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Kat Dee joins Emmet to talk about movies they couldn't stop texting each other about which they think define, in part, the millennial vibe. They talk about movies that give a shit that you're watching them, what happened to music as part of identity formation, the sexual weirdness of all three movies, being awkward as an early millennial meme, what millennials did to language, and more!

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Emmet and Josh wrap up their series on the Shock of the New.

They discuss the modern art museum, Hughes's sick burns on everyone and everything, Superbowl Commericals as art appreciation ritual, Don Draper, and mourning the death of painting.

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Essayist Michael Cuenco joins Emmet to talk about the totalizing permanence of the culture war. They talk about Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, liberty, republicanism, oligarchy, living in a post-literate tribal world, and more!

Check out some of Michael's Work:

How Culture War Trumped Class War, Compact Magazine

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Closing Song: Slower Hell by Money

Josh and Emmet talk over episodes 6 and 7 of Robert Hughes's The Shock of the New. They get into Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Rothko, and the dawn of the Weak Universal Forms.

They discuss art as a window into the past and the schizo-world of television. And if painting can't matter in the way it used to, why did Hughes bother with the series?

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King of The Work and co-host of What's Left, Oliver Bateman joins Emmet to talk about the illustrious career of pro-wrestling mogul Vince McMahon after he stepped down from WWE. They talk about the hustler and con man as American architects, the intimacy of kayfabe, what people get wrong about their stale "politics as pro wrestling" takes, and more!

"Exit Vince McMahon, World Builder," Oliver Bateman, The Washington Examiner.

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Closing Song: Moth-Eaten Deer Head by The Locust

Matt Kelly rejoins the boys to talk about Fukuyama's weird liberalism, econ theory, the triumphalism of the 90s, Fukuyama as an OG anti-Islamic type, and more!

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Check out Matt's Stuff:

Emmet and John begin their series on Fukuyama's seminal The End of History and the Last Man. They talk through its context, Fukuyama's background, trouble some of his assumptions, and kick the tires of his liberal triumphalism in the opening 50 pages.

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6-time author and host of the Power Hungry Podcast Robert Bryce sits down with Emmet to talk about the downfall of California, his time covering the Branch Davidian trials, our troubled electric grid, the balkanization of America, and more!

"California's Energy War on the Poor" by Robert Bryce (Quillette)

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Closing Song: California Uber Alles by the Dead Kennedys

We're back!

This one opens with some housekeeping, then we move on to talk about the energy crisis, regionalism, localism, PMC intermediation, American political tradition, and more!

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Special Guest: Mike.

Emmet sits Geoff Shullenberger and Default Friend to talk about their respective articles on the Uvalde shooting, school shootings in general, "zeitgeist killers," the spiritual hole in our society, and more!

"The Faith of Mass Shooters" by Geoff Shullenberger, Compact Magazine.

"Mass Shootings and the World Liberalism Made," by Katherine Dee, Contra

Closing Song: Lowered by Greg Puciato ft. Reba Meyers.