Zero Squared

The guest this week is the columnist Margaret Kimberley. Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears on the Black Agenda Report and this week we discuss a column she wrote entitled "The Snowden Litmus Test." It's Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast. The Kickstarter project to fund a book and podcast tour in September has five days remaining and is 81% funded. There are currently 69 backers and this week I want to thank Jennifer L, Aquila H, Kurt O, Cathy K, James G, Anna W, Christopher V, Henry W, Mark D, Brandy H, Matt L, Tony Y, Tom G, and Richard B. If you like the Diet Soap Podcast pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it. In related news there is a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post a link to the chapter five in this week's show notes. Here's an excerpt from Kimberley's column: Edward Snowden has been called a traitor, a narcissist, a loser and a danger to national security. Reporters have questioned whether he was friendly enough to his neighbors or why he made a good salary despite having just a GED. He has even been criticized for leaving the military after he broke his legs. His whereabouts are unknown because the federal government is preparing to file charges against him. Such extravagant and bizarre levels of vitriol can mean only one thing. When politicians and rich pundits all join together to deliver a very public beat down, the victim of the beating is probably someone who did the people a great service.

This month's Pop the Left features a conversation about C Derick Varn's feelings and thoughts on and against what he calls political Marxism. The conversation wanders in a process that is a bit like free association, and then again nothing like it. You'll hear clips from my daughter's favorite author John Green on the question of the Renaissance, clips from Philip K Dick and Big Time TV on the Black Iron Prison, and a discussion of the repetition compulsion and psychoanalysis. I want to thank listeners who have supported my Kickstarter campaign for the Think the Impossible tour. As most of you know, I'm Douglas Lain and I'm the co-host of Pop the Left and the host of a podcast called Diet Soap. I'm also a novelist and my book for MacMillan called Billy Moon tells the story of Christopher Robin Milne's entirely fictional involvement with the student/worker strikes of May 1968. When I go on the Think the Impossible Tour I will take both my novel and my podcast to San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. In the last week there were seven backers and I want to thank: Chris L, Shauna R, Tom W, Charlotte K, Claire M, Damian K, and the cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker. If you like Pop the Left backing Think the Impossible is a great way to show it.

The guest this week is Andy Marshall. Andy Marshall is a self described "philosophy kid" and a frequent contributor to Diet Soap. He is my co-host on the biweekly Diet Soap conversations on Talkshoe, the Diet Soap archivist (he's been the one putting old episodes back onto the Podomatic page), and this is part two of a longer conversation wherein we discuss Robert Anton Wilson, Nietzsche, and, of course, Hegel. At the end of this episode you'll hear Andy reading from a philosophical email essay he wrote for this episode, and I'll link to the entirety of that essay in the show notes. It's Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast. You may have noticed that my Kickstarter project to fund a book and podcast tour in September is underway. The project is two weeks in, and halfway to the goal. At present there are 48 backers of the project and I want to thank Daniel S, Joshua W, Brad P, Joanne M, Sarah S, Nikki G, Jason S, Phil, Pedar L, and Rob M. I want to take the time to especially thank Brad B because not only did Brad pledge to the tour, he scheduled the space for the Think the Impossible event in Chicago. I'm pleased to say that we'll be thinking impossibly in the Book Cellar with the candlestick…wait, on that it, the Think the Impossible will be held to the Book Cellar in Chicago on September 11th. If you like Diet Soap pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it. In related news there is a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post a link to the chapter three in this week's show notes.

The guest this week is Andy Marshall. Andy Marshall is a self described "philosophy kid" and a frequent contributor to Diet Soap. He is my co-host on the biweekly Diet Soap conversations on Talkshoe, the Diet Soap archivist (he's been the one putting old episodes back onto the Podomatic page), and a moderating influence on the show and this week's episode is an excerpt from a much longer conversation. You'll hear another excerpt, this one on the subject of Nietzsche, next week, but this week we focus in on the idea of the impossible and touch briefly upon Deleuze. You may have noticed that my Kickstarter project to fund a book and podcast tour in September is underway. The project is two weeks in, and halfway to the goal. At present there are 38 backers of the Think the Impossible tour. Thanks to Paul H, Yoshio K, Dan W, Cay, Eilidh B, Michael T, Jay G, Zackery M, Josh B, Francisco F, Scott, Davis D, Terry T, Edward, Charles H, Andrew F, Justin R, David B, and Conrad H. If you like Diet Soap pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it. In related news I've started a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post a link to the second chapter in this week's show notes.

