This Is Your Afterlife
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This Is Your Afterlife episodes

  • Grief and Death Want to Be Observed with Colleen of Death Doula Does

    Death workers have been rare guests on This Is Your Afterlife. Listeners know my interest in death is about how it helps us make meaning in our lives more than the death industry. On the flip side, reckoning with your own death and your grief over the deaths of others is a process for the living. Enter Colleen, a death doula who practices under the name Death Doula Does and the first TIYA guest to identify primarily as a death doula. They offer one-on-one sessions, notary services, craft-based grief care, and other end-of-life planning, and they connect their work to mutual aid in ways that set them apart from less community-focused death doulas. Colleen is a delightful conversationalist, and it was a pleasure to talk to them about their work as well as some of their own end-of-life plans. A very useful episode!

    We talk about: making art from death, disenfranchised grief, death doula MLMs, hanging out in the cemetery as a kid, The Last Waltz, sharing a vision of the afterlife with a live-action Scooby Doo movie, probate court.

    This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

    Follow Colleen:

    https://deathdouladoes.com/

    https://instagram.com/deathdouladoes/

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    Artwork by Matt Sage:

    https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

    1 hr 22 min
  • TIYA After Dark Preview — Horses Are Awesome with Bryan Duff

    This is a preview of this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife.

    Friend, TIYA listener, and comedian Bryan Duff creates short-form videos that are funnier & more informative than I've come to expect from social media. They're packed with so much information that I wanted to give him a chance to stretch out in a friendly environment where he can talk about whatever he wants. Turns out that's horses. Thus, we have Bryan Duff's first appearance on TIYA After Dark.

    A couple promises before you listen: 1) You WILL learn about horses in this episode, and there will be very sweet moments that warm your heart. 2) Bryan was thinking about all this because his dad's last horse died very recently, so this episode definitely goes into some sad areas along with the sweet and informative ones. I say that to be gentle with your heart, though I think Bryan's clear care for the horses in his life offsets the emotionally difficult moments here.

    We talk about: horses being friends with other animals, horse death and its common causes, foundering, wannabe Amish dad, glyphosate, sounding MAHA when talking about chemicals, Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia, Ulysses S. Grant, ranking animal poop smells, needing a purpose, refusing to plow, R.I.P. Charlie & Mark & Suntan & Little Fella.

    Follow Bryan:

    https://www.instagram.com/bryanevansduff/

    Prairie Rivers Network:

    https://prairierivers.org/

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    Artwork by Matt Sage:

    https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

    11 min
  • The Burden of Isolation with Pauly V of DIABETICGUY.ORG

    I can't say for sure what I expected to find at diabeticguy.org when I saw Pauly V's sticker outside a concert venue in Cleveland. I just knew it was a funny URL, and I was curious. What I found was best-case scenario: an artist with type 1 diabetes making zines and prints protesting the evils of capitalism and the U.S.A.'s corporate healthcare system. Basically, a fellow type 1 diabetic making DIY art with disability justice in mind. The moral of the story is visit URLs you see on stickers! And enjoy this conversation in which I intentionally steer Pauly into the weeds of diabetes prescription talk to give a glimpse into the healthcare horrors disabled people face regularly, especially in our country. Coupled with plenty of affirming art & nature & relationship talk!

    We talk about: defacing "we buy diabetic test strips" signs, type 1 diabetes minutiae, plant-based photo developers, DIY zine distribution, masking to mitigate COVID, connection to wilderness and the planet, being in a long-term relationship, individual responsibility amidst systemic oppression.

    This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

    Follow Pauly's work and whereabouts at, of course:

    https://diabeticguy.org/

    While you're there, subscribe to his email list!

    Finally, buy prints of his work and subscribe to his zine, KZOO FILM PHOTO, both of which help a ton as he is about to lose his health insurance:

    https://ko-fi.com/kzoofilm/shop

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    Artwork by Matt Sage:

    https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

    1 hr 25 min
  • Podcasting in Time: Voyage in Time + That One Scene From Atomic Blonde with Jake Serwin

    Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

    Welcome back to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky.

    This episoden focuses on 1983's Voyage in Time, which is unique in several respects. Most notably, it's a documentary, and it's a co-directed effort with Tonino Guerra, the writer of our last film, Nostalghia. Often summarized as a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Nostalghia, it's more of a look behind the location scouting, as observed by my guest, Jake Serwin. Regular This Is Your Afterlife & TIYA After Dark listeners will recognize Jake as the co-host of Pod Casty for Me with Ian Rhine, who I talked to about Andrei Rublev. Jake is also responsible for suggesting we cover the scene in Atomic Blonde where Charlize Theron kicks ass in a movie theater playing Stalker. It's a silly and fun episode in which I do my best to keep Jake from taking over as host. Only you can decide if I succeeded.

