Beautiful Illusions

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 2:30 - Listen to “Now And Then” by The Beatles (YouTube)
• 3:24 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 22 - What is Life? from March 2022
• 6:44 - Bruce Springsteen at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, September 3, 2023
• 10:57 - boygenius at Westville Music Bowl in New Haven, September 28, 2023
• 11:05 - boygenius is Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker
• 12:05 - See “The Infinite Gay Joy of Boygenius” and “Boygenius’ Big, Emotional, Gay-as-Hell Night Out at Madison Square Garden” (this happened to be the next show after the New Haven show)
• 14:10 - Collective effervescence is a sociological concept coined by Émile Durkheim, read the Wikipedia entry
• 14:20 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 21 - The Myth of the Desert Island Self from January 2022
• 16:57 - Writing in The Atlantic about his new book, World Within A Song, Jeff Tweedy says “No matter how many people hear the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” there’s only one version that belongs to you. Our appraisals might align, but I doubt your version includes a memory of waiting for the doors to open at an all-ages Jodie Foster’s Army concert on Laclede’s Landing, in St. Louis, as a flooding Mississippi River rages down Wharf Street and heaves up onto the steps of the Gateway Arch. Your mind melting down on mushrooms, watching a husband-and-wife street-performing duo sing “A Day in the Life” while their toddler does laps around you keeping shockingly good time on a tambourine. It’d be cool if we could see the worlds within the songs inside one another’s heads. But I also love how impenetrable it all is. I love that what’s mine can’t be yours, and we still get to call it ours. Songs are the best way I know to make peace with our lack of a shared consciousness.”
• 17:55 - Read “Tradition and the Individual Talent” by T.S. Eliot (Poetry Foundation)
• 18:15 - Read “The Wasteland” by T.S. Eliot (Poetry Foundation)
• 21:48 - The exact quote comes from chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby - "What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?" cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?" "Don't be morbid," Jordan said. "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."
• 26:55 - Listen to the 2023 mix of “Love Me Do” and the 2009 remaster of the original mono recording by The Beatles
• 28:00 - Watch “Now And Then - The Last Beatles Song,” a short film about how the song was made using old recordings, new recordings, and modern technology
• 44:25 - For (much much) more on Jeff and Darron’s experiences with Bob Dylan listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 2 - Our Back Pages from September 2020

This episode was recorded remotely in November 2023

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 5:40 - See the toxic masculinity Wikipedia entry
• 6:04 - Listen to the August 7, 2023 episode of The Gray Area podcast, “The New Crisis of Masculinity,” and the May 12, 2023 of The Bulwark podcast, “Richard Reeves: The Trouble with Boys and Men”
• 6:05 - Read “Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness.” (Washington Post, 2023) and “In Praise of Heroic Masculinity” (The Atlantic, 2023)
• 6:08 - See The Art of Manliness website and podcast
• 8:46 - See “The Enduring Grip of the Gender Wage Gap” (Pew Research Center, 2023) and “The Women’s Leadership Gap” (American Progress, 2018), and for much more detail on a global scale see the World Economic Forum’s “Global Gender Gap Report 2023”
• 9:33 - See the Marlboro Man Wikipedia entry
• 19:40 - See “What’s the Difference Between Sex and Gender?” (WebMD, 2023)
• 39:36 - See “Annual Sheehan-Lyman Hall powder puff game continues to draw attention in its 50th year” (Hartford Courant, 2021)
• 49:50 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 22 - What is Life? from March 2022

This episode was recorded in October 2023

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 4:12 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 26 - Vacation: The Pedantics & Semantics from November 2022
• 8:40 - Sometimes vacations are the opposite of fun, for more see this definitely NSFW clip from National Lampoon’s Vacation
• 15:39 - Avatar Flight of Passage is a 3D thrill ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
• 18:20 - The Beach Club Resort at Disney is an amazing hotel that not only has the best pool in Disney, but is a quick 5-minute walk from EPCOT’s International Gateway
• 19:53 - Get a baguette and a variety of other amazing baked goods at Les Halles Boulangerie & Patisserie
• 22:00 - Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind in EPCOT’s World Discovery section is a simply astounding reverse-launch coaster that opened in 2022
• 23:49 - Try the famous school bread at the Norway Pavilion’s Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe in EPCOT’s World Showcase
• 28:48 - Ted’s Restaurant in Meriden, Connecticut is known for its steamed cheeseburgers, which is a somewhat idiosyncratic style featured in this small region of central Connecticut
• 33:00 - Listen to the 6-part podcast series “The Road That Killed A City” from journalist Jim Krueger which chronicles the construction of I-84 through Hartford and its impact on the local community
• 36:38 - The Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Site in Tuskegee, Alabama celebrates and commemorates the group of African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II
• 37:28 - Bahia Honda State Park and Curry Hammock State Park in the Florida Keys
• 39:05 - See “Florida ocean temperature topped 100F, setting potential record” (Phys.org, 2023)
• 39:51 - See “Duke Heat Expert: ‘2023 May Be the Coolest Summer For the Rest of Our Lives’” (Duke Today, 2023)
• 47:46 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 28 - Alcohol: To Drink, Or Not To Drink? from July 2023

