Philosophy vs. Improv

It’s a TEAM PLAY episode just in time for the holiday season! Returning guests improviser and podcaster Sarah and recovering Philosophy Bro Tommy join Mark and Bill to talk AND EXPERIENCE friendship, with our longest single improv scene to date. What is friendship? Is it gendered? Do you know your friends enough to imitate them? Does one friendship or fast-casual restaurant have to die so that another may emerge? Can Bill even get to the end of the call? Watch this on unedited video: The image of four friends hanging out was swiped off Facebook. Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings.

Mike hosts the Hitchhikers and Appetizers podcast, and we recorded this episode a bit before Halloween, before the election and the consequent mass exodus, as a sort of memo to the future, i.e. you. We blister our way through many topics including discovery, hospital dramas, time travel sex, self-experimentation, ancient aliens, sharkNATO, Flintstone furniture, the first Wisconsin Thanksgiving, Subway nation-states, and more. Why did an Internet search of childhood drawings of protoplasm yield this result? You decide! Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings. Watch this episode unedited on video.

Lorraine teaches at Middlebury college and has recently written The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It. How does “the interesting” fit into human flourishing? How do we know when some attractive stimulation is really in our interest and really good? Can we find something interesting even the most tedious, repetitive tasks? Is it interesting to start an improv scene by declaring that your scene-mates are dealing with alcoholism and divorce? Certainly it is rude. Also, Happiness 12 Step Programs. Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings. You can choose to watch this on unedited video.

Welcome to the beginning of a new round of shenanigans on Philosophy vs. Improv. Let the senior slump begin! Your hosts Mark Linsenmayer and Bill Arnett here talk a blazin’ stream of consciousness and then have a pretty long improv scene. Are we already always philosophizing? Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! Check out other Evergreen Podcast offerings. Watch the proceedings unedited on YouTube.

Chicago’s iO Theater was graced on August 21 by Mark, Bill, and special guest theater educator James Whittington, who spoke about embodiment (see Maurice Merleau-Ponty), the possible disconnect between meaning and tone, and being in the physical presence of greatness. They acted out scenes (while still sitting!) about an unsuccessful party and Experiences-R-Us. Both audience members eventually chime in with their contributions, though their mic was apparently not working for the purposes of the recording, so extreme measures were required to communicate their thoughts to you. Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! Sponsor: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy at betterhelp.com/improv. You may choose to watch the proceedings live on stage.

Our long lost episode. Consider it a mystery box. Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content. You can choose to watch this on YouTube.

Important announcement for Chicago-area listeners: On Wed. 8/21, Mark and Bill will record a live episode of PvI at iO Theater (1501 N Kingsbury St.). Our show runs from 6-7 pm followed by a Bill-hosted regular improv event called The Green Room. Admission is free, parking is plentiful, no reservations required. Come meet us! Internationally best-selling author David wrote a book (and made a film) called How We Got Here, which traces the gradual path in the history of ideas from the ancients through various forms of perspectivism, relativism, and post-modernism to the post-truth discourse that authoritarians and wanna-be authoritarians engage in. Sponsor: Try online therapy at betterhelp.com/improv and get 10% off your first month. David’s book is in a very terse style, in line with his overall career emphasis on brevity, so we talk about this choice and how it means in most cases not actually explaining any of the ideas involved much less arguing for his interpretation of them. Instead, a series of quotations and short explanations prompt readers to see the lines of influence themselves. This is not a dismissal of post-modernism due to its deleterious consequences, as he sees the current liberal absolutist reaction (there IS objective truth and morality and Trump and his ilk are ignoring) as foolishly antiquated. We read some passages and discuss some of the many figures that come up, including Allan Bloom, Levi-Strauss, Vladislav Surkov, plus the various philosophers like Nietzsche that inspired David’s aphoristic style. We don’t actually get into evaluating the idea that truth is relative (or subjective, or unknowable such that for practical purposes we can treat it as relative), though this has been covered a number of times in past Partially Examined Life episodes, and we’re currently recording a two-episode run on Richard Rorty, who gives among the more comprehensible defenses of this counter-intuitive thesis. Through some brief improv scenes that David was possibly unaware were happening, Mark and Bill explore whether the denial of the objectivity of truth would be a good campaign strategy, and also what life David’s concise book might leave now that it has separated from his mind and source materials and become autonomous. The image is from Pinterest. It’s a shield. You’ll have to trace yourself the historical evolution between our guest David Shields and actual shields and images of shields drawn by children. Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content. You can choose to watch this on YouTube.

Danny was in a sketch troupe called Maximum Party Zone back in the day with your improv host Bill, and they’ve now revived that trio to create the MPZ Listening Party podcast, which workshops sketch ideas in real time as a fun form of conversation. So we try out some of their tricks, such as combining two properties (in this case nominally The Apprentice and Argyle to create a pretentious reality show) and brainstorming about serial killer branding and palliative quantum leaping. Plus, intent vs. impact, your legacy, auditioning for a mystery reality show, fake Roman names, you would be just as bad as Biden at debating, and infinitely more. Sponsor: Try online therapy at betterhelp.com/improv. What did the artist who drew this picture intend to draw, and what does he think pointing at it is supposed to indicate? YOU DECIDE! Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content. You can choose to watch this unedited on YouTube.

Tamler Sommers, a philosophy professor at The University of Houston and host of Very Bad Wizards, dives into intriguing discussions about personal identity and the essence of the self. He explores whether identity is tied to the body and reflects on meditation's role in self-awareness. The light-hearted conversation merges philosophy with improv, tackling metaphysics, dreams, and the intertwining of characters in performance. With a humorous take on concepts like time travel and legacy, Tamler challenges listeners to rethink their perceptions of self and reality.

The actor/writer/comedian joins us to talk about the philosophy of fashion, from the ancients to the present: Is clothing a mode of self-expression or something more (or less)? What does retro fashion say about the current state of culture? Should you wear clothes that you have to be sewn into? If you only had one little piece of cloth to wear, where would you put it? Are philosophers anti-fashion, and is that sexist? What color wedding dress is best for an arranged marriage? Are improv scenes like tissues? Follow Sheri at @SheriFlanders and @sheriflanders. For a more elaborate treatment of this topic, see Partially Examined Life #245. The image here is swiped from this Pinterest page. Hear more PvI. Support the podcast! You’ll get all of our post-game discussions and other exclusive bonus content. You can choose to watch the proceedings unedited on video: