Eruditorum Press

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wrong with authority

These Podcasts Were Made for Listenin’

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Hi, everyone. 

I don’t have anything for you today, though I am currently tinkering with a couple of things that might end up being postable. 

But neither of those are ready yet, so or today I’ll have to just point you towards a new episode of Consider the Ray Gun, the strand of WWA in which Daniel chats with someone about a book. 

This week it’s Kit rejoining Daniel for a conversation about the early Richard Bachman (Stephen King) novel The Long Walk.  Listen/download here. 

It’s every bit as good as their recent episode on Ender’s Game.

CtRG started as part of Oi! Spaceman, so previous episodes can be found here.

Happy New Year all.

 

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Jack Considers a Christmas Reagan

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Owing to a decided – and entirely understandable – lack of enthusiasm for the project from anyone else, I embarked on a solo commentary on the 1984 movie version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring George C. Scott as Scrooge.  Luckily, I’m quite capable of wittering on for 90 minutes unassisted. 
 
So, here it is… a Christmas… treat for you?  I guess?
 
The movie is on YouTube should you want to watchalong with me.
 
Obviously, a commentary isn’t an ideal way to analyse a text, so I left a lot of things out that I wanted to talk about.  So you may be getting more on this.  I’ve already written about it in passing here.
 
WWA did another CtR on a Christmas movie (though I understand this is a vexed question now) here.
 
Meanwhile, thanks everyone for reading my stuff this year.  And thanks for being such a great community.  And thanks to all those who’ve promoted my stuff by tweeting, retweeting, etc.  And special thanks to my lovely patrons.  They got advance access to this podcast.  If that seems like a reward to you, you might consider joining their number.
 
 
 
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Orson Audio

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Nice new bit of audio content for you today, mainly on the subject of guys called Orson. 

From the Wrong With Authority stable, a commentary track for Orson Welles’ undervalued late masterpiece F for Fake, featuring myself and Daniel Harper.  Download or listen HERE. 

This commentary is basically a spin-off from an episode of They Must Be Destroyed on Sight in which I guested to chat about the same film – here.  TMBDOS also recently did an episode on Welles’ finally-completed final film, The Other Side of the Wind, here.

Plus, we recently released a podcast in which Daniel and Kit chatted about Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, and somehow managed to find new angles on it, despite it being one of the most discussed texts on the internet.  Download or listen HERE.

Also, if you haven’t listened to the Wrong With Authority’s third ‘Trumpism’ episode, recorded after the mid-terms, but feel like subjecting yourself to five hours of our self-therapy, that’s here. 

On the subject of Wrong With Authority, we still have two great new episodes in the can, being edited, and slated to be released soon (hopefully).  There’s our next proper full WWA episode, hosted by Daniel this time, which will tackle D. W. Griffiths’ racist alleged-masterpiece of early American silent cinema Birth of a Nation, and a Consider the Reagan commentary on James Cameron’s The Terminator.  Holly joins the team for both.  Look out for those.

Speaking of Holly, people should definitely check out her new seasonal podcast series So Here It Is, in which she is joined by a succession of guests to chat with her about the tracks in the British Christmas music canon.  One of the guests who has already been on is our friend Andrew Hickey, whose own new podcast series, A History of Pop Music in 500 Songs, is another absolute must.

(Oh, and I haven’t forgotten that I was meant to be reposting the Doctor Who commentary tracks I recorded with El.  I’ll get back to that, probably in the new year.)

In other me-news, I’ve recently had something of a posting spurt over at my Patreon, and people who sponsor me for as miniscule a goddamn pittance as one measley dollar a month goddammit can exclusively access forthcoming posts of mine (fucking looooong ones too) on things like the TV show Legion (which I’ve perversely decided to find fascinating), Doctor Who and Brecht’s ‘Epic Theatre’, and Marx’s theory of capitalist crisis… as well as an audio snippet from the WWA episode we did on Anonymous in which me and the gang get drawn into a little chat about the ‘New Atheists’.

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Come and Listen to Us… Forever and Ever and Ever

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Yet another strand of Wrong With Authority launches.  This time it’s Carter Before the Horse.  It’s basically just Consider the Reagan but earlier. 

