PZ's Podcast

About the show

From "Telstar" to "Vault of Horror," from Rattigan to Kerouac, from the Village of Bray to the Village of Midwich, help PZ link old ancient news and pop culture. I think I can see him, "Crawling from the Wreckage." Will he find his way? This show is brought to you by Mockingbird! www.mbird.com

PZ's Podcast on social media

Episodes

  • Episode 207 - Is Paris Burning? (1966)

    November 15th, 2015  |  25 mins 36 secs

    Here are a few thoughts concerning the atrocity attacks in Paris. I talk about Islam (and "Islamophobia"), Syrian migration into Europe, Original Sin and "low" vs. "high" anthropology, reaction-formations among young men when drones are over their heads and they have no control, let alone "buy-in"; and finally, a threatening experience Mary and I had on Times Square recently. Call this PZ's perspective on a current (big) event.

  •

    Episode 205 - Unforeseen

    November 9th, 2015  |  20 mins 46 secs

    It's not an abstraction! It's more than something just to talk about or consider. It could happen to you. In fact, it probably will. I'm talking about unforeseen death.

  •

    Episode 206 - The Rich Man and Lazarus

    November 9th, 2015  |  20 mins 49 secs

    I keep getting requests for a sort of "early morning Bible study" -- giving the 'treatment', you might say, to a New Testament text that stings, and also helps. So that's what I'll do for a few episodes, beginning with this one.

  •

    Episode 203 - Pope Francis and the Historical Jesus

    October 1st, 2015  |  21 mins

    The music is "Good Vibrations" at the start, by The Beach Boys; and "I Knew Jesus (Before He Was a Super Star)", at the end, by Glen Campbell.

  •

    Episode 204 - Honest to God

    October 1st, 2015  |  22 mins 2 secs

    Pop songs about love are like a corkscrew for understanding the Bible. Songs like "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Don't Pull Your Love Out on Me, Baby," together with a zillion co-belligerants that are written and performed "In the Name of Love" (Thompson Twins), reveal the nature of love and loss, undoings and exaltings, and painful stasis and buoyed forward movement.

  •

    Episode 202: Pope Francis

    September 28th, 2015  |  21 mins 35 secs

    Did you cry at any point as you watched Pope Francis in action during his visit? If you did, when was it? What made you cry?

  •

    Episode 201: The Real Thing

    September 16th, 2015  |  24 mins 33 secs

    Is there anything to it? Is vertical religion -- not just calls to social justice, not just implied belief (system) -- but actual vertical religion rooted in anything resembling fact?

  •

    Episode 200: Catatonia

    August 12th, 2015  |  22 mins 43 secs

    This is not the Who's Final Tour. (They always come back.) So maybe it is the Who's Final Tour. Whatever it is, it's Podcast 200, and that's a benchmark. Somehow.

  •

    Episode 199: What Actually Happens

    August 8th, 2015  |  22 mins 26 secs

    If you don't factor in the element of romantic love -- or at least its possibility -- you'll surprise yourself when you start making decisions in life. Sometimes I wish I could give a college commencement address. (No one is ever going to ask.) But I should like to talk about romantic love, and its over-riding, over-reaching, superseding strength as an element -- the decisive element -- in personal decision-making.

  •

    Episode 198: Mirage Fighter

    August 8th, 2015  |  23 mins 11 secs

    Talk about being misunderstood! Artur London was one of the 11 most misunderstood men in the world,
    at least at the end of 1951. London was a defendant in the Slansky Trial, a "show trial" under Joseph Stalin.

  •

    Episode 197: The Sacraments Rightly Understood

    August 8th, 2015  |  21 mins 3 secs

    The church is today so vastly over-eucharisted that you can barely pause to catch your breath. This cast offers an alternative view of the Holy Communion, as well as of Baptism. The original Prayer Book definition of a sacrament was that it is 'an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace'. What a refined and powerful expression. So now Let Smokey Sing (ABC) and find...The Face Behind the Mask (1941). This cast is dedicated to Nancy W. Hanna.

  •

    Episode 196: Cimarron

    July 31st, 2015  |  25 mins 4 secs

    "The movie Cimarron, which was released in 1931, won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year. (Did you know this?) It's great blessing, Cimarron -- which was based on the novel Cimarron, written by Edna Ferber. But you'd never know it's a blessing if you relied on the critics.

  •

    Episode 195: Shag (The Movie)

    July 28th, 2015  |  20 mins 56 secs

    Shag The Movie (1989) is a great little entertainment! It captures perfectly, and with high humor and enormous love and heart, the Beach Music phenomenon of the 1960s. Today, however, it touches a current issue -- right from the opening credits.

  •

    Episode 194: Left Hand Path

    July 24th, 2015  |  19 mins 45 secs

    I think I'm supposed to understand why right-wing people are intolerant. But it's harder for me to understand why left-wing people are intolerant. Guess I thought they were supposed to be about freedom and diversity. Come to find out, they're not. So I had to go back to a source that's almost been "blacklisted" itself. It's the movie My Son John (1952), starring Helen Hayes and Robert Wagner.

  •

    Episode 193: Cross Dressing

    July 21st, 2015  |  22 mins 40 secs

    The Gallant Hours (1959) is one heuristic movie. Not only does it teach the Church a thing or two about how to honor faithful service, but it depicts an entirely ideal instance of how to dress properly if you're a minister -- or, Heav'n forfend, a "priest."

  •

    Episode 192: How to Save the Church (But Our Lips Are Sealed)

    July 20th, 2015  |  23 mins 40 secs

    The Church I have known all my life is in free fall numerically. I'm talking about Sunday attendance in everyday parishes.