We return in episode 12 with some unsexy office roleplay to set the stage for an analysis of the white collar workplace, ranging from its mid-century beginnings, its computerized transformation during the new millenium, and to the present day open concept hellscape. Our discussion takes us from Protestant work ethic to ergonomic furniture, office sirens to Dilbert, with a mandatory Navel Gaze detour about a semi-obscure French film.

Mix by Gabe including sounds by:

Skykicking by Insides

A Poem in Braille by dom mino’

Good Sleep by I Am Robot and Proud

Butterfly Jam by Purelink

Pendulum Man by Bark Psychosis

ASMR - Mad Men Office - Soundscape to work/study by Perfect Atmospheres

00:00:37 gazer webinar breakout room

00:09:50 history of the cubicle, mid century modern design, and the Protestant work ethic

00:38:00 playtime, mad men

00:57:17 calling dilbert's manhood into question

01:10:54 severance as a weberian jack off

01:19:15 we taxonomize women in the workplace (office girlies and sirens)

01:42:57 studs’ outro/re: your gazer application

If a star falls in the sky and nobody is around to be moved by it, how bright is its light? This episode, we come to you with the question of miracles.

Using a theological and not so theological framework, the first inquiry is the purpose of miracles. Then, 17776 and Syzygy, Beauty align for some intra-pod meaning-making. Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire offers us an access point to the unified field, and from there on out we bond over woo-woo and shells.

Keep your friends close, gazers, so you may share with them the magic of the unnoticed miracles.

Mix by Gabe with sounds from:

Wings of Desire OST

A.C. Marias, Our Dust

Jenny Hval, American Coffee

Sun's Signature, Golden Air (CUTS Remix)

0:29 Meditating on olives, geriatric podcasting, and shooting stars

17:38 Biblical, Quranic, and Reddit atheist miracles + yoni steaming

42:06 Scissoring, syzygy and sports

1:08:04 Outro: Wings of Desire and David Lynch

In episode 10, we finally reach the end of our heterosexuality suite, climaxing with the contemporary moment. We whet our critical palette with the bland offerings of Red White & Royal Blue, talk child-rearing under patriarchy, and theorize that the 'situationship' signifies parallel deterioration of heterosexual and hagplatonic relations alike. We finish with a discussion of what the hell a futurism even is.

0:29 Intro

16:13 Red, White, & Royal Boooo

35:25 Let’s make a baby?

1:08:33 Heteropessimism makes hags of us all

1:34:13 Queer fut(ch)urism

1:57:56 Outro and Media Recommendations

Recorded in October 2024. Resource list for the full suite available here.

This episode's bumpers include:

The Trembling of Glass by Rachika Nayar

Plainsong by Seefeel

New Grass by Talk Talk

Dessert by Rei Harakami

Cupid De Locke by The Smashing Pumpkins

The Moment I Said It by Imogen Heap

What even is sodomy and why does it get people's panties in such a twist? Was Rosie the Riveter a fed? If a tradwife drinks raw milk and nobody is around to film it for TikTok, is she even a girlboss?

The answers to all these questions might share more DNA than we thought, enough to warrant a paternity test.

Resources will be available in this doc, which will be updated as we expand this suite of episodes.

This episode's bumpers are a marital mix of the following tracks:

A Change of Sex by David Motion and Sally Potter

The Kiss by David Motion and Sally Potter

Bedroom by Mica Levi

Just Like You by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Infinite End by Maxime Denuc

Ouverture by Maxime Denuc

Timestamps

00:58 zoom divorce court introduction

14:07 the curious case of Mr. Sodom

41:15 transvestigating cisness

59:16 state-sanctioned butchification (or not)

1:31:05 parasocial polycules and outro

Pride month may be drawing to a close, but we’re just getting started. Strap in for a suite of episodes dedicated to dismantling the conjoined constructs broadly known as “gender” and “sexuality”.

To kick it off, we present you with episode 8 of the Navel Gaze, in which we have a straight-shootin' discussion about the regime of heterosexuality, its coercive constructs, and the ways we cope.