In this inaugural edition, James, Kit, and Jack watch Kubrick’s The Shining, and say things about it.

LISTEN/DOWNLOAD HERE

Beware Triggers, because we talk about the film’s themes, and they’re not pretty.

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The WWA back-catalogue contains several podcasts which make good Hallowe’en listening…
 
In this Footnote episode, James and Kit watch James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein.  (If we do any more films from that era we’ll have to think of a Herbert Hoover pun for the title of that strand.)
 
Speaking of James Whale, here‘s the entire gang doing a full Wrong With Authority episode about Gods and Monsters – the biopic of James Whale starring Ian McKellen – and also Shadow of the Vampire, a movie about (sort of) the making of the original Nosferatu.
 
And here‘s Kit and Daniel chatting about a couple of George Romero movies, The Crazies and Martin, in another Footnote episode.
 
Daniel has chatted with his buddies over at They Must Be Destroyed on Sight! about many horror movies.  They’re currently on a seasonal Horror kick.  So toddle over there for that excellent content.
 
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Other seasonal content of my own can be found here, in a series of articles about Horror movies, and in this article from my (undead) Tricky Dicky series in which I talk a little about Hallowe’en with reference to witches, prophecy, Macbeth, and the Gunpowder Plot.
 
In accordance with noises I made on Twitter, I am now writing something about Dracula and how it has been adapted.  What form it will take, and how much of it there will be, remains to be seen.  But I’m hoping to have the first part up next Friday. 
 
In the meantime, I wish you all a safe and happy Samhainn.  Do not allow yourselves to become dull boys, girls, or anything else.  I’m told that the key is play.  Rather than just work.
 
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Wrong With Authority, Episode 9 – ‘Anonymous’

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This time, Jack indulges his unhealthy obsession with Anti-Stratfordianism, and forces James, Kit, and Daniel to watch Roland Emmerich’s 2011 self-funded passion-project Anonymous.

Anonymous; 2011; d. Roland Emmerich; w. John Orloff; starring Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, David Thewlis, Rafe Spall, Jamie Campbell Bower, Mark Rylance, and Derek Jacobi; distributed by Columbia Pictures.

It lost about 15 million dollars.

Based on the wackiest version of the longstanding conspiracy theory that the plays of Shakespeare were secretly written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Anonymous is both less entertaining and less plausible than the rest of Emmerich’s films, including the ones about aliens and giant lizards.

It was ‘controversial’ at the time, in the sense that everyone who knew anything about Shakespeare both ridiculed and denounced it, especially its attempts to market itself via ‘information packs’ provided to schools.

In the process of telling his dreary, plotless, and confusing shaggy dog story, Emmerich encourages some of the finest Shakespearean actors of our time to make utter fools of themselves.  Not that some of them need all that much encouragement.  The whole thing manages to be simultaneously totally insane, quasi-fascistic, and profoundly dull… which is quite a feat, in its way.

None of us were terribly impressed, it’s fair to say.  But, in between Jack galloping off on his hobby horse for uncomfortably long stretches of time, we also delve into some of the interesting history and politics concerning Shakespeare, Anti-Statfordianism, and conspiracy theories generally.

Downloadeth here.

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LINKS:

Jack has written a lot about Shakespeare in general here.

Here are some books which are either about, or touch on, this issue:

The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate.  Has an entire fascinating chapter on the ‘Authorship Controversy’.  The rest of the book is periodically excellent too.

Contested Will by James Shapiro.  Brilliantly discusses the ‘Authorship Question’, not so much in terms of its actual claims (though Shapiro does address them) but rather as a phenomenon in itself, populated by fascinating people and deserving of study in its own right.  Shapiro develops many insights about scholarship, history, literature, and politics.

Shakespeare, In Fact by Irvin Leigh Matus.  A legendary work of factual analysis.  Forensic, witty, and merciless.

Here’s the Bill Bryson book James refers too.  Boasts an amusingly irritated final chapter on the ‘Authorship Question’.

Shakespeare Beyond Doubt, Eds. Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson.  A compendium of essays commissioned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust as part of their assertive response to Anonymous.  Scholar after scholar examines every aspect of the issue.  The definitive single-volume demolition.

