The Relentless Picnic

The Relentless Picnic episodes:

• 01.05.2024

  Introducing the Mad Men Project

  Coming soon to https://patreon.com/relentlesspicnic, starting on Wednesday, January 31st.

  
• 11.01.2023

  the past is unlocked. there is a future.

  We report on some changes we're making to our Patreon page, make public some formerly-locked-up bonus content, and speak about the future of The Relentless Picnic — which is real, and is coming. We've missed you, friends. patreon.com/relentlesspicnic

  
• 03.14.2022

  Cabin - Ep. 11: Finale

  "The eternity I detect in Nature I predicate of myself also. How many springs I have had this same experience! I am encouraged, for I recognize this steady persistency and recovery of Nature as a quality of myself." —Henry David Thoreau,...

  
• 01.23.2022

  Cabin - Ep. 10

  "In the streets and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean. But alone in the distant woods or fields, even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day, I come to myself, I...

  
• 01.18.2022

  Cabin - Ep. 9

  "It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such. It is the bog in our brain and bowels, the primitive vigor of Nature in us that inspires that dream. I shall never find...

  
• 12.31.2021

  Cabin - Ep. 8

  "So I agree with the anarcho-primitivists that the advent of civilization was a great disaster and that the Industrial Revolution was an even greater one. I further agree that a revolution against modernity, and against civilization in general, is necessary....

  
• 11.24.2021

  UPDATE: The Goods

  A brief update from Adam, Erikk, and Nick on three very important fronts. First, news on the upcoming conclusion to our CABIN series. Second, on relentlesspicnic.com/store Third, on the continued existence of patreon.com/relentlesspicnic, the live shows we've been doing for our Patreon supporters,...

  
• 12.29.2020

  Cabin - Ep. 7

  “‘Oh!’ say the technophiles, ‘Science is going to fix all that! We will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, make everybody healthy and happy!’ Yeah, sure. The technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving) in their understanding of social problems. Thus it...

  
• 10.30.2020

  Cabin - Ep. 6

  “It may be objected that primitive man is physically less secure than modern man, as is shown by his shorter life expectancy; hence modern man suffers from less, not more than the amount of insecurity that is normal for human...

  
• 10.14.2020

  Cabin - Ep. 5

  “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving...

  
• 09.30.2020

  Cabin - Ep. 4

  “One writer says that Brown's peculiar monomania made him to be ‘dreaded by the Missourians as a supernatural being.’ Sure enough, a hero in the midst of us cowards is always so dreaded. He is just that thing. He shows...

  
• 06.28.2020

  Cabin - Ep. 3

  “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. . . . Some, not...

  
• 06.10.2020

  Cabin - Ep. 2

  “I perceive that we partially die ourselves through sympathy at the death of each of our friends or near relatives. Each such experience is an assault on our vital force. It becomes a source of wonder that they who have...

  
• 05.30.2020

  Cabin - Ep. 1

  Cabin is the new season from The Relentless Picnic. It's one story told over multiple episodes. It's a story about solitude and isolation, community and loss, Henry David Thoreau and Ted Kaczynski—and it's told through audio recorded throughout 2019 and...

  
• 04.24.2020

  Cabin - Ep. 0: Prologue

  A preview of CABIN: the upcoming season from The Relentless Picnic.

  
• 04.12.2019

  Ep. 33 - Shallow Banquet

  Are we further apart? Are we being fooled? This is an episode about our phantom selves, how we're doing right now, and the feeling that something important has gone wrong. SOURCES: - "Ep. 27: The Wreckage," The Relentless Picnic (Feb. '18):...

  
• 01.27.2019

  Ep. 32 - Passage Potluck

  The world is a snakepit of competing takes and diverging minds. How is anybody supposed to live? In this episode, we play a game called Passage Potluck to straighten it all out. We assembled a packet of short excerpted texts,...

  
• 10.22.2018

  Ep. 31 - Just Citizens

  The confidence we’ve always had as a people isn’t simply some romantic dream, or a proverb in a dusty book we read just on the Fourth of July. In this episode we’re talking democracy and consumerism through those American specters...

  
• 08.06.2018

  Ep. 30 - The Mandala

  Let's talk about movies. How would you talk about a movie if it wants you to shut up? Climb aboard for a one-way trip down the river of striking images, dream-like sequences, and too many meaningful looks. From the ridiculous...

  
• 05.04.2018

  Ep. 29 - The Swarm

  This week it’s fourteen conversations about one thing. We do a little research on the symptoms of fascism and begin to feel like an expendable character in the first act of a horror film. Plus: TED talks are blindfolds at...