This episode was recorded in August 2023

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 2:30 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 10 - Craft Beer Culture: A Personal History from January 2021
• 3:07 - Listen to Sean Carroll’s Mindscape Episode 160 - Edward Slingerland on Confucianism, Daoism, and Wu Wei from 2021
• 3:13 - Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization, by Edward Slingerland
• 3:18 - Read “The Meaning of Dry January” (The Atlantic, 2023)
• 7:36 - See “No, moderate drinking isn’t good for your health” (Washington Post, 2023) and “No Amount Of Alcohol Is Good For Your Health, Global Study Says” (NPR, 2018)
• 11:50 See the “Alcohol Facts and Statistics” page from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
• 26:30 - Listen to the “What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health” episode of the Huberman Lab podcast with Andrew Huberman, Ph.D.
• 33:20 - In general Gen Y, or Millenials (born between 1980 and 1994) drink less than previous generations, and Gen Z (born between 1995 and 2009) drink less than Gen Y. See “Millennials and Gen Zers Embrace “Life Can Take You Higher than Alcohol” (National Public Health Information Coalition, 2022) and “Why GenZ Is Drinking Less And What This Means For The Alcohol Industry” (Forbes, 2023)
• 34:35 - See “Is a Glass of Wine Harmless? Wrong Question.” by Emily Oster (The Atlantic, 2023) which opines that “Excessive alcohol consumption clearly leads to significant problems, physical and emotional. That is not up for debate. However: Recent rhetoric, veering in the direction of abstinence, goes well beyond the sound advice to avoid heavy drinking and ignores the value of pleasure.”
• 36:23 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 21 - The Myth of the Desert Island Self  from January 2022

This episode was recorded remotely in January 2023

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 2:05 - See “What is Celiac Disease?” and “What is Gluten?” (Celiac Disease Foundation)
• 9:24 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 16 - Partisan Pizza from July 2021
• 17:45 - See “Confirmation Bias And the Power of Disconfirming Evidence” (Farnam Street Blog)
• 21:42 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 21 - The Myth of the Desert Island Self from January 2022
• 21:46 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 19 - How We Learn Like A Scout: Critically Thinking About Critical Thinking from October 2021, where we discuss The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't by Julia Galef
• 29:58 - See “Celiac Disease vs. Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity vs. Food Allergy” (Cleveland Clinic)
• 31:22 - The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms
• 33:45 - See “Fred Rogers on Education and Teaching”   (YouTube) - “The best teacher in the world is someone who loves what he or she does and just loves it in front of you.”

This episode was recorded remotely in January 2023

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 2:50 - The “Hunting House” is in Clarendon, VT
• 7:10 - See “Are Burgers and Hot Dog Sandwiches?” (The Daily Meal, 2021)
• 7:40 - See “It Was Shoes On, No Boarding Pass Or ID. But Airport Security Forever Changed On 9/11” (NPR, 2021)
• 10:23 - Walt Disney World
• 10:45 - See “The dream Disney World vacation is too expensive for the average American family” (Insider, 2021), and “How Much Does a Disney World Vacation Cost in 2023?” (Disney Tourist Blog, 2022)
• 13:35 - Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden, Connecticut
• 18:29 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 16 - Partisan Pizza from July 2021
• 21:06 - Neil’s Donuts in Wallingford, Connecticut
• 25:10 - See “Boredom is a warning sign. Here’s what it’s telling you.” (The Washington Post, 2022)
• 26:09 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 25 - Living the Dream from November 2022
• 27:37 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 22 - What is Life? from March 2022

