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 93 - Falsification

    February 3rd, 2012  |  30 mins 50 secs

    "Falsification" is another word for compartmentalization. When we falsify reality—as in "being untrue," either to a person or to convictions that we (otherwise) hold sincerely—we get, well, what we deserve.

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    Episode 92 - G-d

    February 1st, 2012  |  20 mins 6 secs

    "Kuh-hay-tchuh-pek." It means "God," or rather G-d, in Martian. You can find out all about "Kuh-hay-tchuh-pek" in the now Criterioned 1964 movie "Robinson Crusoe on Mars."

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    Episode 91 - Sequels

    January 27th, 2012  |  31 mins 40 secs

    Sequels are strange: sometimes they're better than the original, most of the time they're worse. What makes a good sequel?

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    Episode 88 - Tana and Tahrir

    January 20th, 2012  |  33 mins 16 secs

    I don't believe in "reality," or rather, I believe what looks like reality is seldom reality. This can be easily proved by a quick viewing of..."The Mummy Ghost" (1944). One look at that wonderful movie is able to confer an accurate understanding of reality.

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    Episode 87 - Bette Davis Eyes

    January 19th, 2012  |  31 mins 18 secs

    They are all, like Ray Milland, "The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" — these Huguenot heroes: Marot, Duplessis-Mornay, de Beze, de Coligny, de Rohan, d'Aubigne. That includes their English co-religionists, such as Whitgift and Abbott and Grindal.

  • Episode 86 - Supermarionation II

    January 11th, 2012  |  27 mins 44 secs

    This podcast tries to go a little deeper with Supermationation. It is really about social class, and the kind of alliance that inevitably imperils a religion whose goal is emancipating the human race. We start with "It Happened One Night," then chart our way north, to an old surprising hymn.

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    Episode 85 - Protestant Episcopalians in Supermarionation

    January 10th, 2012  |  37 mins 24 secs

    Can the mind of man and woman conceive that the subject of Episcopal haberdashery in the moves might be interesting and meaningful? Well, yes, it might be, at least to me.

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    Episode 84 - Yvette Vickers (f. 4.27.11)

    January 9th, 2012  |  33 mins 12 secs

    Yvette Vickers played supporting roles in two unforgettable 1950's science-fiction movies: "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches." As far as I'm concerned, she stole the show both times. But, Yvetter Vickers is now dead. Or rather, she was found dead, on the 27th of April last year (2011).

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    Episode 82 - Speaking in Tongues

    December 28th, 2011  |  33 mins 6 secs

    This is a theme with me—the pros and cons (there aren't many cons) of learning foreign languages. Also, how does it actually work? Why is one language easier for a given person to learn than another? Also, what's the relation between learning a language to read, and learning a language to speak?

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    Episode 81 - Violette amoureuse

    December 27th, 2011  |  25 mins 24 secs

    From our house to your house, at the Turning of the Year: a portrait of the dignity that is able to inhere within romantic love—sometimes. The subject is a short scene, a musical number really, in a late Jacques Demy, "Une Chambre en Ville" (1982).

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    Episode 79 - Would you speak up, please?

    December 16th, 2011  |  35 mins 26 secs

    Why am I "afraid to say that I really want to say" (Jack Kerouac)? That's a line from "Visions of Gerard," and many could echo it. This podcast is about changing mores, specifically the contrast between a sensational murder case of the 1930s and a sensational case of recent times.

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    Episode 78 - Under Satan's Sun

    December 11th, 2011  |  29 mins 56 secs

    This is PZ's Christmas Podcast.

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    Episode 77 - Canned Heat

    December 3rd, 2011  |  29 mins 26 secs

    What constitutes you, as a human being? What are the parts which make you the whole you are? A single sentence from Huxley's "After many a summer dies the swan" can help, together with Fritz Lang's "Woman in the Moon."

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    Episode 76 - Lounge Crooner Classics

    November 26th, 2011  |  30 mins 10 secs

    I'm shooting for quality today. In the spirit of earlier podcasts concerning Giant Crab Movies and Journey, this podcast concerns what might today be called "Lounge Crooner Classics." In their day, they were pop songs commissioned to be played over the credits of movies and then sold as singles.

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    Episode 74 - "Please Come to Boston"

    November 22nd, 2011  |  30 mins 40 secs

    Saw a lot of things, found out a lot of things, remembered a lot of things, heard a couple of new things. It was a definite pilgrimage. I would like to tell you about it.

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    Episode 73 - When I'm 64

    November 3rd, 2011  |  28 mins 8 secs

    Can the "young" be instructed by the "old"? Can Nigel Kneale's "Planet People" be even saved by the over 70s? To put this another way, are there two messages to life: one of the first half and another for the second? Ultimately, no. There is one message. Alack! It comes through suffering. Pump up the volume.