  
• 04.03.2018

  Ep. 28 - Ragnarok

  It’s time to talk about America. We’re looking at ways to deal with what’s coming, from that bug-out bag full of spare magazines, to terrifying self-sacrifice on South Carolina’s spiritual battlefield, to Hollywood’s last-ditch play for immortality with the forces...

  
• 02.15.2018

  Ep. 27 - The Wreckage

  How did this happen? What went wrong? We obsess over the brokenness and try to eyeball the true nature of intimacy: fading, faded, and yet-to-fade. ft. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jordan Catalano, Don Draper, the miserable modern self, someone you once...

  
• 01.17.2018

  Ep. 26 - This Is Marketplace

  Like I always say, if the markets are a-singin', you better know how to make 'em dance. Today on the program, it's a deep dive in the shallow pond that is NPR's Marketplace. We'll ask the question: are there Nazis...

  
• 12.18.2017

  Ep. 25 - Drench the Spark

  To die, to sleep — perchance to be judged no longer viable in society and sentenced to burn alive from within. Who is truly avenged by our cocktails of untested heartstoppers? Justices: why did we stop, then start, doing this...

  
• 11.22.2017

  PATREON: The Announcement

  There's a new channel for hot audio content from The Relentless Picnic. It's on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/relentlesspicnic Our episodes will still be released for free, and in the same way as always. But, as a Patron, you'll receive weekly "treats" from us,...

  
• 11.08.2017

  Ep. 24 - The Tightrope

  Inspired by an O.G. paragon of male toxicity — Odysseus — this week we confront the meaning of our obligations, the phenomenon of gaslighting, and a certain typified masculinity near-feral in its ineptitude and shimmering in its self-denial. All in...

  
• 10.10.2017

  Ep. 23 - Like This or Die

  The medium is our message. We sleuth out data points along the demographic trendlines, and follow them straight towards the beating, gray heart of TV―and beyond. How does it all end? We jump off the edge and file dispatches from...

  
• 09.19.2017

  Ep. 22 - Shanksville

  We hit the pavement to grapple directly with the National Park Service's Flight 93 National Memorial, and with 9/11. An album of photographs to aid your listening experience: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4zgYqd SOURCES: - Flight 93 National Memorial, NPS Brochure: http://bit.ly/2hbF1g7 - Timeline for United...

  
• 08.21.2017

  Ep. 21 - No World

  Lose yourself in the wild-eyed fearsome shadow of totality. Come see what hippies the Moon made of our steely-eyed missile men. Plus—Elon Musk trips over his own simulated shoelaces, and the Moon Matrix is fully decoded. Join us, but only...

  
• 08.02.2017

  Ep. 20 - Secret Teaching

  This week from our special plans department, Leo Strauss: a guide for the perplexed. Politics, both ancient and modern; the allure of elite cabals; a whiskey spill Rorschach test; polemics, hermeneutics, and sex in the stacks. Plus—Iraq, intelligence, independence, and...

  
• 07.15.2017

  Ep. 19 - Get In

  We're trying to get at the allure of permanent consequences, the moral underpinnings of hitchhiking, and the secret greenhouses of your text-based relationships. Whither goest thou, America? And can you get us there before bed, we have to be up...

  
• 06.28.2017

  Ep. 18 - Happy Nation

  Chaos reigns! The Relentless Picnic emerges victorious after the heinous destruction of our National Caverns! Justly! Jurassic Park, )))Ace of Base(((, Future Trump Scandals, Groundhog Day, and yet more dredging at the limit of human intelligence.

  
• 06.03.2017

  Ep. 17 - The Cave

  Like the man said: We're chained to the earth like a silent slave; trying to break free out of death's dark cave. Bones in South Africa, hoarding in New York City, and finally, a dispatch from our friend Matt Tice...

  
• 05.31.2017

  CATJERKER: The Offer

  We want you to hear our rollicking satire of venture capitalists, which involves lots of loose talk about cat masturbation. Here's how to hear it: 1) Leave us a rating/review on iTunes. Be real with us. We can take it. 2) Screengrab...

  
• 05.19.2017

  Ep. 16 - Word Alert

  Our three-man justice team takes on red ball after red ball: our books, our selves, and our bookshelves; words in the wild; words on screens; mysteries & heresies. Plus—blah blah blah Robert Frost!

  
• 05.05.2017

  Ep. 15 - His Favorite Child

  Can computers learn & are Redditors ever right? We do some psychologizing of the modern American cornered by the paranormal. Plus. Are you there, Dad? It's me, Science! Thanks to the bold redditors who shared their stories: u/Parrot-Tamer, u/desk_jockey26, u/[deleted], u/brennnnz,...

