Public Reveries

What happens when two people find they can say things to each other that no history entitles them to?

This episode explores conversation as the act by which a relationship comes into being and finds its limits. Drawing on Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy, Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, and moments from the consulting room, the episode moves between two impossible conversations: one that constitutes a marriage in an afternoon, and one that reaches a father who died decades earlier.

Excerpts from Certified Copy (2010, written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami, featuring Juliette Binoche and William Shimell) and All of Us Strangers (2023, written and directed by Andrew Haigh, featuring Andrew Scott and Jamie Bell).

Script, music, and production by Jonathan David Moss.

Listener correspondence is welcome at contact@publicreveries.com

This episode explores speaking — not as communication or self-expression, but as the act that crosses the distance between inner life and the presence of another. Drawing on the peep show confession scene in Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas and an excerpt from Anne Carson's long poem "The Glass Essay," the episode moves between film, poetry, and the consulting room to ask what becomes possible when someone who has been watching in silence finally begins to speak.

Excerpts from Paris, Texas (1984, directed by Wim Wenders, written by Sam Shepard and L.M. Kit Carson, featuring Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski). Poem excerpt from "The Glass Essay" by Anne Carson, from Glass, Irony and God (Knopf, 1995), read by Yerina Rock.

Script, music, and production by Jonathan David Moss.

Listener correspondence is welcome at contact@publicreveries.com

What happens when listening itself changes what can be spoken?

This opening episode explores listening — not as a technique or virtue, but as a condition that makes certain experiences thinkable and speakable. Drawing on scenes from Mad Men and Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, and on moments from the consulting room, the episode lingers with instances of contact: when something long held in silence is briefly illuminated because someone is there to hear it.

This episode features excerpts from Mad Men Season 7, Episode 14 (written and directed by Matthew Weiner, featuring Evan Arnold) and the 2016 film Moonlight (written and directed by Barry Jenkins, featuring Mahershala Ali, Ashton Sanders, Jharrel Jerome, Trevante Rhodes, and André Holland).

Script, music, and production by Jonathan David Moss.

Listener correspondence is welcome at contact@publicreveries.com

Public Reveries is a podcast exploring moments when inner life becomes briefly visible.

Rather than offering explanations or answers, the series invites a slower, more careful way of listening — one informed by psychoanalysis but oriented toward depth, ambiguity, and the textures of experience.

Created by psychotherapist Jonathan David Moss, featuring original music.

New episodes forthcoming.

Listener correspondence is welcome at contact@publicreveries.com