Our Struggle

Original tune by Drew Ohringer, with some Zombies at the end

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, HELP US WORSHIP MAMMON! Link to store

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In this end of the year Christmas special, our two Hebraic hosts convene to discuss the Yuletide-set Part One of Ingmar Bergman's 1983 masterpiece, Fanny and Alexander. What resonances does this warm, nostalgic account of a Swedish boy's fantasy life have with our Jesus in the sea seeing Norwegian? How does the line between fantasy and reality, onstage and offstage blur for this theatrical bohemian family? What, in fact, were the Ekdahls feasting on at Christmas dinner? All of these questions and more are pondered in what the pulsating orb wearing horn rimmed glasses of record the New Yorker has recently designated our "highly digressive and meandering" style. The second half of this show, much like the latter half of Bergman's epic, is sure to perplex, bewilder and alienate: we abandon our nominal topic altogether and mutter for about an hour about mammals vs. birds, our holiday cooking plans, and Drew's upcoming track "I've Lost a Lot of Girls To Christmas" (featured at the end of this episode). Enjoy, and see you in 2022!

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If you have questions, comments or concerns, or if you are an audio dweeb in nyc who can help us, please reach out: [email protected]; deohringer@gmail.

We are also looking for a UK distributor (possibly a bookstore??) that can help us get mugs to UK struggleheads, as the cost of shipping individual mugs to the UK is prohibitively expensive. Get in touch!

He was late; he always is.

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Kyle C. doesn't seem too put off my his riff about misogyny in the kitchen, at least.

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My Struggle, minimalist or maximalist? Is all autofiction minimalist? Is it funny to call her "Rachel Cuck"?

A lot of questions, not so many answers.

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Vanja puts on her golden shoes and goes to Stella's birthday party. Vanja shows off her shoes to the room of children. No one notices. They're busy riding the train to Moscow.

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Small bark in the dog park. I mean small talk. Is My Struggle really just Karl Ove making small talk with himself? Is learning to small talk just part of growing up? 

There's a small golden doodle in the park.

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Never let her sit on a park bench, Drew says.

WE'RE BACK! After a long illness, Drew returns to the zoom stage and helps Lauren to heartily welcome certified Knausgaard expert Professor Claus Andersen to the pod for an extremely, almost disconcertingly, on-topic episode. 

itemization:

0:00 - molasses cookies; Boston trauma; struggle mug plug (preorder yours today! link to store)

31:40 - we welcome Claus; gnomes; Lauren's dumb q's about scandi colonial history; Sweden’s covid response

53:33 - why is norway such a literary powerhouse; Knausgaard family history; Knausgaard publication history; Knausgaard finances

1:28:40 - Geir Angell Øygarden homosocial relationship; portrayal of Linda; 'V' structure of Book 2

1:40:40 - form/formlessness of My Struggle

1:59:00 - more dumb q's about scandi stereotypes

2:14:20 - why knausgaard late to fapping

Thank you so much to Claus for sharing his knowledge with us and gamely answering our dumbest questions! We look forward to having him back on soon. 

Wishing you a happy this holiday season ~ our struggle team

A rainy Sunday night in ---. Two broadcasters, a man and a woman recently arrived from Central Park, convene in the cramped kitchen of the man's lodging with Malbec and Port Salut. There is much to speak of - the Kinks, a mangled papaya dog, an invective against tweets by Wallace Shawn (Swan?) - but as their trivial chatter progresses, a mystery emerges (as it ought in all literature): who is the third figure in the kitchen? The man and the woman keep making reference to a Byronic figure they call Mason, a brooding spectre whom they claim supplies them steadily with tea, glasses, bound volumes. This 'Mason,' who may or may not resemble D.H. Lawrence, who may or may not exist, lies at the heart of the story. The extent to which he will reveal himself (or be revealed by our protagonists) is the most thrilling part of the narrative, an adventure of epic sprawl playing out entirely within the confines of a tiny New York kitchen.

-J. Wood

She showed up smoking marlboro lights and talking about a ribbon store nearby. This was on west 38 street, where I’d rented, for 250 dollars, a studio for the recording sesh. My voice was ragged, frayed, like late period Dylan, on account of a cold I acquired in Greenpoint, at a play, and three classes a day on the Metamorphosis: I encouraged my students to notice patterns, the transformations within transformations, the repetition of the word deliverance--they drew dung-beetle dicks on the whiteboard, and, lost myself in the mutiny, I told them Gregor Samsa’s sister was Greta Thunberg. Lauren and I had been waiting for her on a bench by a clothing store, which induced Lauren to tell me about Reformation, she called it slutty Anne Boleyn, but before the bench we’d gone to CVS to buy lauren an android charger and a big bag of ricolas for my ruined larynx. Oh and before the CVS we’d gotten coffee and croissants and salad from the Quotidian Pain. There were drilling, burrowing sounds coming from somewhere adjacent to quotidian pain, and so I couldn’t talk at all, couldn’t even try to talk over them, so I tried to read about Karl Ove, I mean read his book,  the coat sliding off a hanger, his dad’s fingerprints, dead, on a teapot, and she said she’d done the reading, our guest---Dasha--she said she was a speed reader; but, after I’d sent her the PDF and the page numbers--labeled DASHA START HERE on page 417, in my stunted hieroglyphic--and after I’d reminded her of where to meet, at Gotham Studios on w 38st, she’d said that today’s section--the final part of book 1--was a “a bit of a bore.” But then she was in the thrum of glamor, premieres and screenings and writers rooms, and so perhaps she couldn’t attend to the subtleties or whatever of the text, which was fine with me, since it was coup just to get her here, just to watch her walk up to us on west 38 st and to listen to her tell us about ribbons and the nearest brasserie, what was the difference anyway between a bistro and a brasserie, and I knew the episode would be a tedious success when, once we got recording, on the 10th floor, she launched into her day: rotten bananas, red smoothies, Equinox. There was perhaps even a kind of sleepy glamour to her mundanity, and her itemization (such as it was) almost redeemed my sandblasted tonsils and the wallet I’d lost, for a spell, at Metrograph, which I would tell her about, later, at Match 86, after a cucumber martini;  redeemed Lauren’s spasming shoulder and migraines, too. Dasha redeemed most of literature herself-- “all books are basically good,” she said. Then we took a cab in the rain to the bisto or was it a brasserie and we ate pate and tartare and escargot, doused in parsley sauce, and outside, after, we smoked American Spirit Yellows. I can hardly speak, there’s nothing more to say, though, I think.

I have to go to Dayton Ohio in a second to visit my Aunt Bunny but long story short it was the afternoon of the Brooklyn Tote Bag Fest, Drew took shelter in the den of the Wizard of Remsen Street fka Christian Lorentzen and he podded from there while the Cousins beamed in from across the POnd. (I was back in the finished basement of the Old House.) Some more food motifs emerged: the steak tartare at Odeon and pasta puttanesca, namely. Emmie, a publishing big wig in London, wanted to know about Drew's balls. We talked about Luke's novel Theft, a kind of 19th century Brexit novel which Lauren read and to which she gives two thumbs up (alhtough why you would care about her book reviews is beyond me). Lauren tried with increasing desperation to impress the Brits with her knowledge of English esoterica. We talk about Karl Ove's desire to be as cool as English band guys. Then Luke gives us the DL on the different numbers of BBC Radios and Christian (reclining in bed for most of this) pops in to give a reading of his essay about BBC Radio. We are all enamored of the Shipping Forecast.

plugs: Lauren was on Silver Screen video and talked about Stellan Skarsgard and Winnie the Pooh, perhaps of interest to struggle listeners?

email us: [email protected]; [email protected]

see you on the other side

After a run of guests who are total sweethearts in addition to being huge fans of the show & Knausgaard, Lauren and Drew, longing for some friction, welcome the notorious sex writer & Knausgaard skeptic Delicious Tacos to the pod. Turns out the pseudonymous de Sade actually bears a lot of similarities to Knaus (albeit much hornier)  - but can L&D convince DT that KOK is actually pretty OK?

cheat sheet: 

0:00 - Drew expatiates on the Jewish summer camp ritual of "Minty Balls"

9:20 - DT shows up and and we transition quite seamlessly from Minty Balls to Prostate Nodule. Prayers up for DT.

27:43 - Lauren tries to situate DT within the Every Man/Underground Man spectrum (or is it a dichotomy? who gives a shit) and we somehow end up talking about Evangelion and Sally Rooney

40:57 - Lauren critiques DT's (disturbingly?) ripped physique and Drew tries to liken DT's relentless winnowing of his own form to the relentless reduction and editing that powers his prose as evident in his tightly-structured novel FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS

1:18:42 - Lauren makes the mistake of inviting DT to join us for the first ever OUR STRUGGLE PERSONALS SECTION.

Thank you to Delicious Tacos! We had a great time & we sincerely hope the diagnosis is benign.