There is no guest this week except for my son Benjamin. He and I discuss the Joss Whedon 2005 film Serenity and the television series Firefly that spawned it through the context of Hegel's dialectic. It's Wednesday, June 12th, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast. You may have noticed that my Kickstarter project to fund a book and podcast tour in September is underway. The project is just one week in, and largely due to a large pledge from Andy M, I'm already over 40% toward the goal. At present there are 19 backers of the Think the Impossible tour. Thanks to Thom K, Thomas A, Trent W, MK Hobson, Shane S, Ashley F, Andy M, Derek D, Bradley C, Filippo V, James M, Sarah C, Randy S, Bob B, Jody, Will S, McKenzie Wark, Robert K, and Cameron Pierce. If you like Diet Soap pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it. In related news I've started a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post a link to the first chapter in this week's show notes. Again, this week's podcast is about Hegel and the tv show Firefly. Ben was a good sport to participate. You can hear that he's got a bit of cold but he just put his head down and powered through. The music you're listening to right now is from the television show Firefly, it's the theme for River's perception, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Ben and I discuss Hegel's Serenity.

This month Douglas Lain, C Derick Varn and Nicholas Pell discuss the Marxist notion of historical materialism.  According to Wikipedia "historical materialism" is: Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. The question becomes this:  have we reached a point wherein we simply do not have a materialist basis for emancipation?  Or is the trouble ideological? Also, this week marks the beginning of Douglas Lain's "Think the Impossible" Kickstarter campaign to fund his upcoming podcast and book tour. The book is entitled "Billy Moon." It is due out from Tor Books in August, and tells the story of an adult Christopher Robin Milne, the man known best for his childhood relationship with a stuffed bear, and entirely fictional involvement in the French general strike of May, 1968.   The podcast, entitled Diet Soap, is a weekly interview show focusing on philosophy, surrealism, and what I think of as the problem of Late Capitalism.  Guests on the program have included Penelope Rosemont of the Chicago Surrealist group, the radical author Michael Parenti, and Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping, and many others.  The title of the tour, the imperative to "Think the Impossible" relates to both the podcast and the novel.  In May 1968 one of the slogans spray painted on the streets of Paris was this:  "Be realistic, demand the impossible."   

The Artist Michael Reinsch is the guest this week as we discuss contemporary art, concepts, meaning, nihilism, and what it's like to kiss a strange man for money. Michael Reinsch's installation at the Place Gallery successfully blurred the boundary between art and life, and I was glad to get to talk to him about that distinction and the aim of his work. I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, and Ted F. And let people listening know you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and at douglaslain.com. Also, I've started up writing for Thought Catalog again and I'll provide links to two essays about the philosophy of Arrested Development in this week's show notes. (Link 1. Link 2) If you're a fan of Diet Soap why not leave a review on iTunes? There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Marcel Duchamp and Robert Hughes, a comedy routine from Coyle and Sharpe, Laurie Anderson's Bright Red, and Michael Reinsch himself set in C. Another conversation with Jason Horsley regarding his book Prisoner of Infinity is online this week. Check out the links to the right on his blog.

