‘funny,’ not funny

Lionel and Jim talk about the release of Utopia Revisited by Jim, which is the album he recorded in Iceland. Jim has created a video out of stock clips. We talk about the possibility of doing a podcast from the road as Lionel drives north. Then we get Lionel’s take on Foundation on Apple TV as well as Silo, comparing both to The Expanse, which still remains a favorite. We discuss the Netflix show Reality as well, now that Jim has seen it. Now that Lionel has seen The Flash, we get into his impressions of that movie. We get into unsatisfying endings to what might be decent shows. We talk about Vermont and Jim's recent trip there. Finally, we get into books and talk about Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover, and Street of Crocodiles.

Lionel and Jim talk about Jim’s experience at the Hollywood premiere of The Flash, the upsides and downsides of cloud storage, The Silo novels and TV show, Wayward Pines, Mr. Beast, Work as narrative, the Apple Vision Pro, Hard Fork, the question of who owns your information in government and non-government organizations, the TV show Reality, and why you don’t want to get on the wrong side of bureaucrats.

This week Lionel and Jim talk with Keith Smith, longtime friend of Jim and Lead Engineer at MongoDB. We talk about Jim's misconceptions of noSQL databases (see the title) as well as Gotham and the history of New York City including a little bit about Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town where Jim and Keith grew up. Keith is a fantastic guy and we were glad to have him on to talk super-nerdy with us and clear things up a bit.

Lionel and Jim talk about Birkenstocks, Uggs, scorpions (not the band), the Men at Work lawsuit, Borges & The Lottery of Babylon, algorithms and black boxes, Mozart In Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling, Walkaway by Corey Doctorow, the problem of explainers in speculative fiction, The Diplomat on Netflix, Hugh Howey’s Wool and the Apple TV show Silo, The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins, Susanna Clarke’s books Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and Piranesi, the quality of Apple TV’s speculative fiction shows, Jim’s adventures in writing and publishing, Lionel’s impending move, Hiemal’s music, badvertising, unnecessary quotation marks, and cake disasters.

Jim and Lionel talk about the Andy Warhol case at the Supreme Court, discussing parody vs sampling, Two Live Crew, artists and inventors who began with a craft, graft, difficult listening hour, Meghan O'Gieblyn's book God, Human, Animal, Machine, The Book of Job, more stuff in The Bible, Calvinism, Jim's invitation to an LA premiere, the origins of The Flash, Carmine Infantino's view of Manhattan, and some upcoming ideas for new episodes.

Matt Smith, the managing director of Club Passim joins us to talk about his love for vinyl records, outdated recording formats, and his history of involvement at Club Passim. This is a follow up to our previous episode and fills out the history of the club and the evolution of the music scene in Harvard Square. At the end, we decide to have Matt and Abby back some day to talk about their love of Star Trek.

Abby Altman, Club Manager of Passim joins us to talk about her experience guiding the iconic music club, located in the heart of Harvard Square Cambridge, MA through its many programs. We discuss the mission and history of the club and its importance to the music scene not only in the Boston area, but worldwide. Abby is the second millennial to appear on our podcast. We look forward to talking more about this amazing venue next week.

Jim, the producer’s note: I almost didn't put this one out - it didn’t feel like an episode until I listened to it. So here it is. We talk about Lionel’s impending move away from Texas to upstate New York, new book recommendations, Jim’s vinyl pressing adventures, progress on book 3 of the Wakeful Wanderer’s Guide, Orchestral maneuvers, Bob’s new car, The Goldberg Variations, and finally, why Jim needed to change the name of his Iceland recording project.

Lionel and Jim start with an abortive return to the horrors of AI and pivot to talk about a new book Lionel is enjoying about the Osage tribe in the 1920s when we get a surprise call from Ellen, who will be helping out with running the podcast in the future. The three of us talk about her experiences in Ecuador, cartoons she’s watching with her daughter, notably My Little Pony, and talk about our process going forward.

This interview was mind blowing. Phil is creating 24 hours of music 5 minutes at a time and it's amazingly good. Lionel and I talk with him about his very detailed process and the story behind some of the songs starting at 12am and continuing until 2:59am as of the time of this podcast. That may sound confusing, but all becomes clear as we talk with Phil.Listen to the full project here: https://adayinmusic.bandcamp.com/References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S1~dot~20-Phil-Broikos/ All song clips included with permission from Phil Broikos.