The SBT also created this bite-size pamphlet – Shakespeare Bites Back: Not So Anymous – summarizing the main issues at stake.  Free to download here.

Speaking of online resources, here’s the Shakespeare Authorship Page.  Lots of links to lots of articles and essays.

The lecture excerpted in the podcast is part of a series by eloquent Shakespeare scholar and former actor Peter Saccio. …

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Podcasting Blade Runner & Gangs of New York

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How do you do fellow kids?

This week I have no less than two new podcast episodes for you from Wrong With Authority.

Daniel and I just released a new episode of Consider the Reagan, the thread in which two or more of us watch and comment on a film released during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  This time it’s Daniel and myself talking about original Blade Runner (1982), followed by some chat about the recent sequel.

Download here.

(By the way, if you’re interested in my thoughts about Blade Runner, watch this space, because at some point I will start properly writing my vast project about the Alien series, and this will involve a fair bit of stuff about Blade Runner, because… well, wait and see.)

And the entire Wrong With Authority gang – James, Kit, Daniel, and myself – also just released a new episode covering Martin Scorsese’s 2002 historical crime epic Gangs of New York, in which Daniel Day Lewis gives one of the most memorable screen performances of the early noughts, and also Leonardo DiCaprio stands in front of the camera and pulls faces.

Download here.

We plan to have more such episodes for you fairly soon. 

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If you like our stuff, you might consider tossing us a dime on Patreon.  There’s no overall WWA Patreon, but we now all have individual accounts, here:

Me – Kit – James – Daniel.

And remember, Eruditorum Press has an overall Patreon.

And Phil’s Kickstarter for the McCoy/Wilderness Years book still needs your help reaching ever more enticing goals.

No pressure.  But if you don’t give at least one of us your money you are a bad person and will almost certainly go to Hell.

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Wrong With Authority Podcast, Episode 6 – ‘Inherit the Wind’

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We’re back, with a proper WWA episode.  Daniel’s choice this time: Inherit the Wind, Stanley Kramer’s 1960 drama loosely based on the Scopes Monkey Trial.  (Details here.)

Download WWA6 here

A really good episode, this one (IMHO).  Lots of laughs and silliness but also some meaty discussion about history and politics.  

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Show Notes: Main Topic: Inherit the Wind. Vague plot summary. Fictionalized. Quality female characters. Familiarity breeds contempt? Chimpanzee casting. Didn’t fall in love. Connected to Mississippi Burning. Cartoonish Brady. Brady’s wife. Sexism of 1925. Pronouncement dialogue. Golden Age acting. Comic relief. Unforgiving role. The One Man Who Can Think. Educating the rubes. McCarthyism. Flouting conformity and Great-Man-ism. Village Atheist. Blacklisted screenwriter and HUAC. Slavish attachment to the USSR. At last, a Trump reference. And Nixon. Fans sponspored by the funeral home. Perspiration necessary for a proper courtroom drama. Bigwig motives. Old Time Religion Uber Alles. Lynching sequences. Black actors. Talking about civil rights without talking about civil rights. Mencken. Brady’s hypocrisy. Not William Jennings Bryan. Classism and the American South. Ditto for British regional accents. Legitimate resentment. Not even Hollywood Poverty. The “respectable poor.” Scopes and eugenics. Scientism and Social Darwinism. Nasty Nietzsche. Sociobiological implications in Darwin’s followers. Kit brings us back to the film for a moment. Rachel Brown’s impossible choice. “Just fucking listen.” Western heroine thing. Darrow calls Bryan. Interlude. Facts not feels. “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.” Williams Jennings Bryan and his place in history. Bryan’s presidential runs and the gold standard. No left in American history. Radicalism of the gospels. New Atheists revised history. Defending Dawkins? Arguing against the book. The history of the religious right. Aftereffects of the trial. Inherit the Raging Bull. Two colonels? Eugenics and evolution. Moral systems. Christianity is revolutionary. Origins of creationism vis a vis fundamentalism. Luther and divisions in the WWA crew. The Klan. Hitchens on King. “White With Authority.” Evolution in American schools. Using theology for political purposes. Non-binary thinking. Bill Nye. The Universal lot. Good American monkeys. Adapting the play. H.L. Mencken the Nazi sympathizer. Wrapping Up. Next time: Gangs of New York.