Resources will be available in this doc, which will be updated as we expand this suite of episodes.

Timestamps

0:00 an introductory explication of the 2011 hit "Born This Way"

11:25 heterosexuality as a regime

35:37 heteropessimism, homosociality, & other copium

1:03:00 what is it about Canadians? A case study of sublimation

1:11:58 gendah realizashuns

We return at last from a hiatus with episode 7, our first long-distance episode. Tune in to hear us tackle the nuances of loneliness: platonic and romantic, suburban and feral, incel and spinster, podcaster and listener.

This episode’s bumpers feature a homemade mix of the following samples:

S1E14 SpongeBob Squarepants

All I Remember by Brian Eno

Fire and Light by Actress

Night Crawling by John Cale

Waiting for the Big One by Junior Varsity Kim

Sweat, Tears or the Sea by Laurel Halo

Timestamps

0:00 introduction and tales of personal loneliness

9:30 are we actually lonelier than we’ve ever been?

20:04 parsing states of loneliness

26:59 federally mandated chapstick application break

28:33 spinsters and incels

42:56 ecological loneliness

50:24 passive aggressively doing everyone’s dishes and “ugly” community

1:11:29 avoiding pod drop w Timon of Athens

Resources

Galanaki, E. (2004). Are children able to distinguish among the concepts of aloneness, loneliness, and solitude? International Journal of Behavioral Development, 28(5), 435-443. https://doi.org/10.1080/01650250444000153

Seeber, B.K. (2020). Loneliness and the Affective Imperative of the Marriage Plot in Jane Austen’s Emma. Studies in the Novel 52(3), 233-245. https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.2020.0042.

Karin Dahlberg (2007) The enigmatic phenomenon of loneliness, International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 2:4, 195-207, DOI: 10.1080/17482620701626117

Nilsson, B., Lindström, U.Å. and Nåden, D. (2006), Is loneliness a psychological dysfunction? A literary study of the phenomenon of loneliness. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 20: 93-101. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6712.2006.00386.x

Goldfarb, B. (2023). Crossings: how road ecology is shaping the future of our planet. First edition. New York, W.W. Norton and Company.

"The Extinction of the Kauai ʻōʻō". Island Conservation. August 3, 2018.

Geographies of Solitude (2022) dir. Jacquelyn Mills

CENTRALIA, PA - America's Burning Ghost Town https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj5LjacccJ0

Centralia: Pennsylvania's Lost Town https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrUeiCHnRuc

In episode 6, we unpack the gravity of endings, featuring a discussion that takes us from Walter Benjamin and Queen Latifah to bucket lists and Russian formalism. We hope you enjoy the final episode of 2023, and we can't wait to see you in the new year!

Timestamps

00:30 intro and some personal endings

11:20 how did we end up here? a necessary prelude

23:55 it was just a dream, and other disapppointing finales

44:50 stories, stories about stories, and stories about storytellers

1:13:10 and everybody clapped: a case study of self-narrativization

1:43:45 outro and well wishes

Resources

Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods. http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_inblackwaterwoods.html

Last Holiday (2006) dir. Wayne Wang.

Bell, Stuart (2016) "Don't Stop": Re-Thinking the Function of Endings in Narrative Television. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7282/

“All Just A Dream.” https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllJustADream

Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending.

Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller. https://arl.human.cornell.edu/linked%20docs/Walter%20Benjamin%20Storyteller.pdf

Wallace Stevens, Angel Surrounded by Paysans. https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2017/08/09/angel-surrounded-by-paysans/

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44400/spring-and-fall

Amazing Grace (2018) dir. Alan Elliott.

What do the men of the vague East, ambiguously homosexual bad boys, and the sparkling redhead in your Biology class all have in common? They’re threats to American masculinity. Oh, and they want to suck your blood. In our media-rich fifth episode, the pod bites into the immortal myth of the vampire. Listener, beware...!

