‘funny,’ not funny

We welcome Jim's friend Nyadenya Inyagwa to the podcast to talk about his interests and ventures. We touch on a bunch of video stories at first, following some discussion about the homeless situation in Boston and Cambridge. This leads us to talk about the Hulu show Dopesick & Snowfall. Then Lionel talks about how much he's enjoying the series Elementary with Lucy Liu, Johnny Lee Miller. We move on to other Lucy Liu movies including, Kill Bill & Lucky Number Sleven.Nyadenya is working on a project called African Royalty Games, a series of card decks which can be purchased here. We discuss the art, and state of the project, as well as where it might go in the future.Nyadenya has also been writing a number of interesting IMDB reviews. We all agree with his review of Tenet, which is one of the worst date movies ever.Other topics:
- The danger of a single story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi
- Marvel and Iron Man & Guardians of the Galaxy, the return of Robert Downey Jr., DC, and Xmen.
- Looney Tunes Movies and other antiques.

Dr. Christopher K. Coffman is Master Lecturer in Humanities at Boston University. He has published on a wide variety of topics in literature and music, and has increasingly been focusing in his research on points at which the two fields intersect. The author or editor of four books, Coffman's current project is a study of the Grateful Dead in relation to the literary tradition.Lionel and Jim learn a lot from our guest about the literary ground from which the Grateful Dead sprang. We discuss the writers behind the band.

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.

We begin by talking about Hundreds of Beavers and move into Jim’s experience with the Raw Diet and Johnny Gottado.From there we talk about food delivery and inactivity.We talk about A Complete Unknown and Dylan’s life in general from Jim’s recollections of interviewing Dave Van Ronk, and Jim’s reading of Dylan’s autobiography Chronicles.We touch on the band Boston and the Rockman, and They Might Be Giants, but only because our brains keep bouncing around.Lionel talks about the jazz station KRTU and how real winter has arrived in Syracuse. Jim mentions the book Putin’s People and we discuss the law suits Kinsman 1 & 2 in Buffalo, NY.We close by sending a shout out to Jesse Welles who we both find cool.

The amazing, wonderful, comedian, storyteller, songwriter, performer, author, and great friend to have, Don White joined us this week to talk all about his process, his art, and his life as a student of the craft. We begin talking about the Naked City, where Jim and Don first met, and move on to discuss the music and comedy blendings of Catch A Rising Star. Don fill us in on his method stories from his life on stage.

In this episode, our guest Matthew Roazen returns to talk to us about his time in Russia, and gives us a lesson in what was happening in Russia during the 1990s and early 2000s. Matthew explains the rise of the Russian Oligarchy and how it was linked to guarantees to banks via the IMF. This effected not only all the small businesses in Russia, but also foreign business and investment in Russia that the time. We hear more about how all of this affected his day to day life there, but end up talking about our understanding of the idea of corruption and how it changes depending on where you live.References

Matthew Roazen, lawyer, and Russian history & linguistics expert, who lived in Russia for 16 years talks about his time in Moscow during the 1990s and 2000s. This is part one of a 2 part conversation with Matthew about what things are like in the country with the largest landmass in the world. We talk about his time managing a blues band in Moscow, the beginning of the perceived western bonanza there in the 1990s and why business was so keen on the newly “freed” Russian populace. We touch on the beginnings of the oligarchy and how Matthew saw it emerge.References

We discuss the making of video clips for promoting our podcast and the futility thereof. The unruly beard is disparaged. Lionel brings up an episode of CSI where a civil war re-enactor was killed and found to be wearing a girdle as a response to Jim's thought experiment of having to be sewn into his clothes like foot soldiers in the civil war. We talk about the history men's fashion, men's vanity, and men's impossible expectations for both men and women.Next, Jim brings up a book he had recently consumed called The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist, which he both enjoyed and did not enjoy. Jim shares a story from the book. This launches us into a discussion about what is enough or feels enough in our consumer society.Jim talks about a movie he was impressed by called After Yang, starring Colin Farrell about a family who has purchased an android to look after their adopted daughter. This is one of a list of indie science fiction films Jim came across recently - we will probably cover others in future episodes.Lionel talks about a book he read about the fall of the Soviet Union called Armageddon Averted by Stephen Kotkin which covers the events of 1970 to 2000 in the Soviet Union and eventual Russian Federation.Lionel also relates a book/tv show combination called Rogue Heroes created by Stephen Knight who also created Peaky Blinders. The book and show cover the origins of the SAS during the second world war. Lionel continues giving interesting details about this show and book and pivoting to the battle of Midway until Jim informs him he has to leave and the show skids to a stop.References

Do billionaires deserve our empathy? We passively mention the Brian Thompson murder, and Jim’s portrayal of The Vengeance in his books. Do we need the profit motive to create new drugs and medical treatments? Cialis, Viagra, and Ozempic all started out as drugs for different things than what they were intended. It’s the Bell Labs situation in another instance. Were the inventions from those labs worth paying ridiculous long distance rates? We don’t know. We talk about China hacking our phones and the relationship to aging networks and the search for spies. This leads into a discussion about the breakup of Ma Bell and international call-back systems in the long forgotten past.We come back to billionaires and their carbon footprint, and more importantly, how it’s becoming not cool to be rich. What if we taxed everything over 1B? Who takes it? Is that unAmerican?We break off from this line of thought to talk about the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann as well as 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. We discuss both books in broad terms.We end up talking a little about Dune Prophesy and the better and worse use of canon, Sackler Alley, and The City and The City again.

Lionel and Jim discuss a myriad of subjects this week with a subtile common thread. We move from Jim's recent experience with jury duty to return to discussing the novel The Devil’s Broker by Frances Stonor Saunders. From there we revisit the Steerswoman series with Jim's experience reading book 3: The Lost Steersman. Lionel has been left behind on these books, but talks about The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem.In the end we land on the documentary about Robert Hughes and the downfall of the art world called The Mona Lisa Curse discovered for Lionel by (who else) Johnathan Coulthart, you can watch it here on the Internet Archive. This is an excellent movie - immediately engrossing which you should watch forthwith. While you are there, please make a donation to The Internet Archive, which is under attack by various groups.