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Shabcast 21, Part 1 – The Bow Section

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I’m delighted to be able to mark Josh Marsfelder’s addition to Eruditorum Press with a mega-Shabcast in which Josh and I chat about some of our mutual obsessions. 

Listen and/or download here.

Josh is awesomely informed and passionate.  We talk about Star Trek and Josh’s blogging project about it, Vaka Rangi, which is now archived and ongoing here at EP.  We talk about Aliens and Avatar and James Cameron generally, and especially about the Titanic – film and reality, and the differences between the two.  Josh is really into the Olympic liners generally, and knows a ton about them.  Suffice to say, the real story of these ships is more complex and resonant, more utterly imbued with the tang of history, than the myths.  I had a great time listening to Josh talk about this stuff and I’m confident you will too.

I should probably warn you there are spoilers for 90s Star Trek.  And also for Titanic.  (Psst – the ship sinks, ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!)

Our loooooong chat will continue next Thursday in Shabcast 21b – The Stern Section, in which we will continue talking ships but also move into perhaps deeper waters.

Meanwhile, here are some links to things mentioned in the show:

Here‘s the website for the Titanic – Honor & Glory game project, complete with a chilling computer animated video of the ship sinking in real time.  And here‘s their Facebook page.  And here‘s their Tumblr.  And here‘s some info about the Olympic, Titanic’s sister ship, as a war ship.  And here are some more photos of Olympic.  (Thanks for Josh for sourcing all these links.)

And here is the website for Ken Marschall, an artist whose visions of the Titanic have inspired Josh and many others.

 

EDIT – ADDITIONAL LINKS TO STUFF REFERRED TO IN THE SHABCAST:

Phil (with Josh’s help) on Super Metroid

Josh on Alien and Aliens

Jack on Prometheus and again.

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Shabcast 19, Part 2

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Today’s image is of Magneto killing some Nazis.  Because I like that.

The exciting conclusion to Shabcast 19 is now available to listen or download here.

Here are some links to things referred to in both parts of the conversation:

Here‘s some more info on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the 2007 Boston Mooninite Panic, and the subsequent press conference.

And here‘s Susan of Texas on the awful Ross Douthat.

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Also, here‘s a link to Kit Power’s new piece about Hillsborough.  It’s excellent.

And here‘s Norman Finkelstein talking some much-needed sense about the so-called anti-Semitism crisis in Labour.…

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Shabcast 19, Part 1

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With Shabcast 18 vanished into the ether, this week we move straight on to Shabcast 19.  My now-frequent-interlocutor Daniel Harper of Oi! Spaceman stepped into the fray and helped me bring something in. 

We had a looooooooong chat about all kinds of shit, including (but not limited to) Prince, Chyna, sex and gender (of course), Marxism, neoliberalism, intersectionality, voting,Trump, lesser-evilism, Bush, the invasion of Iraq, strikes, the romance of revolution, TV you’re scared to go back to, and the exciting future of Dan’s own project – he and Shana are branching out to talk about other shows, such as Red Dwarf and Firefly.

The conversation was so long that I had to split it into two parts.  (It ends on a cliffhanger.)  Part Two next week.  There is, perhaps, some hubris involved in chatting for three hours+, recording it all, and then releasing it for strangers to listen to, and being so enamoured of almost everything you said that you basically refuse to edit… but hey, if I let things like that bother me I wouldn’t be here.  And that’d be a shame, because I think we all agree that the internet can’t afford to lose even one opinionated white man.

Download and/or listen here, my pretty ones.…

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Shabcast 17 – It’s So Stimulating Being Your Hat

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As promised, hot on the heels of Shabcast 16, here’s Shabcast 17 … hopefully making up for our regrettably Shabcast-free February.

As also promised, this episode festures special guest Shana Wolstein of the Oi! Spaceman podcast.  Oi! Spaceman is the best Doctor Who podcast I’m not directly financially linked to… though I am the podcast’s official boyfriend (which is not something I ever expected to say). 

Back on the subject of Shabcasts, this episode is plenty-minutes of Shana and I chatting about two of her favourite films (and mine) the 80s Jim Henson fantasy masterpieces The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Also, if you didn’t catch it, remember to check out Shabcast 16 from last week, in which Kevin Burns (of Pex Lives) and I spend plenty-minutes attacking The Matrix trilogy… amusingly, I hope.

On that subject: I now slightly regret the timing of that last Shabcast, for obvious reasons.  But I hope it’s obvious that disliking some of Lilly Wachowski’s films doesn’t mean Kevin or I have anything but best wishes for her personally.

Podlings of the world, unite!

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Shabcast 16 – Do White Saviours Dream of Electric Sheeple?

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I’m planning to make up for the lack of any Shabcasts in February by providing loads in March, and here‘s the first. 

This time I’m joined by the amazing Mayor Kevin Burns – my favourite US politician, and one half of the Pex Lives team – to talk about the Matrix movies.  For some reason.

I wanted to hear him indulge his hate, you see.  I went in intending to sortakindamaybe half-play the role of ‘good cop’ (at least with regards the first film) but that didn’t last long.

Please enjoy our show, in which we analyse (i.e. pillory) the three films, review the old ‘do movies cause violence?’ debate, complain about the Hollywood CGI singularity, ponder the unfortunate obsessions and attitudes of the late 90s-early 2000s, and look back with sadness and shame on our wasted youths.

Download here. 

Next time I’ll be joined by the wonderful Shana of the Oi! Spaceman podcast, to talk about some good films, the 80s Jim Henson fantasy masterpieces The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

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Shabcast L15TEN

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You have to wait two or three years between Star Wars movies.  And that’s when a trilogy is under way.  At other times you have to wait decades.  Hopefully it won’t be that long before the next bit of my even-more-exciting-than-the-films Forward, to the Past! trilogy of posts appears.  In the meantime, here’s Shabcast 15, AKA Shabcast L15TEN.

