Weird Studies

Delve into the intertwined narratives of forgery and fraud in art and film, from Howard Hughes to Orson Welles. Explore the blurred boundaries of truth and fiction, aging, self-awareness, and shedding societal expectations. Discover the enchantment of ancient artworks and the interplay between deception and truth in art.

The ongoing crackdown on protests at many American universities prompts a discussion on the politics, ethics, and metaphysics of free expression. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic George Orwell, The Prevention of Literature George Orwell, Inside the Whale New York Times, “At Indiana University, Protests Only Add to a Full Year of Conflicts John Stuart Mill, On Liberty Indiana Daily Student, “Provost Addresses Controversy” Official government page for the Proposed Bill to address Online Harms in Canada. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy Daryl Davis, American musician and activist DavidFoster Wallace, Just Asking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dive into the post-apocalyptic world of George Miller's 'Mad Max' films, exploring themes of civilization, humanity, and chaos. Delve into the unique portrayal of the wasteland, the evolution of characters, and the fluidity of gender and society. Discover insights into comedy, societal themes, and the artistic uniqueness that sets these films apart.

In this engaging discussion, Amy Hale, an anthropologist and folklorist with a passion for Cornwall's rich history, dives deep into the life of Ithell Colquhoun—an influential surrealist with a mystical perspective. They explore how Colquhoun's move from London's art scene to Cornwall intertwined her creative expression with Celtic mysticism. Hale reveals the transformative power of automatism in art, personal narratives in academia, and the role of magic in our daily lives. A fascinating blend of history, spirituality, and art awaits!

Exploring the nuances of pretentiousness in creativity, distinguishing between fruitful and hollow forms. Embracing imagination as an active contributor to reality. Delving into the mystical nature of art criticism and the transformative power of pretending. Criticizing the use of 'pretentious' to dismiss challenging art forms and discussing cultural influences on creativity.

"Let the red dawn surmise / What we shall do, / When the blue starlight dies / And all is through." This short poem, an epigraph to "The Yellow Sign," arguably the most memorable tale in Robert W. Chambers' 1895 collection The King in Yellow, encapsulates in four brief lines the affect that drives cosmic horror: the fearful sense of imminent annihilation. In the four stories JF and Phil discuss in this episode, this affect, which would inspire a thousand works of fiction in the twentieth century, emerges fully formed, dripping with the xanthous milk of Decadence. What’s more, it is here given a symbol, a face, and a home in the Yellow Sign, the Pallid Mask of the Yellow King, and the lost land of Carcosa. Come one, come all. Join JF's upcoming course on the films of Stanley Kubrick, starting March 28, 2024. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow Weird Studies, Episode 100 on John Carpenter films Algernon Blackwood, “The Man Who Found Out” Susannah Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, Thought Forms Weird Studies, Episode 140 on “Spirited Away” Vladimir Nabokov, Think, Write, Speak Charles Taylor, A Secular Age David Bentley Hart, “Angelic Monster” M. R. James, Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to you my Lad” William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is expressionism? A school? A movement? A philosophy? At the end of this episode, Phil and JF agree that it is, above all, a sensibility, one that surfaces periodically in history, punctuating it with occasional bursts of frenetic colour and eruptions of light and shadow. Whenever it appears, expressionism challenges our tendency to divide the world up into neat quadrants: mind and matter, subject and object lose their legitimacy as they start to bleed into one another. Prior to recording, your hosts agreed to focus on two pieces of writing: Victoria Nelson's The Secret Life of Puppets and a recent Internet post on eighties and nineties American films entitled "Neo-Expressionism: The Forgotten Studio Style." Though focused on a number of films, the conversation includes forays into the world of the visual arts, literature, and music. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES comrade_yui, “neo-expressionism: the forgotten studio style” Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets Francis Ford Coppola, Bram Stoker’s Dracula Weird Studies, Episode 161 on ‘From Hell’ Bram Stoker, Dracula E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art Jean-Francois Millet, “Gleaners” Kathe Kollwitz, “Need” Robert Weine, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Arnold Schoneberg, Pierrot Lunaire Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1 Peter Yates (dir.), Krull Wilhelm Worringer, German art historian Weird Studies, Episode 136 on ‘The Evil Dead’ In Camera The Naive Visual Effects of Dracula Kenneth Gross, Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life Weird Studies, Episode 121 ‘Mandwagon’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Devil's finest ruse," Baudelaire wrote, "is to persuade you that he doesn't exist." In this episode, JF and Phil peer through a buzzing haze of lies, illusions, and mirages, in hopes of catching a glimpse, however brief, of the figure standing at its center. With a focus on the fifteenth major arcanum of the tarot, they try to make sense of this archetype which feels, at once, remotely distant and uncomfortably close to us, all while heeding the warning from the anonymous author of Meditations on the Tarot that one ought not look too deeply into the nature of evil, which is "unknowable in its essence." Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot The Gnostic Tarot Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Faust, Part 1 Ramsey Dukes, SSOTBME Edgar Allan Poe, The Imp of the Perverse Aleister Crowley, Magic, Book 4 Leigh McCloskey, Tarot Re-Visioned Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth The Library of Esoterica, Tarot Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this second of two episodes on "scenes," Phil and JF set their sights on Greenwich Village in the wake of the Second World War. Focusing on two works on the era – Anatole Broyard's Kafka Was the Rage and John Cassavetes' Shadows – the conversation further develops the mystique of urban scenes and explores the weirdness of cities. The city, long considered the human artifact par excellence, comes to seem like something that comes from outside the ambit of humanity. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Anatole Broyard, Kafka Was the Rage John Cassavetes, Shadows Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World Phil Ford, Dig Weird Studies, Episode 90 on “Owl in Daylight” Kult, role-playing game Tom Delong and Peter Lavenda, Secret Machines: Gods, Men, and War Chandler Brossard, Who Walk in Darkness Yukio Mishima, Japanese artist Anatole Broyard, “Portrait of the Hipster” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listener discretion advised: This episode delves into the disturbing details of the Whitechapel murders of 1888, and may not be suitable for all audiences. Serialized from 1989 to 1996, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel From Hell was first released in a single volume in 1999, just as the world was groaning into the present century. This is an important detail, because according to the creators of this astounding work, the age then passing away could not be understood without reference to the gruesome murders, never solved, of five women in London's Whitechapel district, in the fall of 1888. In Alan Moore's occult imagination, the Ripper murders were more than another instance of human depravity: they constituted a magical operation intended to alter the course of history. The nature of this operation, and whether or not it was successful, is the focus of this episode, in which JF and Phil also explore the imaginal actuality of Victorian London and the strange nature of history and time. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Daniel Silver, Terry Nichols Clark, and Clemente Jesus Navarro Yanez, “Scenes: Social Context in an Age of Contingency” Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, From Hell Floating World, Edo Japanese concept Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture John Clellon Holmes recordings Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes Collection Yacht Rock, web series Stephen Knight, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution Colin Wilson, Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor Weird Studies, Episode 89 on “Mumbo Jumbo” Charles Howard Hinton, mathematician J. G. Ballard, Preface to Crash William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices