The Greg Brownderville Dimension

This episode is a conversation with the eminent historian Ronald Hutton. I wanted to talk with him partly because I’m fascinated by obscure British holidays and how they add color, meaning, enchantment, and fun to the calendar, a topic on which Professor Hutton is the world’s leading authority. If you happen to share this interest, I highly recommend his 1996 book, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Hutton and I also discuss his newest book, Queens of the Wild: Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe: An Investigation.

—the scholarly debate about whether pagan survivals or surviving paganism has obtained in Christian Europe, and Hutton’s recent intervention in this conversation (1:08)

—the tension in some thinkers’ claim that pagan manifestations in Christian Europe result simultaneously from cultural continuity and from the workings of the collective unconscious (4:10)

—Hutton’s emphasis on human creativity and his view that illiterate communities are often more dynamically creative than highly literate ones (7:51)

—how Rupert Sheldrake’s ideas about morphic resonance might shed light on debates among folklorists about where folklore comes from (10:48)

—whether familiar or unfamiliar religious material more effectively inspires artistic expression / a brief discussion of the diversity and syncretism of Christianity (15:00)

—speculation about the meaning behind ghosts and the European goddess-like figures that Hutton’s new book is about (16:59)

—Hutton’s outlook on the family of scholars of which he is a member (21:53)

—What is it that fuels Hutton’s work? (25:14)

—an important and moving moment in Hutton’s academic career when he received encouragement from an instructor (28:51)

—Hutton’s fascinating idea that practices which seem pagan to many scholars are actually Catholic practices brought into the home after the Reformation (32:50)

—Larkin’s poem "Church Going," pilgrimage, and the recent revival of folk celebrations in Britain (13:30)

—the magic of carols (37:44)

—Hutton’s take on W. B. Yeats, his splendid poetry, his sometimes-unsplendid personal behavior, and his dim view of English fairies as opposed to Irish ones (39:45)

—the secret meaning of the fall / winter festival calendar (45:00)

my website:
https://gregbrownderville.com

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative: https://508creative.com

music by Beekeeper Spaceman

Greg Brownderville is the author of three books of poetry, the lead singer of Beekeeper Spaceman, the creator of Fire Bones, the editor-in-chief of Southwest Review, and a professor of English at SMU in Dallas.

This is my second audio episode featuring the English biologist Rupert Sheldrake, recorded during Christmastime in London. If you watched the short version of this episode (titled “The Logos and the Calendar”) on my YouTube channel, I still recommend listening to this audio episode. The video version is only twenty-three minutes long, whereas this long-form audio version contains over an hour of content and goes into much greater depth.

Rupert Sheldrake’s books:
https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-ru...

my website:
https://gregbrownderville.com

If you have questions for me about this episode or anything else, hit me up at [email protected]. If I get some good questions, I might do a Q&A episode.

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative: https://508creative.com

music by Beekeeper Spaceman

Greg Brownderville is the author of three books of poetry, the lead singer of Beekeeper Spaceman, the creator of Fire Bones, the editor-in-chief of Southwest Review, and a professor of English at SMU in Dallas.

In this episode I return to my undergraduate alma mater, Ouachita Baptist University, to sit a spell with Johnny Wink and Eric Brownderville (my brother). This is one of the most joyous conversations I've ever been a part of.

—Greg and Eric reminisce about their first experiences as college students (4:56)
—Eric runs into his former English professor somewhere he never would have expected to see him (6:50)
—"the grim stubble period" (8:20)
—the historical importance of "hair certainty" for American presidents (11:43)
—seven ways to prune a grapefruit (12:50)
—Silky, the blue Fugates, and cosmic silliness (20:55)
—Greg's cereal prank (26:28)
—Greg's "business ed" prank (27:30)
—the nightmare of the definite article for Russian speakers learning English, and Johnny's bedtime prank (28:28)
—Greg's "least favorite name for a boy" interviews (30:26)
—the mystery of "the simples" (32:07)
—Eddie Ray and his magnificent misspellings (41:53)
—Greg's peculiar love of "Swiss" (44:40)
—"always there for me" and "everything happens for a reason" (46:00)
—Sure, Jesus loves you, but does God love you? (48:30)
—Johnny's absolute phrase problem, "Never," and "Mystery" (51:15)
—exceedingly paranormal Greg (55:58)
—Mr. Danner and his female sons (57:15)
—cereal commercial Macbeth among the jaguars (1:01:34)
—mnemonics, Shakespeare, and Yeats (1:03:38)
—Butch Marshall's disappearing penis (1:07:25)
—die vs. pass away (1:15:20)
—going to sleep in Jesus and your sweet transition (1:20:20)
—Huck Finn stories (1:22:28)
—weird curse words (1:25:57)
—Jim Bill Patterson (1:33:29)
—coffee socks and wet squirrels (1:37:03)
—A-Tay and the blood-orange fastball (1:38:59)
—Eric's take on a Chinese superstition (1:40:28)
—Greg and Eric's Walmart survey prank (1:41:57)
—no kidding: Eric was born with a tail (1:44:02)
—Jack Butler's asanas (1:46:10)
—Eric and Johnny discuss how Johnny gets his ideas for poems (1:47:57)

Greg’s website:
https://gregbrownderville.com

If you have questions for me about this episode or anything else, leave a comment or hit me up at [email protected]. If I get some good questions, I might do a Q&A episode.

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative: https://508creative.com

music by Beekeeper Spaceman

Greg Brownderville is the author of three books of poetry, the lead singer of Beekeeper Spaceman, the creator of Fire Bones, the editor-in-chief of Southwest Review, and a professor of English at SMU in Dallas.

In this episode I pay a visit to the London home of the brilliant English biologist Rupert Sheldrake. Trust me, you don't want to miss this one: Rupert says one profound, fascinating thing after another. Also, he is at times downright hilarious, especially when he’s exposing the fundamentalism of the crotchety materialist Richard Dawkins and others like him.

—pilgrimage (3:17)
—the centrality of incarnation in Christianity (9:05)
—how evolutionary science sheds light on the story of Christ’s sacrifice and the archetype it instantiates (12:00)
—how morphic resonance might inform the roles that archetypes play in artistic inspiration (also the mysterious dream behind a line of my poetry about a “voice of pure banana cream Jesus”)  (17:19)
—epic takedown of Richard Dawkins (22:05)
—Rupert challenges Steven Pinker to a debate about telepathy (30:53)
—why it’s actually worse for a scientist than for a religious person to be a fundamentalist (32:33)
—my brother’s telepathic, archetypal dream involving me and a "mystery fruit" (33:43)
—the changes that Rupert would like to see in Western culture over the coming years (38:20)

Rupert Sheldrake’s books:
https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake

If you have questions for me about this episode or anything else, hit me up at [email protected]. If I get some good questions, I might do a Q&A episode.

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative: https://508creative.com

music by Beekeeper Spaceman

In this episode recorded a few days before Christmas, I sit down with filmmaker Bart Weiss to talk about our experimental online project, Fire Bones (www.firebones.org). We also discuss imitation and originality, the relationship between head injuries and dysregulation of sleep, synesthesia and poetry, the art of filmmaking, Robert Frost's ideas about poetry writing, my upcoming trip to the UK, Christmas rituals in Wales and the United States, and much more.

This episode’s guest is a magnificent poet named Johnny Wink, author of _Haunting the Winerunner_ and _Seven Ways to Prune a Grapefruit_ . . .

(03:04) Johnny meets the great bluesman Fred McDowell, and then something beautiful and unforgettable takes place

(09:45) “Errors” as edits

(11:17) welcoming, and benefiting from, constructive criticism without applying all of it slavishly

(14:52) embroidering otherwise-true stories to make them better (including a great Yeats anecdote)

(17:20) Yeats vs. Frost cage match (loser must retire!)