Timestamps:

0:25 introduction, appetizer, and blood-sucking tidbits

14:33 whetting our palate with the myth’s orientalist origins

32:50 do vampires take pre-workout? and other questions for the eighties

55:00 post-Twilight, undead daughters of the confederacy, and a return to fetishistic form

1:37:11 outro, ft. contenders for the next hot monster

Resources:

This episode’s interludes borrow from the Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) soundtrack, composed by Josef van Wissem and Sqürl.

Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu, 1872

Russian Fairy Tales by W.R.S. Ralston, 1887

Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897

Nosferatu dir. by F.W. Murnau, 1929

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, 1976

Lost Boys dir. by Joel Schumacher, 1987

Near Dark dir. by Kathryn Bigelow, 1987

From Dusk Til Dawn dir. by Robert Rodriquez, 1996

Blade dir. by Stephen Norrington, 1998

Queen of the Damned dir. by Michael Ryder, 2002

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, 2005

My Immortal by XXXbloodyrists666XXX, 2006

True Blood, 2008

The Vampire Diaries, 2009

Only Lovers Left Alive, 2013

Gloves: An Intimate History by Anne Green, 2021

Why Are There So Many Confederate Vampires? By Princess Weekes, 2023

If three people is a crowd, then what is 8.7 million species? According to ecosexuals—an orgy for the ages. In our fourth episode, the pod gets dirty while digging for a reason to live, laugh, and love. Some artifacts of note include the earth itself, a clock with no hands, alien dildos, and Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake. Best listened to while laying on a sun-warmed rock.

This episode’s interludes are field recordings gathered by Molly and Atticus, and they feature a stranger in the prairie.

Resources:

Special thanks to Leslie Thornton, Trevor Bashaw, and Madelynn Kurtz.

“The Ecopoetics of Contact: Touching, Cruising, Gleaning” by Sarah Ensor

“Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin” by Donna Haraway. https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/6/1/159/8110/Anthropocene-Capitalocene-Plantationocene

Sheep Machine by Vi Khi Nao

“Ecosexuality: The story of our love with the Earth” excerpted from Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth as Lover by Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens with Jennie Klein. https://en.ecopoiesis.ru/aktualnoe/news_post/sprinkle-annie-and-stephens-beth-ecosexuality-the-story-of-our-love-with-the-eart

Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead

Timestamps:

0:23 introduction and ecological anecdotes

14:47 unearthing the root of ecosexiness, among other things

45:33 it’s alive! and it’s everywhere?

59:54 getting touchy feely at the nude beach

1:24:08 outro

1:39:59 secret track

In episode 3, we discuss the phenomenon of "the BPD girlie," perform cheeky armchair psychoanalysis of cultural icons like Livia Soprano and Amy Dunne, and enter the amniotic world of Robert Altman's stunning 1977 film, "3 Women." We hope you enjoy...if you don't, we're deleting the whole thing. But you will enjoy it because you love us, right?

Timestamps

0:50 intro

4:17 our crazy confessional

11:52 an anthropological justification for our navel gazing

26:12 is chicness a criteria in the DSM-V?

34:24 in which we commit the cardinal sin of categorizing women

49:18 three examples you should or should not emulate

1:23:48 bitches of note

1:32:50 outro

Sources

American Psychiatric Association. Practice guideline for the treatment of patients with borderline personality disorder. Am J Psychiatry. 2001;158(10 Suppl):1-52.

Christensen, A. (3920). “Catastrophically Romantic”: Radical Inversions of Gilbert and Gubar’s Monstrous Angel in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. American, British and Canadian Studies, 35(1) 86-110. https://doi.org/10.2478/abcsj-2020-0018

Gilbert, S.M., Gilbert, S.M., & Federico, A.R. (2011). Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic after Thirty Years. (1 ed.). Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

Langill, Molly. “‘Mad Women’ in Robert Altman’s 3 Women and Images.” Offscreen. 2014;18(8). https://offscreen.com/view/mad-women-robert-altman

Santiago Cortés, Michelle. “Girl Internet.” https://dirt.fyi/article/2023/07/girl-internet. 20 July 2023.

This episode’s interludes borrow from the Mommie Dearest soundtrack suite composed by Henry Mancini.