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

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Episodes

  • Episode 108 - J.C. Ryle Considered

    May 25th, 2012  |  27 mins 56 secs

    Bishop Ryle made a least three big mistakes during his long ministry. If he were able to speak now—he died in 1900—I believe he would admit them. To me they are revealing mistakes, from which there is something to learn.

  • Episode 107 - Bishop Ryle

    May 25th, 2012  |  35 mins 15 secs

    John Charles Ryle, who lived from 1816 to 1900, was "a giant of a man with the heart of a child." He was a Christian warrior in the Church of England, who contended against High Churchmen and Liberals for 60 years, including his ministry as the first Bishop of Liverpool. J.C. Ryle is a fascinating character, a hero-type with some interesting weaknesses.

  • Episode 106 - Requiem

    May 21st, 2012  |  27 mins 24 secs

    Alternate Title: I Feel Like I Lose When I Win.

  • Episode 104 - What does it take (to win your love)?

    May 16th, 2012  |  29 mins 8 secs

    A meditation on defense: that's what this is. Someone wrote that the inner being of a human being is "covered by thirty or forty skins or hides, like an ox's or a bear's, so thick and hard." Too true!

  • Episode 103 - Flowers for Algernon I

    April 24th, 2012  |  35 mins 59 secs

    How does the ego actually die? Or rather, what does a person look like when their ego died, or is dying?

  • Episode 102 - Flowers for Algernon I

    April 24th, 2012  |  38 mins 6 secs

    Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) knew a lot. In reaction to his Sandemanian childhood, he still remained a religious person, all his life.

  • Episode 100 - Eternity

    April 14th, 2012  |  35 mins 22 secs

    What dies when we die, and what continues to live? What should we fear in relation to physical death, and what can we affirm? Philip Larkin gives a little assist here, but so does St. Francis.

  • Episode 101 - I feel like I win when I lose

    April 12th, 2012  |  35 mins 55 secs

    Between "Waterloo" and "Lay All Your Love on Me," I don't see how you could achieve a purer pop moment. Or just a purer moment period!

  • Previously Unreleased: Heinz

    April 10th, 2012  |  30 mins 30 secs

    Heinz Burt, known as Heinz," the Wild Boy of Pop, was, you could say, Joe Meek's muse. Meek did everything possible to make his "Heinz" into a star. Although Meek failed to do that, he produced a large body of fabulous music around his Golden Child.

  • Previously Unreleased: Joe Meek

    March 23rd, 2012  |  48 mins 49 secs

    "The Nazareth Principle" (Simeon Zahl) and Joe Meek: they're synonymous. Joe Meek was an improbable genius, who Hear(d) a New World. His wondrous work, achieved under conditions so unusual as to make the mind boggle, is a pure example of Christ's being labelled by the question, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

  • Episode 99 9/10 - Twisterella

    March 16th, 2012  |  32 mins 22 secs

    When reality comes crashing in to call, you've got to be prepared for a re-think. It's what happens to 'Billy Liar,' in another dazzling English rose, the movie "Billy Liar" from 1963.

  • Episode 99 5/8 - A Kind of Loving

    March 13th, 2012  |  27 mins 20 secs

    This podcast is about categorization — the pitfalls of categorization. With people, with friends (and prospective friends), with husbands and wives (and prospective husbands and wives), with everybody. It's also about possession — pitfalls of possession. Especially with people you love.

  • Episode 99 - A Night at the Bardo

    March 10th, 2012  |  29 mins

    Harpo's Night at the Bardo — but not Harpo's, actually. It was mine. It was PZ's Night at the Bardo.

  • Episode 98 - Reflections in a Golden Eye

    March 10th, 2012  |  32 mins 56 secs

    If you want to find out what true north is in your life—in other words, where you are really going—notice what books you are drawn to. Or what movies you really like. Or what music you're putting on your iPod these days. Or what television show you can't miss this week. Those things function as a truth north for your life's actual direction.

  • Episode 97 - Surprise (Symphony)

    February 13th, 2012  |  24 mins 4 secs

    "Oops! I did it again!": it just came over me. Despite a break, a real break, very soon to come, Lola compelled one to speak. I mean, "Lola," the 1961 movie by Jacques Demy.

  • Episode 96 - Strack-Billerbeck

    February 11th, 2012  |  24 mins 12 secs

    "Disputed passage" (Lloyd C. Douglas) is what this podcast is not. There are any number of issues to talk about, yet so many are so particular, and rally around themselves all kinds of differing opinions.