Very Bad Wizards9 Touko 2023

Episode 260: The Scream That Never Found a Voice (Murakami's "Sleep")

David and Tamler take the first excursion into the work of Haruki Murakami and talk about his short story "Sleep." A thirty-year-old woman, the wife of a dentist and mother of a young boy, has a terrifying dream and when she wakes up, she no longer needs to sleep. This isn't insomnia, it's something else – she has never felt so alive, strong, and awake. She can swim laps for an hour in the afternoon and read Anna Karenina with perfect concentration until dawn. What is this condition? Is it real? What does it tell us about her past, her sense of self, her alienation from friends, family, and her role? This is a banger of a story folks, check it out.

Plus - if you had to say one word or sentence to distinguish yourself from an AI, what would you say?

Jaksot(339)

Episode 334: Let's Get Metaphysical

What are the legitimate ways to inquire about the nature of the universe? We have science, metaphysics, phenomenological inquiry, but what about mystical and meditative practices? David and Tamler tal...

16 Kesä 1h 20min

Episode 333: P-hacking the Mind

David and Tamler do another tier ranking--this time on philosophical thought experiments, so as not to further alienate our chemistry-adjacent listeners. We hit most of the big ones: Pascal's wager, P...

26 Touko 54min

Episode 332: Talking to Myself ("The Other" by Jorge Luis Borges)

David and Tamler talk about Jorge Luis Borges' disorienting short story "The Other." A 70-year-old Borges sits on a bench by the Charles River and who should he encounter but himself as a 19-year-old,...

12 Touko 1h 54min

Episode 331: Who's Your Law Daddy? (Plato's "Crito")

In another Back 2 Basics episode, David and Tamler talk about Plato's "Crito," a dialogue that takes place two days before Socrates' death by hemlock. His friend Crito wants him to escape, but Socrate...

28 Huhti 1h 31min

Episode 330: A Fact-Based Podcast (Gogol's "The Overcoat")

David and Tamler return to the strange world of Nikolai Gogol and discuss his absurdist masterpiece "The Overcoat," a story that both calls for and steadfastly resists interpretation. But first we dis...

14 Huhti 1h 16min

Episode 329: Why We Suffer

David and Tamler return to the work of Richard Shweder and colleagues, focusing this time on his foundational paper "The "Big Three" of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) and the "Big Three" Exp...

31 Maalis 1h 20min

Episode 328: Weapons Free

David and Tamler cross the border into Denis Villeneuve's taut and propulsive thriller Sicario, the story of an FBI agent who gets pulled into a task force drawn from the shadiest elements of the US g...

17 Maalis 1h 42min

Episode 327: You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending ...

24 Helmi 1h 32min