Zero Books: Advancing Conversations

Chris Kelso is a Bizzaro fiction writer and he’s the guest this week on the Zero Books podcast. In this episode you’ll hear why Chris is thinking about quitting writing, how Bizarro fiction was mostly just an escapist fantasy Chris used to compensate for his failing love life, and why it is that, in general, writing fiction is a fools errand.

Here's a description of Chris Kelso’s upcoming novel Unger House Radicals:

When aspiring and nihilistic film-maker Vincent Bittacker falls in love with mercurial serial-killer Brandon Swarthy they decide to embark upon a bloody journey to re-define cinema and create their own sub-culture - Ultra-Realism.

In this episode you’ll hear clips from Monty Python, some homegrown vaporwave, a bit of Fry and Laurie, a short clip from Portlandia, a clip from Macintosh Plus again. I can’t get enough Vaporwave.

Margaret Kimberley discusses black anger and BLM on this week's episode. A regular columnist for the Black Agenda Report, Margaret Kimberley is also a regular guest on the podcast. We discuss broken window policing Michael Eric Dyson, white racism, police brutality, and the politics and the anti-politics of Black Lives Matter.

Next month’s book releases from Zero Books includes Daniel Coffeen’s Reading the Way of Things. If you’re a long time listener to my podcasts then you’re probably familiar with Daniel Coffeen and his Deleuzian guide to reading the world is available in paperback and as an e-book. I also want to announce that our membership site is about halfway to completion and that Coffeen has volunteered to be one of the first authors to lead our upcoming Zero Books’ philosophy workshops.

This episode includes clips from Glenn Loury’s bloggingheads.tv show wherein the author John McWhorter describes the need for a list of white victims who were killed under similar circumstances to Philando Castile or Eric Garner. McWhorter finds his list. There is also a clip from Heather MacDonald discussing her book “The War on the Cops," a clip of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, and some music from the Vaporwave artist Macintosh Plus. If you’re a fan of Vaporwave (or want to learn more about it) you might pick up Graton Tanner’s book Babbling Corpse which was published in June.

Joanna Demers is associate professor of musicology at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where she specializes in post-1945 popular and art music. Her book with Zero Books Drone and Apocalypse was published on December 11th in 2015 and this week her public lecture at the Redondo Beach Central Library is a part of Summer Reading series in public libraries. Zero Books is combatting this idea that summer reading is for escapism and diversion by reaching out to libraries to promote the idea of public reading and public thinking.

Mike Watson is an art theorist and curator based in Italy. He writes regularly for Frieze, Art Review and Radical Philosophy and his book Towards a Conceptual Militancy is currently out from Zero Books.This week we discuss his book, Marcel Duchamp, and the idea of freedom in a world of objects.

Zero Books will be rolling out a membership site this month. Members will get access to members only podcasts, online workshops with our authors, and audiobooks. To find out more follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or check out Zero Books blog at zero-books.net.

In this episode you’ll hear clips from a Situationist documentary called Call it Sleep, an interview with Marcel Duchamp, Pharrell Williams interviewing Jeff Koons, an excerpt from the BBC’s television movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Negativland.

Andrew Kliman, author of Reclaiming Marx’s Capital and The Failure of Capitalist Production returns this week to discuss the Brexit and the rise of the far right.

What might be unique about this discussion is that we start out by agreeing that, one way or another, the Brexit vote needs to be tied in to the economic crisis of 2007 and the Eurozone crisis that followed.

The big announcement this week is that a Zero Books membership site is in development. Our new line of interview books “Advancing Conversations” will be made available as audiobooks, we will offer workshops on critical theory, politics, and economics through the site, and we also introduce a member’s only podcast.

If you’re a fan of Zero Books please consider signing up for our monthly newsletter at the Zero Books website and find out about upcoming titles like Daniel Coffeen’s Reading the Way of Things, Jeff Bursey’s Centring the Margins and Eliot Fintushel’s Zen City. If you are a regular listener to the podcast I’d encourage you to follow us on Facebook and to consider leaving a review of the show on iTunes.

The music in this episode includes an instrumental version of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven as performed by the Vitamin String Quartet as well as sound clips from Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. You’ll also hear a short excerpt from Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd. The music you’re listening to right now is the Django Rock Band covering Pink Floyd’s In the Flesh but in just in a moment you’ll be listening to Andrew Kliman and I discuss Brexit and the danger of a Left/Right Convergence.