    Incredibly Incomplete List of Works Referenced

    Solaris (2002)

    High Life (2018)

    Jaws (1975)

    Alien (1979)

    Burden of Dreams (1982)

    Gap-Toothed Women (1987)

    Cameraperson (2016)

    Stray Dogs (2013)

    Bi Gan (director), esp. Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018)

    Jia Zhangke (director)

    Follow Pod Casty for Me:

    https://www.podcastyforme.com/

    https://www.patreon.com/c/PodCastyForMe/

    https://www.instagram.com/podcastyforme/

    https://twitter.com/podcastyforme

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    1 hr 52 min
  • Air Felt Different with Ned Milligan

    "Music Sounds Better with You" by Stardust is Ned Milligan's favorite French house song, and by the end of this conversation, we realize the title is basically Ned's ethos as a musician and the founder of Florabelle Records. He makes space for listeners to make meaning with him. That generosity extends to our conversation, and I think I tell him several times how nice it is to finally talk. We've been in touch as fans of each other's work for a few years now, and his new album, Real Fun, lives up to the title of "domestic music" he claims. There are field recordings of his son and late father, and the whole thing reckons with parenthood, loss, memory, friendship, and what it means to be present in a moment. Ned has been a part of so much music that brings me into the present. His immersive, finely detailed, ambient-for-lack-of-a-better-term soundscapes are far from Stardust in sound, but French house comes up as part of Ned's answer to my "good memory" question. He chooses a whole day that comes complete with photographic proof of his commitment to the music. I could spend a full day just talking to Ned, and I hope there's space for you here too.

    We talk about: losing his parents, when a sound becomes a composition, listening and not listening to field recordings, being no one to most people, integrity, teaching at a Quaker school, a very Millennial night of dancing.

    The photo of Ned FEELING IT at the concert: http://music.solidgoldberger.com/music/10-15-07/DSC00190.jpg

    This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

    Follow Ned and Florabelle:

    https://florabelle.bandcamp.com/

    https://florabellerecords.com/

    https://www.nedmilligan.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/ned.milligan/

    https://www.instagram.com/florabellerecords/

    Listen to and mailorder the two new albums Florabelle released, billy gomberg's capacity and Ned's own Real Fun:

    https://florabelle.bandcamp.com/album/real-fun

    https://florabelle.bandcamp.com/album/capacity

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    Artwork by Matt Sage:

    https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

    1 hr 46 min
  • Podcasting in Time: Nostalghia with Comrade Yui

    Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

    Welcome back to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky.

    This episode, we're covering 1983's Nostalghia, a film that presents some people's favorite final image in a Tarkovsky movie and answers the questions, "What if Mirror were more personal but in the present?" and "What if Andrei Tarkovsky made a fringe show?" This conversation gets more personal than the others in this series and touches on comedy and music as art forms, thanks to the thoughtfulness of my guest, Comrade Yui. Yui is a passionate, provocative writer and critic, and it was lovely to have them accompany me on this trip down Nostalghia lane.

    P.S. I forgot to give my own answer in the "Fire, Water, Mirror" segment, so here it is: Mirror.

    Follow Yui:

    https://letterboxd.com/comrade_yui/

    https://twitter.com/yui_antinomy

    https://www.patreon.com/comrade_yui

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    2 hr 48 min
  • TIYA After Dark Preview — Blackmetalpalooza with Jetski

    This is a preview of this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife.

    Longtime listeners know my musical explorations have led me to black metal in recent years, but this is the first bonus episode I've dedicated to the fascinating extreme metal subgenre. My guest is Ian Ostaszewski aka Jetski. I've been following Ian's own black metal deep dive on the Jetski Twitter, where he has been posting a new black metal album he loves seemingly every other day. This is just two music dorks dorkin' out about their current musical obsessions. Welcome to Blackmetalpalooza.

    We talk about: fun evil, going down musical rabbit holes, art about cruelty, corpse paint, Black Metal Rainbows, unsavory guys, found footage horror, which of the big five Incubus singles are black metal.

    For a list of the albums we reference in this episode, subscribe to TIYA After Dark and read the show notes on Patreon!