This episode was recorded remotely in Vermont in November 2022

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 7:28 - See “Negativity Bias” (The Decision Lab) and the abstract of “Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development” (Psychological Bulletin, 2008)
• 8:52 - See “Teacher Salary Benchmarks” (National Education Association), “Ranking all 50 states on highest teacher pay shows the pinch of inflation” (District Administration, 2022), “Connecticut Teacher Income” (Teach Connecticut), “Income in the United States: 2021” (United States Census Bureau), “High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010), “Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021), and “Money matters to happiness—perhaps more than previously thought” (Penn Today, 2021)
• 21:00 - See “Positive attitude toward math predicts math achievement in kids” (Stanford Medicine, 2018)
• 21:24 - See “A Brief Guide to Embodied Cognition: Why You Are Not Your Brain” (Scientific American, 2011) and the “Embodied cognition” Wikipedia entry
• 22:20 - See “What is the FISH! Philosophy?”
• 27:20 - See “The Bright and Dark Side of Gossip for Cooperation in Groups” (Frontiers in Psychology, 2019)
• 28:05 - See “How to Respond to Negativity” (Harvard Business Review, 2012)
• 28:19 - Toxic positivity (Wikipedia)

This episode was recorded in October 2022

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 2:00 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 15 - The Mind of Gatsby: A Look Through the Cognitive Lens from June 2021
• 2:16 - Watch Carol Tavris and Elliot Aaronson describe “The Pyramid of Choice” and how it leads to justification of actions, leading to further action and self justification, which is an idea they present in their book Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts which have been referenced in multiple prior episodes
• 2:46 - Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• 2:49 - Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• 3:04 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 12 - A New Enlightenment: The Age of Cognitivism from March 2021
• 5:22 - See “Psychoanalytic Criticism” from the “Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism” subsection of the Purdue Online Writing Lab website
• 5:24 - See the Wikipedia entry on Psychoanalytic theory, which was first laid out by Sigmund Freud
• 12:56 - Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
• 14:00 - Listen to Sean Carroll’s Mindscape Podcast Episode 158 - David Wallace on The Arrow of Time
• 16:39 - See the “Presentism and Eternalism: Two Philosophical Theories of Time” blog post from freelance writer and journalist Sam Woolfe
• 19:10 - See the 2021 documentary Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (IMDB), watch the trailer (YouTube), and read “Unstuck in Time: the Kurt Vonnegut documentary 40 years in the making” (The Guardian, 2021)
• 19:18 - Bernard Vonnegut
• 20:34 - The theory of special relativity was proposed by Albert Einstein in his 1905 paper “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”
• 24:28 - See From Bacteria to Bach and Back by Daniel Dennett, read a review from Philosophy Now, and watch Dennett give a talk discussing some ideas presented in the book (YouTube)
• 26:37 - According to Wikipedia, Laplace's demon was a notable published articulation of causal determinism on a scientific basis by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814, who in his essay “A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities” stated “We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
• 30:48 - See the bombing of Dresden in World War II Wikipedia entry
• 32:38 - The quote “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies-“God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” comes from Vonnegut’s 1965 novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
• 35:23 - See The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains by Joseph LeDoux, and read Lisa Feldman Barrett’s review in Nature
• 36:01 - See “Cognitive behavioral therapy” (National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2013) and “Written Exposure Therapy for PTSD:A Brief Treatment Approach for Mental Health Professionals” (American Psychological Association)
• 44:30 - See the “manifest image” and the “scientific image” as proposed by the philosopher Wilfrid Sellars in his work Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man
• 46:20 - Dadaism
• 48:57 - See The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures by Antonio DaMasio and read “The Strange Order of Things by Antonio Damasio review – why feelings are the unstoppable force” (The Guardian, 2018)
• 49:52 - See “Memes 101: How Cultural Evolution Works” (Big Think)
• 50:46 - See “Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” and “Bombing of Dresdent in World War II”
• 56:03 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 04 - Too Cultured from October 2020
• 56:10 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 05 - It’s Alive from October 2020
• 56:53 - The Republic by Plato
• 58:40 - See “Plato on storytelling”
• 1:00:17 - Consciousness and the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene
• 1:03:25 - See “One Head, Two Brains” (The Atlantic, 2015), a description of a “Split Brain Experiment”, and the “Split-brain” Wikipedia entry
• 1:08:33 - Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience by Michael S.A. Graziano
• 1:14:05 -  Hamlet  by William Shakespeare

