Very Bad Wizards14 Jan 2020

Episode 180: Chekhov's Schrödinger's Dagger (Kurosawa's "Rashomon")

Eleventh Century Japan. A samurai and his wife are walking through the forest and come across a bandit. The bandit attacks the samurai and has sex with/rapes his wife. A woodcutter finds the samurai, stabbed to death. Who killed the samurai and with what? What role did his wife play in his death? Kurosawa gives us four perspectives, told in flashbacks within flashbacks. Who's telling the truth? Is anyone? Can we ever know what really happened? A simple story on the surface becomes a meditation on epistemological despair.

Plus, your lizard brain is out to get you and you only have 90 seconds to stop it!

Avsnitt(347)

The Lotus Eaters Episode 4: I Am Odysseus [unlocked]

Tamler and David discuss books 7 & 8 of The Odyssey--while at Alcinous' palace in Phaeacia, Odysseus listens to poetry, plays some games, cries some more, and finally starts to regain his identity.

20 Aug 45min

The Lotus Eaters Episode 3: The Halfway House to Humanity [unlocked]

Tamler and David discuss books 5 & 6 of The Odyssey, where we follow Odysseus as he finally leaves Calypso's Island and returns to the realm of the human. We also finally pick a name for the podcast. ...

13 Aug 41min

The Lotus Eaters Episode 2: Intangible as Wind [unlocked]

Welcome to The Lotus Eaters! This is part 2 of our 12 part series on Homer's Odyssey that will be released every Thursday. The series was supported by our Patreon community, but we are now making it a...

6 Aug 54min

The Lotus Eaters Episode 1: The Journey Begins [unlocked]

Welcome to The Lotus Eaters! This is part 1 of our 12 part series on Homer's Odyssey that will be released every Thursday. The series was supported by our Patreon community, but we are now making it a...

6 Aug 1h

Episode 338: The Lotus Eaters (Nolan's "The Odyssey")

Dropping this a week early - after completing a 12-part series on Homer's Odyssey for our beloved Patreon supporters, we now dive into Christopher Nolan's version of this epic tale. We're mixed on the...

4 Aug 1h 1min

Episode 337: First Contact? (Tarkovsky's "Solaris")

First it was a book, then it was a groundbreaking movie… that's right it's Solaris. After having discussed the Stanislaw Lem novel in the previous episode, David and Tamler try to make contact with An...

28 Juli 1h 45min

Episode 336: That Oceanic Feeling (Stanisław Lem's "Solaris")

David and Tamler tackle the first half of the VBW Madness topic tournament winner, Stanislaw Lem's science fiction masterpiece, Solaris, about a mysterious ocean planet that resists all attempts to un...

14 Juli 1h 35min

Episode 335: The Wright Stuff

The great Robert Wright returns to the podcast to talk about his new book The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning. We debate the magnitude of AI's potential impact, the n...

30 Juni 1h 30min