3hr30 min tribute to the non-philosophical thought of François Lauruelle...full episode

Francois Laruelle was a French philosopher who developed the concept of "non-philosophy." His work influenced facets of the project (particularly The Spectre of Finance Punk) through his critiques of traditional philosophical systems that prioritized the material and empirical over abstract theorizations + his non-historical/non-mystical encounters with science, art, and spirituality through his mediations on the One (the Real). He sadly passed away last week so it seemed fitting to do an episode on him and try to bring forth some of his ideas a bit in reference to the state of things and ask some pretty broad "what if questions" using the Non-Philosophy magnifying utensil. What would he think of Country Music and barbecue...

What happens when two experimental music veterans go full Smashmouth? Callahan and Witscher's new album Think Differently answers just that-full of wry introspection on the conditions of music, it's value, and despite misreads by music journalists as being "irony poisoned"-comes across as uniquely sincere in a way most things don't. We talk about the album, what is the value of a critique? flexing on critics with pure musical chops, nu-fluxus, low-brow messaging, the rise of "tastecels", the value of humor, sleeping on floors and slogging it out on the road, why you can't stop creating, destroying your life, going to shows you don't want to, Fairport Convention, and attempt to answer the question: "What is the value of music?"

Buy think differently from Post Present Medium Here 

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Architect/author Matt Shaw comes on to discuss his new book American Modern on the anomaly of Columbus, Indiana: a futuristic small town designed by a who's who of architects (Saarinen, Pei, Robert Venturi, Girard) almost entirely bankrolled by progressive Christian industrialist J. Irwin Miller. This is a history of that town and the rise and fall of independent-funded public works in America

Music from the new release by Desvelada & Sprælle

For full 6 hour episode and more deep research excursions subscribe to our Patreon

Part two of the experience economy episode, this one focused on the history of experience design, the combinatorial arts, and independent value creation in order to advance some solutions to the problems politics can only scratch the surface of. Topics: the rise of Kill Tony and interactive cringe comedy, Baby Invasion/Edglrd by Harmony Korine movie review, first person shooter w/ Burial Soundtrack, John Ruskin’s Pathetic Fallacy, art market crash, “Total Work” - German Christian philosopher Joseph Pieper , DeSano’s pizza University. The Take Back Your Time organization, Leisure Capital, UX, Feng Shui, Leibniz’s understudied dissertation on Combinatorial Art, exploding pagers in Lebanon: Pandora Box, Value Capturers, Dorthe R. Christensen, The European Commission, Comic-Con, the rise of AirBnB, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt’s book on the Eudaimonic Tech + more...this is a continuation of part A 🎩 up now

This is a preview, for full 3 hour episode: patreon.com/contain

Writer/journalist James Pogue comes on to discuss his recent stint in central Africa as it undergoes one of the biggest gold rushes in human history plus:

contracting Malaria in a CAR prison and your hotel getting shot up, diamond heists, geiger counters, JD Vance and the Anti-American NatCon right, the Wagner groups activities in the Sahel, the strange reconfiguration of the political spectrum, the return of gold, pastoral industrial policy, Bernard DeVoto and the end of the Wild West, the American Experiment from a left wing anarchist perspective, the legacy of Thomas Sankara, + much more

Continuing on the subject of natural resources and geopolitics

Read James's recent articles here

This is a preview, full episode: patreon.com/contain

Episode all about oil, maybe the most important and controversial substance in the world and how it came to dominate our history and take over our planet

Abiotic oil theory, climate change, is oil fake, the origin of the term fossil fuels, did Dinosaurs even exist, artificial scarcity, Reza Negarestani's Cyclonopedia, 'sentient oil', Soviet Neft Dashlari city built on water, wildcatters, creation of new cities, the history of fracking/new carbon extracting technologies, algae resetting the earth w/ oxygen, geological timescales, Clint Murchison Jr./Dallas Cowboys, WWI/WW2/Cold War, Baku, trucks that last forever, Patillo Higgins, The Regime of Disposability, Ahriman, Thomas Gold's hypothesis, L Fletcher Prouty

Jed is a researcher and typewriter refurbisher. For more information on oil go to Jed's Substack

Music by Barrett and Alex Coolwater

Up now on Patreon (3hr20h)

3 months in the making, we get into a century of Dropping Out, DIY, and the conditions of self-preservation featuring mathematician Alexander Groethendieck, artist Lee Lozano, Cormac McCarthy, Shelly Duvall, and Sarah Records. As public life become further cauterized some will declout, some join the Santa Fe institute, and some refuse to speak to other woman for 27 years. Time to find out why Groethendieck’s reasons for leaving the mathematics community, abstract financial systems and their influence on human creativity, ‘healthy disillusionment’, the hollowing out of Pax Americana, Applied Quantum Mechanics, Cindy Lee album, reason’s obscure other, ‘comparing yourself to old stories’, Kazemir Malevich: Suprematism, from Shakespeare’s Othello, King Leer, Macbeth, Industry Plant Aktion, refusing the art-world, semiotic superficially, ‘High-Energy Scattering’, Dictator to Oneself, Wim Wender’s “Perfect Days”, the infamous Shelly Duvall Dr. Phil episode, Alex Bienstock, what people learn from Wittgenstein, Bristol’s Sarah Records and the politics of C86 jangle pop, micro-science and more.

Full episode here

Ex Guns N' Roses/Poison manager and OG Pawn Star Howie Hubberman comes on to talk about LA in the 1980's, antiquing, Hair Metal, Power Ballads, doing 1000 pushups a day while battling cancer, Slash’s Appetite for Destruction guitar, weird music industry shenanigans, the mafia, mud wresting competitions in the valley, hustling, and more. “There’s more vehicles, but less with actual engines in them” PRACTICAL stuff, also hilarious…topping off the interview series

First Half, full 2 hr+ episode here

...on LARPing with artists Maggie Dunlap and Ben Werther and his recent show When You Can No Longer Speak, Sing Me A Song documenting mock high stakes environments of Military Simulation (MilSim) culture.

Other topics: identity construction and the fraying of the American cultural fabric, the anonymous 14th century Christian mystical text The Cloud Of Unknowing, total sculpture, non pedantic art, soft black stars, the end of intellectuals and words, readymades, LARPing as a luxury commodity item, Murderbilia, the BTK killer, fandoms forming around depravity, True Crime as female MilSim, Kantian ethics, desire for martyrdom, Davey Crockett, Neo Suprematism, why Country Music is reaching peak popularity, hair metal, The South and the east coast as The Big Other, Mike Kelley's stuffed animals from a the perspective of a child, Sam Hyde's 'active shooter' phenomenon, James Bridle, Borges, Joseph Beuys.