SLEERICKETS

By Matthew Buckley SmithArts Books

SLEERICKETS episodes

February 09, 2024 Ep 139: Shooting the Butterfly
My book Midlife now exists. Buy it here!
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
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Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– What’s expected of us by Ted Chiang
– You did it of your own free will? No such thing. by Robert Sapolsky
– Sorry, but your soul just died by Tom Wolfe
– Readiness Potential and Neuronal Determinism by Karim Fifel
– Jorge Luis Borges
– Richard Matheson
– Parable of the Madman by Friedrich Nietzsche
– Saltburn
– Basic Instinct
– Night Moves (1975)
– Charles Baudelaire
– Ange Minko’s review of Aaron Poochigian’s Baudelaire
– Poochigian’s response
– The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
– Herman’s Head
– Inside Out
– The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
1 hr 14 min
February 01, 2024 Ep 138: Midlife, ft. Michael Buckly-Smith (sp?)
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
Get FREE access to the SECRET SHOW by inviting a friend!
Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!
Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– My book Midlife now exists.
– Midlife Doesn’t Have to Be a Crisis by Jancee Dunn
– Looper
– 12 Monkeys
– Die Hard
– Madame Bovary
– Contrapoints' The Hunger
– The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud
– Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
– On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
– Unraveled
– The Magic School Bus
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
1 hr 13 min
January 24, 2024 Ep 137: Slaying Time
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
Get FREE access to the SECRET SHOW by inviting a friend!
Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!
Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– My book Midlife now exists.
– The Last Messiah by Peter Wessel Zapffe
– Alice’s conversation with Aaron Irwin on Thanks for Dropping By
– The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti
– Henri Bergson
– Poetry Says Ep 247. An Absolutely Ordinary Poem
– An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow by Les Murray
– Friedrich Nietzsche
– The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
– ContraPoints
– The Church of Euthanasia
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
1 hr 18 min
January 19, 2024 Ep 136: Darker
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
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Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– My book Midlife now exists.
– Darker by Mark Strand (not actually the topic of this episode, sorry)
– How to Read the New Contemporary Poem by Paul Breslin
– The New Criterion
– William Logan
– Adam Kirsch
– The Nature of Things Fragile by Peter Vertacnik
– Pleasures of the Game by Austin Allen
– Some Problems with Autobiography by Brian Brodeur
– David Yezzi
– Macbeth by William Shakespeare
– The Fell Swoop by MBS
– Austin’s list of things Roger Kimball has said:
On Twitter/X:
Suggesting "Time to review the 19th Amendment?" in response to a post claiming that "women are turning government into a massive HR," and "Rescind the 19th Amendment?" in response to a post claiming that "Allowing women to vote led to the Cult of Safety First! Allied with the Expertocracy, there is nothing they do not, and will not, control."
Calling COVID masking regulations "the greatest imposition on civil liberties since slavery" at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (Nov. 2020), and claiming as late as fall 2022 that "Vaccinations do not stop the spread of Covid."
Spreading Jan. 6 "truther" type conspiracy theories (many times over).
In The New Criterion:
Calling the Jan. 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol "the January 6 'insurrection' hoax" and claiming that it was no more than "U.S. citizens exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech."
Praising Kanye West, for the first time ever, directly after West's series of anti-Semitic diatribes in fall 2022. (Kimball called West's interview with Tucker Carlson "an extraordinary exchange, diffuse and impressionistic at times but deeply felt. West is far from an ideal spokesman, but he was spot on about a few important issues"—omitting all mention of West's anti-Semitic comments, which had already leaked to the press.)
Characterizing protest of American systemic racism as "The endless whining of black radicals about how victimized they are because of things that happened a few centuries ago."
In other media:
Expressing "solidarity" with disgraced Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams in the wake of Adams's remark: "The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people. Just get the fuck away." (Kimball added: "If the magazine I edit, The New Criterion, ran comic strips, I would offer to run Dilbert.")
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
40 min
January 12, 2024 Ep 135: The Most Embarrassing Episode
NB: Oh man, I should have clarified this during the episode, but the ex-girlfriend in the poem is NOT the ex-girlfriend in the anecdote. Different exes. Jesus Christ, the fact that this is a note is even necessary. As James Wright once observed while lying in a hammock at William Duffy’s farm in Pine Island, Minnesota…
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
Get FREE access to the SECRET SHOW by inviting a friend!
Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!
Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– My book Midlife now exists.
– My Rattlecast thing went well, I think?
– Anseo by Paul Muldoon
– Promises of Gold by Jose Olivarez
– The Poetry Gods
– World Too Loud to Hear by Stephen Kampa
– Cracks in the Invisible by Stephen Kampa
– Portrait of a Lady by T. S. Eliot
– The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
– Il Estraneo by Ryan Wilson (no copy online, so this is a link to Brian Brodeur’s essay that discusses it)
– Authority by Ryan Wilson