    Follow Jetski:

    https://twitter.com/jetskitosway2

    https://www.instagram.com/jetski0/

    https://jetski0.bandcamp.com/

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    Artwork by Matt Sage:

    https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

    13 min
  • Two More Minutes of "Purple Rain" with Hanif Abdurraqib

    This is an all-time great episode of This Is Your Afterlife, the entry point I'll give to TIYA newcomers going forward. Poet, essayist, cultural critic, Ohioan, and MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient Hanif Abdurraqib explores death, loss, grief, awe, and even heaven so deeply in his work that I had to rephrase the show's tentpole questions for this conversation. The result is a dream episode with a new metaphor for the afterlife I can't stop thinking about. Hanif has a way with images that keep you thinking.

    We talk about: birds, aboutness as myth, talking to Martin Scorsese about The Last Waltz, not wanting war criminals in your heaven neighborhood, what Frightened Rabbit's Scott Hutchison taught him about "sad songs," making a city yours, checking in with people about the condition of their heart.

    This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

    Follow Hanif:

    https://www.instagram.com/nifmuhammad/

    I'm Always Looking Up and You're Jumping comes out April 2027!

    https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/790234/im-always-looking-up-and-youre-jumping-by-hanif-abdurraqib/

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    Artwork by Matt Sage:

    https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

    1 hr 42 min
  • PATREON PREVIEW — TIYA After Dark: Mid-Life Crisis Tier List with Drennen Quinn

    This is a preview of this week's bonus episode. Subscribe to TIYA After Dark on Patreon to support This Is Your Afterlife & get all bonus episodes for $5 a month: patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife.

    I turned 42 last week, which is honestly the closest to middle age I've ever been. I decided to have fun with it and do some CONTENT CREATION by making a tier list with my buddy, TIYA After Dark regular Drennen Quinn. I created tiers based on the Afterlife Power Rankings, and we slotted in as many standard mid-life crises as we could, plus a few super specific ones. You can see the final list on Patreon, but good luck guessing what any of it means without listening to the episode!

    Final Tier List:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife/posts/tiya-after-dark-169078220

    Afterlife Power Rankings:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife/posts/afterlife-power-157398357

    Follow Drennen:

    https://www.instagram.com/drennenwon/

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    Artwork by Matt Sage:

    https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

    6 min
  • Utmost Worst with Tom Krell (How to Dress Well)

    "There is nothing theorizable or interesting about death," Tom Krell says 30 minutes into his appearance on my podcast about death. He's speaking precisely. By "death," he means what he's learned of it from watching those close to him die. The annihilation of self. The finality of it. What he's not doing is dismissing the topic. Tom earned his PhD in philosophy, metaphysics specifically, so it makes sense he's intentional and unsparing with his words. But he also makes this beautiful music.

    Under the name How to Dress Well, his art-damaged R&B soundtracked my bike rides the summer before my coma in 2014. Since then, his music has grown deeper and more promiscuous. He incorporates metal, noise, and field recordings on tracks with lyrics about the hegemony of realism and intergenerational trauma. But it's all wrapped around a spine of primal, haunting melody. In our conversation, Tom tells me how important it is for him to use direct language to discuss philosophical ideas. And that is what he's doing with his music. He piles layers of sound and meaning onto melodies to bury the ideas and feelings deep. I'm still listening.

    This episode also includes the fun of Tom claiming Hegel, Heidegger, and Marx are easy to grasp and the rare TIYA exclusive! Here it is: Tom plans to call the new How to Dress Well album "Glow Palimpsest No Hell."

    We talk about: working on philosophy in piecemeal while touring, writing about your own work, Gaspar Noe's Climax, exoteric vs. esoteric, his version of the "terribly stupid" movie Memento, consciousness as Hegelian "picture thinking," metaphysical cope.

    This Is Your Afterlife is made possible by listeners like you on Patreon. Support the show & get bonus episodes by subscribing to TIYA After Dark:

    https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

    Follow How to Dress Well:

    https://howtodresswell.substack.com/

    https://instagram.com/howtodresswell/

    https://twitter.com/HowToDressWell

    Listen to (and buy!) I Am Toward You. It's really very good:

    https://howtodresswellmusic.bandcamp.com/album/i-am-toward-you

    Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:

    https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/

    [email protected]

    Music by TIYA house band Lake Mary:

    https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

    https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

    Artwork by Matt Sage:

    https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/

    1 hr 24 min

About This Is Your Afterlife

From the publisher's feed

What do you hope happens when you die? If you could relive one memory, what would it be? What's your coma? Comedian and coma survivor Dave Maher ("This American Life") asks artists and organizers…