Weird Studies

"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 podcastchoices.com/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 podcastchoices.com/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 podcastchoices.com/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 podcastchoices.com/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 podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every off-week, listeners who have chosen to support Weird Studies by joining our Patreon at the Listener's Tier get to enjoy a bonus episode. These episodes are different from the flagship show. Less formal and entirely improvised, they offer Phil and JF a different way of exploring the weird in art, philosophy and culture. To tide our listenership over until the next new episode drops on January 24th, here is a recent example of a Weird Studies audio extra, recorded as the holiday season was getting under way. Happy New Year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The hosts explore the metaphysical implications of John Carpenter's 'The Thing', discussing its blend of body horror and psychological thriller. They delve into the misnomer of the movie's title, analyzing the concept of 'The Thing' as a process rather than a physical entity. They also discuss the film's journey from being a flop to becoming a cult classic. The chapter explores the concepts of identity and essence in relation to our perception of the world. It also highlights the mastery of spatial construction in Carpenter's film and delves into the concept of biological horror and body transformations. The hosts discuss a nightmare that eerily predicted the COVID-19 pandemic and explore the importance of essence and infinite possibility, concluding with a reflection on fan intolerance towards ambiguity in art.

Meredith Michael, a music scholar and co-host of Cosmophonia podcast, joins JF and Phil to discuss songs by Lili Boulanger, Vienna Teng, and Iron & Wine. The conversation covers topics like time, impermanence, control, (mis)recognition, and the affinity of art and synchronicity. They also explore the significance of Lili Boulanger's music, the illusion of robotic voices, and the concept of identity and liberation.

Delving into Plato's 'Timaeus', the hosts analyze its creation myth and its encompassing of metaphysics, biology, ethics, and politics. They explore the esoteric significance of the opening lines and discuss the fictional nature of Plato's dialogues. The podcast touches on the idea of discovering lost knowledge, the influence of 'Timaeus' on Christian theology, and the shift from mythical to geometrical understanding of the cosmos. It also examines the difference between esoteric and scientific thinking.

In this live episode, the hosts discuss David Cronenberg's 'Videodrome', exploring its plot, themes, and philosophies. They also delve into the influence of Toronto and City TV on the film, the enigmatic nature of 'Videodrome', and the symbolism in the main character's apartment. The chapter ends with a discussion on various themes and factions in the movie.