Day Trips for Nihilists

In this new episode, we join the dots between, inter alia, boredom, The Shining, Vilhelm Hammershoi's painting (Dust Motes Dancing in Sunbeams, 1901) and émigré poet and critic, Joseph Brodsky.

Notes and links:

• Music: 'Nuages' (Django Rheinhardt avec le Quintette Hot Club de France)
• "Midnight, the Stars and You", Ray Noble and His Orchestra
• 'Maison De Mes Rêves', Django Rheinhardt
• Ella Fitzgerald: 'I'm Beginning To See The Light'
• T. Humes, 'Loves Farewell' performed by Luciana Elizondo
• Mulatu Astatke - Tezeta (Nostalgia)
• Beethoven String Quartet No. 16 op. 135, slow movement, Busch Quartet
• Hauser & Wirth Unconscious Gestures
• BBC4 Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershoi
• 'In Praise of Boredom', Joseph Brodsky

All clips used either under fair usage or because they're out of copyright.

All other nonsense is my own. Neil Fitzgerald 2026.

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Day Trips for Nihilists returns with an earth-shattering, light-hearted new format. But who out there will heed this? Still, the goal remains the same: finding meaning in a meaningless world. Our other mantra is: slow down, enjoy the world!

This week's meaningful encounter is with some 'alien-eyed' fire salamanders.

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Running order:

• Clunt, Appernack
• Grange Hill theme tune
• Clip from the film Dead Poet's Society
• Bagpuss opening theme and narration
• 'When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer', Walt Whitman, excerpt from Breaking Bad
• 'The School Boy', William Blake
• 'Friends, Romans, Countryman...' speech by Mark Anthony from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (Marlon Brando)
• 'Dives and Lazarus', Vaughan Williams
• 'I vow to thee, my country'
• Intros from Indie Britpop and a Leicestershire hiphop legend whom only God can judge - 'Going for Gold' by Shed Seven, 'Return of the Mack' by Mark Morrison, 'On and On' by The Longpigs, 'Town' by Northern Uproar
• 'I like me, my wife likes me' - Del Griffith (John Candy), Planes, Trains and Automobiles
• 'Power To Believe (instrumental)', Planes, Trains & Automobiles soundtrack
• Various sounds and field recordings freesound.org

All original music by Neil Fitzgerald. All samples used under Fair Usage.

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Running order of the 'culturescape':

• A Young Blackbird Dies in My Hands, Appernack
• Hamlet soliloquy 'I have of late but wherefore I know not...' from the film Withnail & I (1989, Richard E Grant as Withnail)
• Dido's Lament - 'When I Am Laid in Earth' from Dido & Aeneas, Henry Purcell - Kirsten Flagstad
• Philip Larkin reading his poem Home Is So Sad
• Chopin's Prelude 13, Op.28 played by Alfred Cortot
• 'The Optimism of Melancholia | Slavoj Žižek | Big Think' (excerpt)
• Fading Lights Are Fading, Set Fire To Flames
• Clip from Melancholia - 'Justine and Claire' (2011, Lars von Trier)
• Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde prelude
• Various field recordings from freesound.org

For more info about the curator: neil-fitzgerald.com

If you have an idea for a theme, or want your music or field recording used in a future episode: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Running order of the 'culturescape':

• Prelude from Das Rhinegold by Richard Wagner (Rudolfe Kempe, Bayreuth performance)
• opening of TS Eliot's 'The Dry Salvages' from Four Quartets
• Charley Patton, High Water Everywhere Part 1
• Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil excerpt
• Robert Petway, Catfish Blues
• Pike, Ted Hughes (read by the poet)
• Má Vlast, 2. Vltava, ou La Moldau, Smetana (Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Vaclav Talich, 1954)
• Various field recordings of rivers large and small from freesound.org

For more info about the curator: neil-fitzgerald.com

If you have an idea for a theme, or want your music or field recording used in a future episode: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wittgenstein was right! Being silly is necessary for human happiness.

NB. This episode contains contextualised use of the 'n' word in a sound clip from a gangster rapper* (see bold and asterisked below)

1. Photo of Wittgenstein (see below)
2. A Life in Pieces (BBC), Peter Cook, Ludovic Kennedy, Ep. 1 Partridge in a Pear Tree (1990)
3. Take The Money And Run (1969), Woody Allen
4. Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen
5. Tim Dog, Phone Conversation with Reporter (1991)*
6. Play Better Golf with Peter Aliss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTOGP7V2ezE&ab_channel=kiuvideo (?)

• Get in touch to nit-pick and/or berate my inadequacies: [email protected]

Photo of a serious-looking Wittgenstein:

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Some reflections on the authenticity that runs like a rich seam of truth in Bill Callahan's songs. How does he do it?

• 'When It Shows' - an old attempt at song-writing by yours truly
• 'Say Valley Maker' (live) - from Rough Travel for a Rare Thing (2010) by Bill Callahan
• 'Jim Cain' - from Sometimes I wish We Were An Eagle (2009) by Bill Callahan
• 'Cowboy' - from Gold Record (2020) by Bill Callahan

With huge thanks to Bill Callahan and Drag City Records for permission to use clips from the songs for this audio essay. :)

• Get in touch to nit-pick and/or berate my inadequacies: [email protected]

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A meandering exploration of why Kathleen Ferrier's voice is so unbearably moving.

• 'My Bonnie Lad (trad. Northumbrian folk song)
• Ca' the Yowes' (trad. Scottish folk song)
• 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gerkommen' - Gustav Mahler
• Symphony No. 4, 3rd movement (Ruhevoll) - Gustav Mahler

• Get in touch to nit-pick and/or berate my inadequacies: [email protected]

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A generally uplifting audio essay on emptiness and its consolations...ideal for day-tripping nihilists, naturally.

Tracklist:

• Hailu Mergia & Dahlak Band — Anchin Kfu Ayinkash
• GF Haas - Concerto Grosso No. 2 for ensemble and orchestra
• TS Eliiot reading an excerpt from 'Burnt Norton' from his Four Quartets
• Vilhelm Hammershoi, 'Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor'
• Excerpt from GF Haas - Traum in des Sommers Nacht for orchestra
• Franz Kafka quote
• John Fahey - Yes Jesus Loves Me
• Excerpt from GF Haas - Traum in des Sommers Nacht for orchestra
• Django Reinhardt - Manoir De Mes Rêves
• Virginia Woolf, excerpt from 'Time Passes', To The Lighthouse (1927)
• Philip Larkin reading his poem 'Home is so sad'
• Beethoven performed by the Busch Quartet - String Quartet No. 12 in E-Flat Major, Op. 127: II. Adagio ma non troppo e molto cantabile
• Hamlet soliloquy - I have of late but wherefore I know not... from Withnail & I (1987)
• Macbeth - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow soliloquy - Orson Welles (1948)
• GF Haas - String Quartet No. 2 (1998)
• Hailu Mergia & Dahlak Band — Anchin Kfu Ayinkash

All the above used under fair usage rights.

• Get in touch to nit-pick and/or berate my inadequacies: [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.