– My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
– Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning
– Saint Worm by Hailey Leithauser
– Able Muse
– The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse ed. & trans. Christopher Childers
– Otto Jespersen
– The Nature of Things Fragile by Peter Vertacnik
– Modern Love, Ancient War by William Logan
– The Nickname by Stephen Kampa (no copy online, appears in Cracks in the Invisible)
– Vellum by Chelsea Woodard
– The Best by MBS
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
– Alex Pepple
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
53 min
January 06, 2024 Ep 134: Omnibusted
NB: Sorry this is super late and super long and has some errors (e.g. Terrance Hayes won a National Book Award, not a Pulitzer) and the meticulous show notes I wrote got unsaved and I was too tired to re-do all of them, but I think you’ll manage. Love, MBS
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
Get FREE access to the SECRET SHOW by inviting a friend!
Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!
Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– My Rattlecast thing went well, I think?
– Modern Love, Ancient War by William Logan
– ContraPoints on Cringe
– Previous mention of Terrance Hayes’ animal poems
– Previous mentions of Nicole Sealey’s erasure poetry: 1, 2, and 3
– Alice, Grown Up, at a Cocktail Party by A. E. Stallings
– Second Act Problems by Catherine Tufariello
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
1 hr 54 min
December 30, 2023 Ep 133: We Shadows, Pt. 1
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
Get FREE access to the SECRET SHOW by inviting a friend!
Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!
Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– I will be on the Rattlecast January 1 at 8:00 p.m. Come check it out!
– Cameron’s Emily Dickinson Selection
– The Harold Bloom spiel on Dickinson’s genius
– Recurring Women by Danny Karlin
– The whole I’m Thinking of Ending Things deal
– Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang
– Alice’s Birth School Work Death poem
– The Aeneid
– The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
– At Length
– Derek Mong on SLEERICKETS
– Carl Dennis
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
1 hr 10 min
December 22, 2023 Ep 132: Intermittent Positive Reinforcement
NB: Oh, yeah. Also depression. Love and science and history and depression. Forgot about that last one.
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
Get FREE access to the SECRET SHOW by inviting a friend!
Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!
Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– I will be on the Rattlecast January 1 at 8:00 p.m. Come check it out!
– The Nature of Love by Harry Harlow
– Love at Goon Park by Deborah Blum
– The Sad Ones by Harry Harlow
– Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
– Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
– Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
– The HPV Vaccine
– The Cyclops Child by Fredric Neuman
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
1 hr 18 min
December 13, 2023 Ep 131: Big Picture-ism
NB: My comments on Japanese culture and ritual suicide refer to historical convention, not to present day norms.
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
Get FREE access to the SECRET SHOW by inviting a friend!
Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!
Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– Ep 247 of Poetry Says: An absolutely ordinary poem
– Fountain by Marcel Duchamp
– The Nix by Nathan Hill
– Elephant by Gus Van Sant
– The Outsider by H. P. Lovecraft
– The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
– The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft
– Patriotism by Yukio Mishima
– Sonnet 116
– Ted Budd
– The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
– Maryann Corbett
– When I have fears that I may cease to be by John Keats
– The Mercy Rule Pt. 1 & Pt. 2
– Louis C.K. on white-people problems
– Trois Mondes, Une Planete by Alfred Sauvy
– Are Marathons Safe? by Tara Parker-Pope
– Ecology of Souls by Terence McKenna
– The RAFI Communique article including the term first-world problem
– Google Books Ngram Viewer
– Brit Marling
– The Optimist by Joshua Mehigan
– The Inner Light (Star Trek)
– The Odyssey
– The Aeneid
– Sea Grapes by Derek Walcott
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says by Alice Allan
I Hate Matt Wall by Matt Wall
Versecraft by Elijah Blumov
Ratbag Poetics By David Jalal Motamed
1 hr 27 min
December 07, 2023 Ep 130: Creative Non-Nonfiction
NB: It turns out the first successful proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem was published in 1995. I think I might have been thinking of the Twin Prime Conjecture…?
For more SLEERICKETS, check out the SECRET SHOW and join the group chat!
Wear SLEERICKETS t-shirts and hoodies. They look good!
Some of the topics mentioned in this episode:
– Losers: Dispatches from the Other Side of the Scoreboard, ed. Mary Pilon & Louisa Thomas (featuring an essay by Brian!)
– They Studied Dishonesty. Was Their Work a Lie? by Gideon Lewis-Kraus
– Francesca Gino’s Rebuttal
– Hasan Minhaj’s Emotional Truths by Clare Malone
– Hasan Minhaj’s Response
– A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions by Ian Parker
– Jonah Lehrer
– Malcolm Gladwell
– Victor Lavalle’s introduction to The Best of Richard Matheson
– The Daemon Lover by Shirley Jackson
– Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal by Eugene Soltes
Alice: Poetry Says
Brian: @BPlatzer
Cameron: CameronWTC [at] hotmail [dot] com
Matthew: sleerickets [at] gmail [dot] com
Music by ETRNL
Art by Daniel Alexander Smith
Frequent topics:
– Joshua Mehigan
– Shane McCrae
– A. E. Stallings
– Ryan Wilson
– Austin Allen
– Jonathan Farmer
– Zara Raab
– Ethan McGuire
– Coleman Glenn
– Alexis Sears
– JP Gritton
More Ratbag Poetry Pods:
Poetry Says
I Hate Matt Wall
Versecraft
Ratbag Poetics
1 hr 6 min