This month I’m joined by my online buddy Daniel Harper of the Oi! Spaceman podcast/blog which he co-hosts/writes with his wife Shana Wolstein.  (I know you know.  Phil, James, and I have all been guests on it lately.  I’m just covering all the bases.) 

Dan and I are both Moffat-sceptics (to put it mildly) but in this episode we talk at length about a Moffat episode we both really like, the series 8 classic ‘Listen’.  We make time to snark at the man too, but generally we come to praise Moffat not to bury him.

Download or listen (ho ho – pun intended!) here.

We also talk a little bit about a certain recent news event.  If you can guess which artist has unwittingly donated songs to this month’s edition, you get to download the Shabcast for free.…

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The Eruditorum Press Christmas Party Shabcast

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Take time off from wading through the flooded ruins of your home and join the entire ‘inner party’ (as it were) of Eruditorum Press – Holly, myself, James, Jane, Kevin and Phil – for Shabcast 14, a massive festive blather-session.  (Anna was invited, but was too tired from doing little things like, y’know, fixing the site.)

Like any office Christmas ‘do’ there will be simmering resentments and blazing rows, the awkward office joker will embarrass everyone, somebody will get spannered and photocopy their arse (or, these days, scan it and email it to people I suppose), the boss will be unconvincingly jovial with staff who can’t relax while he’s around, two people will sneak off for a tryst in an empty office, and the whole thing will be interrupted by terrorists led by Alan Rickman.

It’s undoubtedly the finest piece of Christmas-related media you’re likely to experience in the next couple of days.

Download or listen here. 

And have a pleasant end of December.

 

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Shabcast 12

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Welcome to Shabtober everybody.  Here’s another Shabcast for you.  You lucky people.

An unexpected edition, suggested by Holly.  It’s mostly about the whole Kesha / Dr Luke thing (so Trigger Warnings) and the #FreedomForKesha hashtag, very much from a pro-Kesha perspective. 

We also chat a bit about the latest Doctor Who (so Spoiler Warnings).

Compared to previous monstrously long Shabcasts, this one comes in at a positively brisk hour-and-a-bit.

Holly guests, and kindly does most of the talking, alongside Josh of Vaka Rangi.

Bet none of you saw this coming.…

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Shabcast 11

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Here’s Shabcast 11, featuring myself in conversation with Phil Sandifer.

This was recorded before Eruditorum Press went live, so events have overtaken it somewhat.

We discuss Doctor Who (before the start of Series 9), Susan, Gareth Roberts, Thomas Ligotti, God, Alan Moore, H.P. Lovecraft, Jimmy Saville, Frank Miller, Vox Day (because Phil just can’t help himself), Hegel, Marxism, technological determinism, the Situationists, Engels, evolution, revolution, the Anthropocene extinction, Jonathan Jones, and the existential terrors of the Right.

But the main attractions of the podcast are our discussions of Hannibal (which had just ended when we taped), True Detective, and the life and crimes (artistic and otherwise) of John Nathan-Turner.

Chatting about Hannibal, we coin the term ‘hannibalism’, decide how to do Buffalo Bill in 2015, and come to the conclusion that Hannibal himself is a Miltonic Lucifer in a gnostic universe created by a deistic god and, possibly, Hannibal himself.

Be aware of spoilers and triggers (note the references above to Jimmy Saville and JN-T).

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P.S. – Phil’s mention of “the fucking Thales idiot” refers to a passing right-wing pillock calling himself a ‘Philosopher DJ’ with whom Phil (and, to a lesser extent, I) had an argument on twitter, during which I (somewhat sarcastically) asked him what he thought about the tripartite anatomy of the Doctrine of the Notion to be found in Hegel’s Logic, whereupon he responded (after a few days) with some vague stuff about Hegel’s dialectic (which is a distinct thing), which is why Phil asks me about the tripartite anatomy of the Doctrine of the Notion during the course of the conversation (a question I don’t get around to properly answering, tragically for all of you Hegel-fans listening).…

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Shabcast 10 – Gothic!

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Okay, so the Iron Man thing seemed to go down well.  Thanks to everyone who read, commented, retweeted, etc.  I get the sense that my audience has just more than quadrupled in size, which is nice.

People new to my stuff may be unaware that I produce a regular Shabogan Graffiti podcast (or Shabcast, as I’m smug enough to call it).  (In fact, it’s increasingly irregular, but in the sense of turning up more often that it should rather than less, so that’s not a bad thing… unless you hate it.  But then you don’t have to listen to it, do you.  Nobody’s forcing you.) 

Pex Lives, my new Eruditorum Press colleagues, host the Shabcast for me and you can find my previous episodes archived here.  There are chats about Doctor Who, the Mckellen Macbeth, the Jonathan Miller Alice in Wonderland, the Hugo Awards and the Sad/Rabid Puppies, etc.

And here’s a new one.  This time, I’m joined by the lovely and incredibly erudite Gene Mayes – of various Pex Lives appearances and his own excellent new blog Being and Time Lord – to chat about the Gothic. 

We also focus specifically on the movie A Field in England, Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s masterpiece of English Civil War-era madness, magic and mushrooms.  There be spoilers here, by the way. 

We range pretty freely and get on to all sorts of other stuff including (but far from limited to) alchemy, John Dee, Hammer movies, Gothic novels, Marxism and Anarchism.  It’s a long one (just over 3-hours, so feel free to listen in fits and starts) but I hope worth your time. 

Here‘s Gene’s blog post about A Field in England.…

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