  
• 04.25.2017

  Ep. 14 - Stanley Picnic Presents: Money

  This week, we try and wrap our heads around money via several parables and case studies. We inquire after the history of the gold standard in America, the implications of certain prison economies, and the predicament of the penny. Plus—who'd...

  
• 04.19.2017

  Ep. 13 - Your Blunder Today

  Getting' head during laser tag this week. The film Silence, state violence; great 90's dance pop, old-timey newsmen; planes and doctors, & incipient global war—plainly doctored. Plus: guess who's coming to Seder? - "Capitalism Is Violence" (4/12/17), by Matt Bruenig...

  
• 03.29.2017

  Ep. 12 - It's Not Nothing

  Let's move past the gollys and gee-whizzes from nominee Neil Gorsuch with some newly obtained recordings. Plus: we take confused tween investigator Devin Nunes to task for his tricky tick-tock; & why members of a certain angry caucus aren't enjoying...

  
• 03.16.2017

  Ep. 11 - Hurting the Right People

  We sit down with Frank Luntz, a man on a mission to civilize. His newest book is called "The Lonely Win: Longing for Death in a Buyer's Market." Plus—why America should just surrender and accept the permanent financial aristocracy. Op. Cit. -...

  
• 03.06.2017

  Ep. 10 - Jeff Sessions Confessions

  Despite wafting our fans we still get the vapours during Jeff Sessions's recusal announcement. Plus: we plunge the dipstick into thinkovator Jeff Jarvis & Blort seeks someone to take them post-business. "Here's a blueprint for radical innovation in journalism education," Jeff...

  
• 03.01.2017

  Ep. 9 - Shakespeare-Sized Hole

  Art as the material excrement produced when you self-transcend, selling your self in a buyer's market, 10,001 strategies for leveraging your friendship with a reclusive poet. - “The Culture of Celebrity,” Joseph Epstein (Oct. 2005): http://tws.io/2l86EaU - “Jean Cocteau,...

  
• 02.18.2017

  Ep. 8 - Fight Song

  A free-form, Saul-into-Paul hour-long lightning round. With a white-knuckle tour of Mark Zuckerberg's babyteaching, shirtshooting, A.I.-in-the-home. Plus: a deep scan of Paul Ryan's cowardice and a meditation on the Court's Snuggie addict supreme, Sam Alito.

  
• 02.08.2017

  Ep. 7 - Stanley Picnic Presents: Citizen Kane

  We take a freedive into American culture's most unlikely and prophetic artefact. No supplemental oxygen allowed. First in a series.

  
• 01.30.2017

  Ep. 6 - White Men Against Trump

  Her♂es gather to hammer out the discourse-swords and talk about their feelings. Remember to order meatballs at Papa John's to contact your congressperson. Cover image: Lavinia Schulz robot costume for the Walter Holdt production of Skírnismál, photographed by Minya Diez-Dührkoop.

  
• 01.24.2017

  Ep. 5 - A Titillating Pathological Night

  The definitive moral posture re: punching Nazis. Plus, we examine fact-chefs Conway and Spicer, expose their snake hearts and x-ray their snake hearts to see whose snake heart beats with greater fidelity to the party anthem. - "What happens when...

  
• 01.11.2017

  Ep. 4 - Alexa Lives on Aristotle

  We send three virtual humans to the Consumer Electronics Show to sample the gadgets of the destructor class. - "To save books, librarians create fake 'reader' to check out titles" (Dec. '16): http://bit.ly/2iB2Dtr

  
• 12.31.2016

  Ep. 3 - The Id Queen

  Battling the swarm of political messaging, a quick zip into the abyss with Vladislav Surkov, and bets are placed on the shape of the new American fascism. - "Without Sky" by "Natan Dubovitsky" (trans. Bill Bowler): http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue582/without_sky.html

  
• 12.19.2016

  Ep. 2 - Left-Wing Backlash & the Ivory Russian

  Are we rooting for a plutocratic coup d'etat? Plus— the futility of generation labels, Game of Thrones as the deadest political metaphor, and the flagrant violation of US Fish and Wildlife regulations inside Aaron Sorkin's pants.

  
• 12.18.2016

  Ep. 1 - The Slaughterhouse of Shallow Contentment

  Today on Radiolab: Should knowledge be taxed, and is poverty good for you? A team of neuro-economists weigh in. - "Podcast Out" by David A. Banks: http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/podcast-out/