We Defy Augury

Thoughts (loosely) based on John Wyndham's post apocalyptic sci-fi novel The Day of the Triffids.

Featuring an Auditory Apocalypse Quiz.

Special Guests: Skeeter Davis, Vic and his telepathic dog, Tool, Kent Brockman, The Presidents of the United States of America . . . plus a host of others  (which cannot be revealed because-- duh-- there's a quiz).

Thoughts (loosely) based on Rob Russell's book "The Adventures of JoJo the Small Town Hound: Volume 1, Leesburg, Virginia and the Curious Case of the Dog Money."

Special Guests: Rob Russell, Method Man, and George Costanza.

Thoughts (loosely) based on Nelson DeMille's Cold War spy novel The Charm School; Dean R. Koontz's 90s tech thriller Dark Rivers of the Heart; Jonathan Blitzer's stellar book on the border situation-- Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis-- and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's horror novel Mexican Gothic.

Special Guests: Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, Dave Chapelle, John Cougar, Phil Connors, Bob Dylan, The Scorpions, Kansas, Sting, Long Duk Dong, General Ripper, General Turgidson, President Merkin Muffley, John Mulaney, Donald Trump, Marco Guttierez, Ivan Drago, and Tommy DeVito.

What an excellent day for an earworm exorcism. 

An obsessive, comprehensive, and digressive deep dive into how these insidious auditory creatures worm their way into our brains, wrap around our cerebral cortex, and make us susceptible to suggestions of the catchiest kind. 

A montage-- a veritable shitload-- of the sounds that capture our consciousness (and the theory and philosophy of how and why they do this).

But be warned: your brain might not survive unscathed . . . this many earworms have NEVER been assembled in one place before.

Special Guests: Too many to count.

Three fantastic podcast episodes inspired this project.

"The Case of the Missing Hit" (Reply All)

"Whomst Amongst Us Let the Dogs out" (99% Invisible)

"Louie Louie: The Strange Journey of the Dirtiest Song Never Written" (Lost Notes)

Thoughts (loosely) based on Kate Christensen's novel Welcome Home, Stranger, the first two installments of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, and Hamlet.

Special Guests: Billy Joel, Ween, David Tennant, Kenneth Branagh, Greta Thunberg, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Brother Maynard, William Shatner, Woody Allen, Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Queen, and The Prodigy.

Thoughts (loosely) based on Tony Horowitz's meta-mystery novel Magpie Murders.

Special Guests: The Smile, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Tom Hanks, and Meg Ryan.

Thoughts (loosely) based on William Zinsser's classic primer On Writing Well (and the current AI writing revolution).

Special Guests: George Carlin, Spirograph, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Simple Minds, El Guapo, Hefe, and Donald Trump.

Thoughts (loosely) based on Professor Truck's experiences teaching high school English in the age of artificial intelligence-- and his attempts at defining ethical AI usage in academic and creative settings . . . with bonus thoughts (loosely) based on three classic science-fiction novels: Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human and The Dreaming Jewels and They Walked Like Men by Clifford D. Simak.

Special Guests: Gary Gasparov, Jimmy Kimmel, The Beach Boys, Alan Turing, The Matrix, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, ChatGPT, Bard AI, and Mark "Imprint" Zuckerberg.

Thoughts (loosely) based on James P. Carse's rather annoying book Finite and Infinite Games and Nathan Hill's excellent novel Wellness.

Special Guests: Gandalf, Morpheus, George Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld, Simon Sinek, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Thoughts (loosely, very loosely) based on the William Stafford poem "Traveling Through the Dark."

Special guests: 38 Special, Ox, and a random middle school student from Boyhood.

This episode now includes a special bonus update at the end.