Dennis Perrin is the guest this week and we discuss the low art of comedy. Dennis is the author of Mister Mike the Man Who Made Comedy Dangerous, a stand-up comic himself, and a regular on the Diet Soap podcast. I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, and Ted F. Also, if you're a fan of the Diet Soap Podcast why not leave a review on iTunes? If you'd like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com but keep in mind that my Kickstarter campaign for the Diet Soap Tour "Think the Impossible" is coming soon. There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Michael O'Donoghue, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, Robin Williams, and a bit of stand-up from Mr. Perrin himself. Here's a clip from an essay Perrin recently penned for the online comedy magazine Splitsider: I can't think of an American comedian more revered and respected than Jonathan Winters. (There's Jack Benny, for those who remember him.) Winters created a world where you were welcome, but you had to keep pace. His rapid-fire mind took hairpin turns. The inattentive might be left in his dust. Winters was one of the more offbeat performers in mainstream comedy. He was as polished as Hope. As graceful as Gleason. As biting as Rickles. Yet Winters pushed it further. Breathed different oxygen. No matter how far out he went, Winters was accepted and cherished in the most conservative venues.. Read More at Splitsider.

This week instead of an expert interview you'll hear my son Benjamin and I discuss the television show Arrested Development, Hipsters, and Hegel. We cover the section on the Law of the Heart in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and try to make sense of gibberish like this: "This ordinance is the sphere of perversion. For in that this ordinance is the law of all hearts, in that all individuals are immediately this universal, it is a reality which is only that of self-existing individuality, i.e. of the heart. When consciousness therefore sets up the law of its heart, it finds itself resisted by others because it conflicts with the equally individual laws of their heart; and the latter in opposing it are doing nothing else but setting up in their turn and making valid their own law." You can also find me discussing similar subject over on Jason Horsley's new website Crucial Fictions. I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly again. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, Tracy V, and Ted F. If you'd like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com but you might consider that my Kickstarter campaign for the Diet Soap Tour "Think the Impossible" is coming soon. There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Arrested Development, Norman Mailer, Dairy Queen, Europe, and the youtube star Kazookeylele.

The guest this week is Jason Horsley and we start to discuss his most current project called "Crucial Fictions" and specifically a chapter of his book "The Prisoner of Infinity" wherein he examines Whitely Strieber's reported experiences as it relates to Horsley's own conceptions of trauma, but we quickly diverge from his text as we spiral around the central concept of trauma itself. Jason Horsley is the author of many books including Matrix Warrior: Being the One and The Secret Life of Movies, and he is a regular guest on the Diet Soap podcast. If you visit his website crucialfiction.com you'll be able to listen to the raw recording of this conversation in its entirety. I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly to the podcast. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, Tracy V, and Ted F. If you'd like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com, however I'll be running a Kickstarter campaign in June and July and people who are thinking of donating might hold off and help out with that. There are many sound clips in this episode. You'll hear from Alenka Zupancic, Slavoj Zizek, Ryan Gosling in the movie Half Nelson, Sebastian Horsley discussing his propensity to cause himself trouble, and the Sesame Street Pinball song.

John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. He is a critic of civilization and especially agriculture and he wants to return to a more primitive collective life. He advocates the nomadic life of prehistoric hunters and gatherers as a potential future. Zerzan was the guest on Pop the Left #4 where we discussed the idea of reification and took a close look at Zerzan's own notion of nature. This month on Pop the Left C Derick Varn and I speak briefly about the Zerzan interview. Clips from an interview with Steven Vogel on the radio program Against the Grain, of George Bush singing an REM song, and from Monty Python's Life of Brian can be heard in this one, and Varn and I discuss potential future guests. Nicholas Pell is again absent, but plans to return for a future episode wherein we'll discuss historical materialism. You can now leave a voicemail message for Pop the Left and participate in the show. Just head to speakpipe.com/poptheleft and leave us a message.

