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and anti-gov­ern­ment ven­om? To humor?

We get into the mechan­ics of Con­tact, the Area 51 hubbub,and also touch on the show Project Blue Book, films like Arrival (2016) and UFO (2018), the doc­u­men­tary Unac­knowl­edged (2017), the short sto­ry “Road­side Pic­nic,” and more. To learn more about UFO lore in Amer­i­ca, check out some of these pod­casts.

Some of the resources we used for this episode includ­ed:

Plus, here are some stats from Gallup about UFO sight­ings and belief, you might want to pick up the book Nos­tal­gia for the Absolute that Paul refers to, and here’s the 2014 talk by Rob­bie Gra­ham that Bri­an referred to describ­ing “hyper-real­i­ty” and the Hol­ly­wood UFO con­spir­a­cy. Here’s a list of UFO doc­u­men­tary series.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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Is It Really Ever a Good Idea to Revive an Old TV Show? Pretty Much Pop #13 Considers

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | October 3rd, 2019

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An appalling num­ber of shows are now being con­tin­ued long after their deaths. Revivals (not to be con­fused with reboots) bring us back to the com­fort of old friends, who are now real­ly old. What can a revival’s suc­cess tell us about why the show was appeal­ing in the first place? Would­n’t you rather see a new work by the same cre­ative team than more of the same? Mark, Eri­ca, and Bri­an con­sid­er some suc­cess­es, fail­ures, and hypo­thet­i­cals.

We con­sid­er Arrest­ed Devel­op­ment, The Twi­light Zone, X‑Files, Twin Peaks, Will & Grace, Dead­wood, Full House, Gilmore Girls, Queer Eye, Doc­tor Who, Veron­i­ca Mars, and talk too much about The Brady Bunch and Alf.

Some arti­cles we looked at:

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood Examined on Pretty Much Pop #12

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | September 25th, 2019

Wes Alwan, who co-hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast with PMP host Mark Lin­sen­may­er, joins the dis­cus­sion along with PMP co-hosts Eri­ca Spyres and Bri­an Hirt to dis­cuss Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… In Hol­ly­wood in the con­text of Tarantino’s oth­er films.

Wes thinks the film is bril­liant, even though he’s not oth­er­wise a Taran­ti­no fan. How is this film dif­fer­ent? We con­sid­er T’s strange sense of pac­ing, his com­ic vio­lence, his his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism, and cast­ing choic­es. Is this a bril­liant film or a fun­da­men­tal­ly mis­guid­ed idea bad­ly in need of an edi­tor?

Some arti­cles we drew on:

Wes is work­ing on a very long essay on this film that isn’t yet com­plete, but he’s writ­ten plen­ty of oth­er long essays about the media and has record­ed sev­er­al episodes of his own PEL spin-off show, (sub)Text: Get it all here.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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Is the Live Music Experience Irreplaceable? Pretty Much Pop #11

in Music, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | September 18th, 2019

Sure­ly tech­no­log­i­cal advances have made it unnec­es­sary to ever leave the house, right? Is there still a point in see­ing live peo­ple actu­al­ly doing things right in front of you?

Dave Hamil­ton (Host of Gig Gab, Mac Geek Gab) joins Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt to dis­cuss what’s so damn cool about live music (and the­ater), the alter­na­tives (live-streamed-to-the­aters or devices, record­ed for TV, VR), why tick­ets are so expen­sive, whether trib­ute bands ful­fill our needs, the con­nec­tion between live music and drugs, singing along to the band, and more.

We touch on Rush (and their trib­ute Lotus Land), Damien Rice, Todd Rund­gren, The Who, Cop Rock, Bat out of Hell: The Musi­cal, Hed­wig and the Angry Inch, the filmed Shrek The Musi­cal, and Riff­trax Live.

We used some arti­cles to feed this episode, though we didn’t real­ly bring them up:

You know Mark also runs a music pod­cast, right? Check out Eri­ca doin’ her fid­dlin’ and sin­gin’. Lis­ten to Mark’s mass of tunes. Here’s Dave singing and drum­ming some Badfin­ger live with his band Fling, and here’s Mark live singing “The Grinch.”

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts or start with the first episode.

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