(20:57) Don Rickles, Frankenstein’s Monster, a chocolate milkshake, Las Vegas, and love (complete with Johnny’s thoughts on Flannery O’Connor)

(26:44) Johnny’s hilarious “in truth” game, including the mystery of ”sowder” and cameos by Godzilla and Mothra

(32:17) the magic of nicknames and homespun mythologies

(38:13) Greg’s way of carrying on the Winkian tradition of zany fibs at SMU, including watermelon tales 

(43:45) Johnny Shakespeare

(49:47) it turns out Greg has only ever seen three movies: 
_Mystic River_ 
_Meshes of the Afternoon_ 
and _Teen Wolf_ 

(51:51) it turns out Greg’s religion forbids him to read prose of any kind for any reason, but thanks to Gunstream Girl, he is permitted to read an important road sign

(53:26) it turns out that _Strove for the Pie Crust_ is one of the finest three movies of our epoch

(55:47) Johnny’s trick for getting people to believe his craziest fibs

(01:00:32) the beauty of listening

(01:07:58) the story of how Johnny’s book _Seven Ways to Prune a Grapefruit_ came to be (and all about the surprisingly critical role that was played by The Great Gray Moles)

(01:12:10) the centrality of the role of words in creation stories

(01:15:16) living in reader mode vs. living in character mode

(01:18:33) fostering a joyful classroom

(01:21:21) slabbing

(01:25:04) guys who say “whom”

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative (https://508creative.com)

music by Beekeeper Spaceman

In this episode Greg invites you to join him in Pumpkin Bend, Arkansas, for Thanksgiving and some stories about a beloved Delta dish served this time of year: duck and dressing. Featuring Greg's good friends Rod and Dale.

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative: https://508creative.com

music by Beekeeper Spaceman and Eric Brownderville

In this episode Preston Hutcherson joins Greg to talk about the poetry of sports broadcasting and sports punditry.

(00:35) Preston regales Greg with a bizarre and hilarious piece of audio in which sportscaster Jim Nantz suddenly reinvents himself as a mortician.

(09:45) Greg and Preston parse the psychology of stardom and discuss Bono and Tom Brady.

(19:18) Strange trends emerge in sports punditry.

(19:59) Colin Cowherd sparks wonder and bewilderment with the phrase “Sunday bodies.”

(21:26) Preston asks Greg about the connection between weird sports talk and actual poetry.

(24:27) Which is actually more entertaining, the games themselves or the pundits’ commentary afterward?

(25:58) Why is sports talk starting to sound like Old English, Beowulf-style?

(28:50) Check out the story behind the phrase “like a weasel through cream.”

(32:35) Greg solves the mystery of “face fomus.”

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative: https://508creative.com

music by Beekeeper Spaceman

In this episode Greg answers his favorite questions from Episode 1:

“Greg, why do you like Yeats so much?” (:36)
“Greg, why are you obsessed with folklore?” (06:18)
“Greg, why are death and eating mythologically linked?” (24:47)
”Greg, have you been working on any new artistic projects, and if so, what are they?” (29:40)

Fire Bones: https://www.firebones.org

Maya Deren’s awesome book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/divine-horsemen-the-living-gods-of-haiti-revised-maya-deren/9421967?ean=9780914232636

Greg’s book Deep Down in the Delta: https://bookshop.org/p/books/deep-down-in-the-delta-folktales-and-poems-revised-greg-alan-brownderville/7016729?ean=9781935106333

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative: https://508creative.com

music by Beekeeper Spaceman

This special Halloween edition of GBD includes:

—two funny stories involving the word “casket"

—an explanation of the dumb supper

—American boxer Deontay Wilder on death and sweet potatoes

—an in-depth discussion of John Keats's “The Eve of St. Agnes”

—poetic form / the Spenserian stanza

—the tension between the imaginal life and the life of worldly engagement

—news about the Halloween issue of Southwest Review

A good audio performance of “The Eve of St. Agnes”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNMT_...

The poem itself:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

“Sailing to Byzantium,” by Yeats:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

Jack Stillinger on “The Eve of St. Agnes”:
https://www.amazon.com/hoodwinking-Ma...

Mónica Ojeda and Sarah Booker:
https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2022-10/the-national-book-award-interviews-monica-ojeda-sarah-booker/

logo design by Julie Savasky at 508 Creative: https://508creative.com

music by Beekeeper Spaceman