This episode was recorded in June 2022

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 2:07 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 22 - What is Life? from March 2022 (but recorded in January 2022)
• 3:48 - Listen to Luciano Pavarotti sing Ave Maria (YouTube)
• 7:39 - The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
• 7:54 - The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Heinrich
• 8:03 - This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin
• 12:15 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 21 - The Myth of the Desert Island Self from January 2022
• 12:30 - Collective effervescence is a sociological concept coined by Émile Durkheim, read the Wikipedia entry and see “There’s a Specific Kind of Joy We’ve Been Missing” (New York Times, 2021)
• 16:51 - See “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated” (Pew Research Center, 2021) and “U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious” (Pew Research Center, 2015)
• 17:55 - Lorna Marshall was an anthropologist who in the 1950s, 60s and 70s lived among and wrote about the previously unstudied !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert (Wikipedia)
• 18:25 - Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
• 18:35 - Listen to Sean Carroll’s Mindscape Episode 186 - Sherry Turkle on How Technology Affects Our Humanity from February 2022
• 19:44 - See the Tony Hsieh Wikipedia entry and “The Death of Zappos’s Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior” (Wall Street Journal, 2020)
• 26:21 - Phish
• 34:01 - Listen to Bobby Darin sing “Beyond the Sea” (YouTube)
• 36:22 - Sleeping Giant State Park in Hamden, Connecticut
• 37:12 - Listen to John Prine and Iris DeMent perform Prine’s tune “In Spite of Ourselves” (YouTube)
• 37:20 - Listen to “Something” by The Beatles and “The Man In Me” by Bob Dylan (YouTube)
• 41:58 - Listen to “The Weight” by The Band
• 47:40 - Church of Music (San Diego)
• 56:20 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 6 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Politics  from November 2020,  Episode 13 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Politics Part 2: Just the Facts from April 2021, and  Episode 16 - Partisan Pizza from July 2021

This episode was recorded in March 2022

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 2:20 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 21 - The Myth of the Desert Island Self from January 2022
• 4:30 - Listen to the excellent Strong Songs podcast which is created, recorded, and produced by Kirk Hamilton, the specific episode referenced here is from November 2021 and is a deep dive into the classic concert film Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads
• 5:00 - Watch the video of “Once in a Lifetime” from Stop Making Sense (1984), read the lyrics, and see the original music video from 1980
• 6:55 - See the “Hot Vax Summer” entry on Slangit - The Slang Dictionary
• 9:05 - See The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) by Maria Popova
• 10:00 - Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams, Probable Impossibilities, and “Probable Impossibilities: Physicist Alan Lightman on Beginnings, Endings, and What Makes Life Worth Living” (The Marginalian)
• 16:26 - This idea may have come from Carl Sagan or Alan Watts (or someone else)
• 16:48 - Listen to Mindscape Episode 38: Alan Lightman on Transcendence, Science, and a Naturalist’s Sense of Meaning from March 2019, at the time his most book was Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
• 20:01 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 11 - Darwin & The Dude: Darron's Journey to Poetic Naturalism from February 2021
• 23:03 - See “Ice This Morning Led to Dangerous Driving Conditions, School Delays” (NBC CT) and “Freezing rain causes school delays, closures, and crashes” (Fox 61)
• 25:44 - See “Three ways to be more rational this year” by Steven Pinker (BBC, 2022)
• 27:32 - Listen to “Live Like You Were Dying” (YouTube) by Tim McGraw and read the lyrics (Genius)
• 30:48 - Listen to Carl Sagan’s famous “Pale Blue Dot” remarks and see “A Pale Blue Dot” (The Planetary Society)
• 35:27 - Watch the “Coin Toss” scene from the  2007 movie No Country for Old Men (IMDB)
• 38:17 - See “How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives: Annie Dillard on Choosing Presence Over Productivity” (The Marginalian)
• 36:09 - The play Our Town by Thornton Wilder
• 47:08 - Read Jeff’s essay “On Reading Nonfiction (and Writing)” on the Beautiful Illusions website
• 50:51 - See “Joan Didion's 'lost' commencement address, revealed” for a complete transcript of Didion’s 1975 commencement address at the University of California, Riverside

This episode was recorded in January 2022

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti