Parrhesia Hour

*Quarantine episode #6 -- Broadcast from home via Instagram Live*Don't you find it thrilling to do a thing you don't understand?  To not be able to quickly answer the question "what am I doing right now?"  Today guest Lev Abramoc joins the show--jazz stories to come! Originally aired and recorded 4/22/2020

*Quarantine episode #5 -- Broadcast from home via Instagram Live*Wouldn't you prefer things to be infinitely deep?  Not knowable and known?  Can you create order from chaos without thinking no other order could have been?  Something about concluded thoughts gets me real skeptical.What finds satisfaction in not-knowing? Improvisation! Can we agree that people lean excessively on knowing?  I think it becomes oppressive, and absurdly so---those claiming to "know best" are definitely drowning unacknowledged unkonwns.  just let go of it!  Then we can get on the same page and have some sincere and cognitively consonant discussions. Originally aired and recorded 4/15/2020

*Quarantine episode #4 -- Broadcast from home via Instagram Live*Do you find yourself asking yourself: "If I'm a doctor, can I know anything about health?"  Or, "if I'm not Miles Davis is it even worth playing music?"  Well we can't all be ballerinas but I don't think that should stop us from dancing.  How plain, to imagine one "best" and measure everything in relation to it.  John Cage and today's guest Paul Carter have some thoughts on these topics. Originally aired and recorded 4/08/2020

*Quarantine episode #3 -- Broadcast from home via Instagram Live* What do Joe Exotic's GW Zoo, and Peter Ivers' New Wave Theater have in common?  Lofty ideals!  Why stop thinking when you could start thinking?  What starts you thinking?  There's such pressure on language, I'd like to release that pressure, to lower expectations -- expect less from language.  Please come relax with me, let yammering be yammering. Originally aired and broadcast on 4/1/2020

*Quarantine episode #2 -- Broadcast from home via Instagram Live* When you cook, do you clean as you go?  If you do, have you ever regretted it?  If you don't, have you ever resented being asked if you do?  This got me thinking about ecosystems, detritus, and engineering -- I don't think a design should be considered complete or beautiful if it hasn't accounted for management of its own waste. Originally aired and recorded 3/25/2020

*Quarantine episode #1 -- Broadcast from home via Instagram Live*A part of a thing is never the whole of the thing.  That's easy enough to get behind, just don't forget that anything constructed is necessarily partial.  So you can spend your time thinking about anything you want, just don't make the mistake of presuming you now know it all.  Things are changing everyday! Originally aired and recorded 3/18/2020

Politics!! Am I right?  So easy to fall into nihilistic despair, to feel futile in an echo chamber, praching to the choir... Don't let hastily applied cliches deter you!  A choir needs music to sing, right?  A choir is powerful, music is powerful -- elections are not the beginning, nor the end.  Guest Eric Shevrin is here to chat today. Originally aired and recorded 3/11/2020

How is your decision making informed by your sense of justice?  Are you the arbiter of justice, or do you defer to something beyond yourself?  That is to say, how useful is it to acknowledge your finitude?  Guest Jason Meadows joins us today. Originally aired and recorded 3/4/2020

How can we look at what is?  Thinking about people can be sticky, but what if we think about objects, what's that open up?  Can it be empowering?  Like if I'm an egg, will I be more understood?  Guest Aris is here to ehlp us ponder this. Originally aired and recorded 2/26/2020

What information should be on the show flyer?  That the members of the band are good people?  And what's going on when bad people make good art?  Do you want to like people, or do you want to like watching them?  What makes a community, what makes a product?  Guest Pauline helps us think through this. Originally aired and recorded 2/19/2020