The guest this week is Jay Gertzman and we discuss his book Samuel Roth, Infamous Modernist. Samuel Roth was a literary pirate, a purveyor of smut, and a champion of high modernism. For instance Roth published the dirty bits from James Joyce's Ulysses as a serial in his literary journal Two Worlds Monthly. It's Wednesday, April 24th, 2013. I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast, and this week the secret word is "masturbation" and here's an excerpt from Samuel Roth on the subject. Diet Soap relies on donations, but rather than make my usual plea for help through paypal I'm actually going to tell you to hold off. I'm about to run a Kickstarter campaign to fund a US Diet Soap tour under the banner "Think the Impossible." In fact, I just finished editing the Kickstarter video a few days ago and if you'd like to watch the video all you need do to get a sneak peek is join the Diet Soap International Facebook group. It's much more an exploration of the ideas of Henri Lefebvre through a decidedly Hegelian lens than it is a straight forward call for funds, so I encourage everyone who is listening to check it out. Also, if you like Diet Soap but can't afford a donation, why not share the podcast with a friend or write a review of the show on iTunes. There is some smut in this episode of Diet Soap. For example, at the end, you'll hear a bit of Molly Bloom's soliloquy. You'll hear a bit more than this: ...shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. The music you're listening to right now is an instrumental cover of the Violent Femmes Blister in The Sun as covered by the Vitamin String Quartet but in just a moment you'll be listening to Gertzman and I discuss Samuel Roth, Infamous Modernist.

This week I discuss Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit with my lovely wife Miriam. We take on the section entitled Pleasure and Necessity and discuss how Jan Svankmajer's film Conspirators of Pleasure seems to enact Hegel's critique. Diet Soap relies on donations and if you'd like to donate you can find the paypal buttons on douglaslain.com and at the podomatic page for Diet Soap. On the other hand, in the next few weeks I'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap tour that called "Think the Impossible!" You can get more information by following me on Facebook, tweeting me on twitter, putting me in a Google Plus circles, or by gassing me, kidnapping me, transporting me to a village on a mysterious island, interrogating me mercilessly, and taking away my name and leaving me with only a number. Here's a quick explanation of Hegel and Self-Conscious desire: Our self-consciousness, this way of seeing or perceiving, seeks an object as something alien from itself, it seeks to enjoy this object and in enjoying it to understand the distinction between the self-consciousness and its object as something that belongs to self-consciousness. We cease to live for ourselves, but in seeking to enjoy our separation from the world, we lose ourselves to this universal category of separation.

The guest this week the University lecturer and no good commie C Derick Varn. Varn and I discuss the ideas of the French historian, literary critic, and philosopher Rene Girard while also taking Siskel and Ebert as our subjects. Diet Soap relies on donations and if you'd like to donate you can find the paypal buttons on douglaslain.com and at the podomatic page for Diet Soap. In the next month I'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap tour that I plan to call "Think the Impossible!" but that shouldn't stop you from kicking in a fiver or a tener now. Per wikipedia Rene Girard was: a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science. His work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy. He is the author of nearly thirty books (see below), in which he developed the ideas of: mimetic desire: all of our desires are borrowed from other people; mimetic rivalry: all conflict originates in mimetic desire; the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry; the Bible reveals the three previous ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism. Siskel and Ebert, on the other hand, were: ...two film critics [who] shared their opinions of newly released films. Their program aired under various names. Its original hosts were Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and WLS-TV and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and WBBM-TV.

The guest this week Michael Karman. Karman is the editor of Asymmetry Music Magazine, a magazine dedicated to exposing the general public to new and interesting art music, and we discuss how to listen, the problem of tradition, concrete music, John Cage, Coca-Cola bottles and more. The music and sound in this episode includes A String Quartet playing Bad Romance by Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga herself only mashed up, reversed, and filtered, an excerpt of Michael Rodd from the BBC 1979 documentary "The New Sound of Music," Emmanuelle-Gibello's "Crashtest 10," Ernst Krenek's "Sinfonia no. 4", John Cage talking about Coca-Cola bottles, and Luc Ferrari's "Exploitation of Concepts." I want to thank Jacob L, Andrew M, Tracy V, Ted F, and John L who are regular subscribers to the podcast. I also want to thank Terry T, Andrew M (a second time), Adrien S, and Babafemi M for their very generous one time donations. If you'd like to donate you can find the paypal buttons on douglaslain.com and at the podomatic page for Diet Soap. And in the next two months I'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap tour that I plan to call "Think the Impossible!" The music you're listening to right now is Paul's Dance by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Michael Karman and I discuss How to Listen to the New.