Otis Brown's Podcast

Wishing Wayne Thiebaud a belated happy birthday.
Also, a plug for Erica Mailman's excellent Smithsonian Magazine article on Thiebaud:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/getting-taste-wayne-thiebaud-180976339/
And, too, a "call to action" in support of Otis Brown Podcast 

I don't know what the Cormac McCarthy quotation has to do with the podcast, but I like it.
In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I muse on bar culture and the function of the bar in American life.

Keywords:
e.e. cummings "I was sitting in McSorley's" (1923)
John Sloan McSorley's Bar (1912), McSorley's Cats (1929)
Edward Hopper Sunday, 1926
"The Eight"
The Ashcan School
The Anti-Saloon League 
Charles Bukowski "The Suicide Kid" 
Tom Waits 

Charley Frank Pride: Sledge, Mississippi March 18, 1934 - Dallas, Texas December 12, 2020.

In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the African American folk tradition through versions of John Henry and reflect on what they have to say about labor. Through a reading of Mississippi John Hurt's 1928 "Spike Driver Blues," and Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series of paintings (stopping along the way with Elizabeth Cotton, Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison), I try and get beneath the surface of the John Henry myth.
 
 I hope you enjoy this podcast.
 Thanks so much for the support!

Keywords:
John Henry
Paul Bunyan
Johnny Appleseed
Piedmont Blues
Mississippi John Hurt
Elizabeth Cotton
Blind Lemmon Jefferson
Pete Seeger
Ma Rainey
Bessie Smith
Ida Cox
Zora Neale Hurston Mules and Men
Toni Morrison Beloved
Eldridge Cleaver Soul on Ice 
Sterling Allen Brown
Jacob Lawrence
Tom Hoskins 
Sherman James “John Henryism” 
Jimmy Reed "Big Boss Man" 
"Blackjack County Chains"
"Spikedriver Blues" 

In this week's episode, I reflect on some famous American literary hoaxes--where the "hoaxer" always calls the truth a hoax--and I wonder what if anything they have to do with our current use of the term "hoax." I examine Edgar Allan Poe's "The Balloon Hoax," Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter and Ben Franklin's (as Poor Richard Saunders) prediction that his rival Titan Leeds will suddenly fall dead at the exact moment he predicts. 

I also offer some brief, but sincere concern for the millions suffering right now.

Thanks

Keywords: 
Kimmy Schmidt 

Edgar Allen Poe “The Balloon Hoax”

Monck Mason 

Harrison Ainsworth 

Asa Carter The Education of Little Tree 

Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlett Letter

H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds 

Orson Wells The War of the Worlds 

William Kennedy Ironweed 

Titan Leeds

Daniel Leeds

The Jersey Devil 

Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanack

Hey y'all, a little plug for the upcoming podcast on literary hoaxes along with a recommendation for a really interesting article on newly-discovered cave paintings in Columbia--apropos of my earlier podcast "Maybe We Could Make." 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/29/sistine-chapel-of-the-ancients-rock-art-discovered-in-remote-amazon-forest

Happy Anniversary! I couldn't have done it without you. In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I celebrate six months of the podcast, express deep and sincere gratitude for the support of my listeners and, hopefully, offer a few insights into the work of culture and the way the podcast attempts to come to terms with it all. 
I hope you enjoy the podcast. Tell your friends. Thank you and I truly feel blessed that you keep listening.

With whom are you allowed to share a photograph? Who owns the image of Molotov Man? What peaches what penumbras! The conversation about consent and representation in photography is far older than Cindy Sherman photographing herself in the 1970's or academics writing about it in the 2000's and the link between surveillance and consumerism is older than the Ginsberg poem alluded to above. It all just feels so acutely relevant right now-- especially for those of us who are putting in several hours a day on zoom. 

In this episode, I attempt to work through some feelings about my past experiences with visual culture and I think about the way our mandatory zoom time during covid has collided with that. 

I hope you enjoy. 

S1 E23: Who’s Zoomin Whom

Some of the cultural references made in this episode:

Aretha Franklin. “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?

Cindy Sherman

Allen Ginsberg. “A Supermarket in California” 

Walker Evans

Dorothea Lange. “Migrant Mother”

Eudora Welty 

Milt Hinton

Louis Armstrong

Marty Stuart

Johnny Cash 

Margaret Walker

Duke Ellington

In a last minute substitution, I decided to make a new podcast. Sorry for the switcho-chango, but "Who's Zoomin Whom" will be available next week (11/18).  My thoughts have been with friends, colleagues and students who served in military lately so I wanted to express some of that here and on Veteran's Day. In this episode, I pay homage to some of the women and men I have known who served in the military. I also include a discussion of the Winslow Homer painting A Veteran in a New Field and my favorite heartbreaking Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke.
Enjoy.  

Some of the cultural references made in this episode:

 Tom Russell: “Veteran’s Day”

John Prine. “Sam Stone”

Swamp Dog. “Sam Stone”

Johnny Cash. “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”

Stuart Rosenberg/Paul Newman. Cool Hand Luke

Homer. The Iliad

Winslow Homer. “A Veteran in a New Field”