Nadim Bakhshov is the guest this week as we continue a conversation about Islam that we started in episode forty-nine entitled Against Capitalist Education. Nadim is the author of a book from Zero with that same title, he is an apostate of a sort, and he was very patient as he discussed the fractured nature of the Muslim faith. This is a conversation that attempts to put the mass shooting in Orlando into a partial context, one that specifically tries to take on the question of Radical Islam from a left perspective, and I want to encourage listeners to respond either with comments on the blog or on Facebook or Twitter.

In this episode you’ll hear a clip describing the philosophy of Emile Durkheim, a clip from the BBC about Nadim’s student who joined ISIS despite Nadim’s best efforts to guide him away from the worst interpretations of the Koran and Islam, as well as some music from the Bezmara Ensemble.

Zero Books publisher Douglas Lain was a guest on the American conservative radio program "The Brett Winterble Show" wherein he spoke

briefly about Zero's new line of books Advancing

Conversations, Aubrey de Grey's ideas on life extension, and Karl Marx.

Winterble made sure that Lain didn't believe in UFO conspiracies and Doug assured Brett that he did believe that the moon landing was real.

The Brett Winterble show is a four hour talk program broadcast five days a week in San Diego, California.

Zero Books publisher Douglas Lain was a guest on the American conservative radio program "The Brett Winterble Show" wherein he spoke briefly about Zero's new line of books Advancing Conversations, Aubrey de Grey's ideas on life extension, and Karl Marx.

Winterble made sure that Lain didn't believe in UFO conspiracies and Doug assured Brett that he did believe that the moon landing was real.

The Brett Winterble show is a four hour talk program broadcast five days a week in San Diego, California.

This week’s podcast is a recording of Mike Watson’s talk with Mark McGowan (AKA the Artist Taxi Driver) at the Open School East. Mike Watson is an art theorist and curator based in Italy and he writes regularly for Frieze, Art Review and Radical Philosophy. His book, Towards a Conceptual Militancy, is currently out from Zero Books.

Zero Books will be rolling out a membership site towards the end of this month. Members will get access to members only podcasts, online workshops with our authors, and audiobooks. To find out more follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or check out Zero Books blog at zero-books.net.

Also, Zero Books authors will be reading in libraries this summer in an effort to promote summer reading as a time for thinking as well as thrillers, celebrity gossip, and beaches. And if you enjoy Zero Books you might recommend us to your local librarian. Let your library know about us, our website, our monthly newsletter announcing new titles, and urge them to include our books in their collection.

The music in this episode includes what the Swingles performing Bach’s Fugue n.5 in D Major as well as Crosley Bendix at Jamcon ’84.

A recording of the Zero Books panel “Overcoming Capitalism” from this year’s Left Forum replaces the usual interview this week. The panel participants were Terry Tapp author of "A Serf's Journal," the radical journalist Anne Jaclard, Andrew Kliman author of The Failure of Capitalist Production, Pete Dolack author of It's Not Over and Douglas Lain publisher of Zero Books

There are a few announcements to make here at the start, some exciting developments. Zero Books’ own Mike Watson will be launching his book “Towards a Conceptual Militancy” this weekend. Mike will be in conversation with two contemporary art. Tomorrow, the 10th of June, at 1pm he’ll be talking to the video artist Fiamma Montezemolo at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, located on The Mall in the heart of central London. Then, on Sunday, he’ll be talking with Mark McGowan (AKA the Artist Taxi Driver) at the Open School East from 5pm to 630. The second event is free and you’ll be able to find links to both events in the show notes for this episode.

Also, Zero Books will be rolling out a membership site towards the end of this month. All the details are still be working out, but I can say that a Zero Books membership will get you access to members only podcasts, online workshops with our authors, and audiobooks. To find out more about what is happening at Zero Books you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or check out Zero Books blog at zero-books.net.

Finally, Zero Books authors will be reading in libraries this summer in an effort to promote both summer reading as a time for thinking as well as thrillers, celebrity gossip, and beaches.

If you enjoy Zero Squared please leave a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else fine podcasts are distributed. If you enjoy Zero Books you might recommend us to your local librarian. Let your library know about us, our website, our monthly newsletter announcing new titles, and urge them to include our books in their collection.

The music in this episode is the Bran Flakes’ Countdown to The End (Choo Choo Mix).