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 53 - How to Tell the Future

    July 2nd, 2011  |  38 mins 6 secs

    It's possible to tell the future. It's actually pretty easy. You have to know about human nature, and you have to know about fashion. You have to know that human nature doesn't change, and you have to know that fashion changes all the time. It changes right to left, then left to right, then back again. Then the same, again. And again. "My Ever Changing Moods" (Style Council). You, too, can be a fortune teller. Here's how.

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    Area 51 - William Inge

    June 18th, 2011  |  34 mins 58 secs

    William Inge (1913-1973) wrote plays of restrained optimism concerning broken families in small Kansas towns of the 1920's and 30's. He understood about the importance of sex in everyday life—even in Protestant Middle-Western America during the Great Depression. He also understood about the Church and its disappointing failure to help people when the bottom fell out of their lives.

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    Episode 50- Human Nature

    June 11th, 2011  |  33 mins 6 secs

    It just may be the worst thing about America today: our view of human nature. If you listen to almost any—I mean, any—commentator, speechmaker, pundit, or spokesperson, of literally any and every organization, institution, medium, or government office, you are going to hear about taking charge, and imposing control—of everything and everybody.

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    Episode 49 - "Unknown and yet well known"

    June 8th, 2011  |  43 mins 22 secs

    Another one of those unknown authors. But he has so much to tell us, first about sex and then about Christianity. About the former, he puts first things first. About the latter, he puts Jesus on the "Enola Gay." Would that Philip Wylie were here today, to put Jesus on a predator drone, or one one of those Navy Seal Helicopters which flew into Pakistan recently.

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    Episode 48 - The Disappearance

    May 29th, 2011  |  54 mins 12 secs

    Philip Wylie was a prophet in the war between the sexes. His 1951 novel "The Disappearance," in which, through an unexplained 'cosmic blink,' all the women disappear form the world of the men and all the men disappear from the world of the women, is so noble and so disturbing, so wrenching and so uplifting, so wise and so uncommonly religious, that is becomes required reading for everyone who is a man everyone who is a woman.

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    Episode 45 - Duncan Burne-Wilke

    May 7th, 2011  |  26 mins 32 secs

    Herman Wouk's 1985 novel "War and Remembrance" has a most prophetic minor character buried within its 1300 pages. This character is a philosophical and definitely sweet English aristocrat named Duncan Burne-Wilke, whom we meet in the "CBI" or "China Burma India" theater of the Second World War.

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    Episode 44- The Razor's Edge

    April 30th, 2011  |  31 mins 8 secs

    This is my favorite book. It's also Bill Murray's. It is called "The Razor's Edge" and was written by Somerset Maugham. It was published in 1944. It tells the story of some well-to-do Americans from Lake Forest, who all find what they're looking for in life. One of them, "Larry Darrell," loses his life only to save it. He is the hero, and I think he could be yours.
    P.S. Who's "Ruysbroek?"

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    Episode 43 - "The Green Pastures"

    April 17th, 2011  |  34 mins 8 secs

    "The Green Pastures" is a 1930 American play, and 1936 Hollywood movie, that was once as famous as "Our Town." Now, for reasons of political correctness, it is rarely seen and seldom taught. Even the DVD has to carry a "Warning" label. (Good grief!) How dearly we have robbed ourselves of a pearl of truly great price.

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    Episode 42 - Bishop Bell - The Play

    April 7th, 2011  |  35 mins 2 secs

    Bishop Bell appears as a main character in Rolf Hochhuth's 1967 play entitled "Soldiers." Bell confronts Churchill on the morality of murder from the air, especially when it involves the murder of civilians. Such a confrontation never actually took place, but the Bishop and the Prime Minister had the thoughts and stated them. The PM detested Bell.

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    Episode 41 - Bishop Bell - The Speech

    March 27th, 2011  |  33 mins 44 secs

    George K. A. Bell (1883-1958) was the Bishop of Chichester during World War II. He addressed the House of Lords on February 9, 1944, questioning the Government on the use of "carpet bombing" of German cities. Bishop Bell regarded this kind of bombing, which was intended to destroy German morale and bring the war to an end, as a war crime.

  • Episode 40 - "No Popery"

    March 19th, 2011  |  36 mins

    Religious partisanship is normal, explicable, and terminal. It kills Christianity. It sure killed me. Or maybe it wised me up.

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    Episode 39 - The Phoenix Club

    March 13th, 2011  |  48 mins 20 secs

    Life in a Final Club! "The Social Network" has made it high profile all of the sudden. What is was, was fun, delightful, blessedly un-serious in a way serious world, with a taste of Evelyn Waugh. We loved it. Why was the story never told? That's a story.

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    Episode 37- The Yardbirds

    February 27th, 2011  |  33 mins 20 secs

    This is an impression of The Yardbirds, the first avant-garde band we ever knew. With Eric Clapton to start, then Jeff Beck, then Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, then Jimmy page only, their music, especially the guitar breaks, lived on the edge of INSANITY.

  • Episode 33 - "Mr." Priest

    February 13th, 2011  |  31 mins 54 secs

    This podcast is about professional titles: the more reduced in circumstances an institution, the more high-flown its titles. Did you know that until about 1970, Episcopal clergy were always called "Mr."?

  • Episode 32 - Protestant Interiors II

    February 8th, 2011  |  33 mins 16 secs

    Here's a little gazetteer of Episcopal Protestant interiors. They're nice. Delaware's is in the middle of nowhere, and Boston's finest is Unitarian. George Washington sat beneath a central pulpit in Alexandria and "Low Country" farmers did the same. And don't forget the Motor City: I mean, Duanesburg, New York. But always remember this—even if you are actually able to visit these places, no one will ever believe you when you get back home. They simply CAN'T exist!

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    Episode 31 - Protestant Interiors

    February 6th, 2011  |  36 mins 36 secs

    This one is about Protestant aesthetics as expressed in architecture and design. It is "a tale told by an idiot," however, for no one ever believes you. Only Henny Penny says the Episcopal Church was once Protestant and "Low" — right up to the Disco Era. Memory being what it is, this is the tale of a forgotten 200 years.