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Daniel’s book recommendations:

Six Days or Forever?: Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes by Ray Ginger

The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design by Ronald L. Numbers

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Trumpism 2: Electoral Boogaloo (or Podcasting the Trumpaversary with WWA)

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A year (or so) ago, the unthinkable happened.  So, of course, we podcasted about it.

That was this.  This is now.

This time, Daniel has called Kit and Jack back to the WWA recording bunker, joined by James too this time, to talk about what it’s like to have lived a full year since Trump ‘won’ the 2016 US Presidential ‘election’. 

This is what happened…

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Show notes: Main Topic: Trumpism At One Year. Introducing the band. Non-productive news obsession. Alabama and purity. James praises his co-hosts. Corbyn and the soft left. . Misplaced catastrophism. The first few weeks. John McCain. The roles of the two parties. Kit’s personal and political issues. Don’t watch the news. Obligatory Batman reference. Bush and some weird shit. The Republicans and Obama. Activists. Discipline. Factionalism and the ACA. High floor in polls. “This is fine.” Easy versus hard. New normal in global capitalism. The bumbling chessmaster. Scarmucci. Pizza-eating billionaire. Republican Dave. Mocking the empty suit. Form and content. Natural charisma. “No-drama Obama.” The 2016 primary bullshit. Homeopathic socialism. “Gary Hart Would Have Won.” Women’s march. Drifting left on social issues. Obama was Republican enough. Back to Roy Moore. Hating pedophiles or women more. Mendacious media and epistemic closure. Elephant. C-span typography problems. Daniel’s guess for 2020. Intermission: turd-miners. What has Donald Trump done well? American imperialism and nascent fascism. Trump and Charlottesville. Twitter as a direct connection to the base. Trump and the media. The spectacle of wealth. Impossible to ignore. A plurality, not a majority. Foreign policy and American politics. Never anti-war. Non-ideological. “Lot of killers.” Trump as comedy. Adam Sandler billionaire. Steak and classism and tiny hands. Trump and mental illness. Trump versus previous presidents. Crisis? Sorkin. Bullet. Lucky. Conniving versus reckless. Empire. Russia. Predictions. Wrapping Up. “Old Man Trump.”

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Oh… Jack is sorry for his mic problems by the way.  His generous patrons just paid for a Blue Yeti, so hopefully the situation will soon be resolved.  It’s just occurred to me.  I will control a mechanical Yeti.
 
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Consider the Reagan, Episode 1

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At long last, here is the first episode of a new strand of the ‘Wrong With Authority’ podcast supergroup, in which we (sadly we were Murphyless this time, but we expect to be fully Jamesed-up in future episodes) record commentaries on the movies that shaped and misshaped us, movies released between the first inaugurations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Elder.

This is 80s pop culture we’re talking about pilgrim, so expect sickness.
 
This time, we mcfly backwards and forwards through time in a shitty car to discover that the deep psychological structure of America’s understanding of its own history is best viewed through the prism of the oedipus complex. 

Who’d have motherfucking thought it?

Downloadify here.

 
 
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Wrong With Authority, Ep 5 – ‘Mississippi Burning’

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Wrong With Authority, the podcast where four white guys talk about movies based on real historical events, returns… and this time we’re talking about Mississippi Burning (1988), a travesty of the story of three civil rights workers – Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman – who were murdered in Mississippi in 1964 by the Klan/cops/state government (all essentially the same thing at that point).

Download our episode >>HERE<<

Beware triggers.  We’re talking about vicious racism, hate-motivated violence and murder.  At one point in the episode, one of us reads out part of a historical document which contains the n-word.  We believe the context justifies its inclusion, but please be aware that it’s there.  Jack made the decision to not bleep it out, and takes responsibility.  Also, we mention rape a couple of times – because it was an integral part of both Jim Crow and slavery.

The film focuses not on the Civil Rights workers, or the struggle, or the African Americans oppressed by Jim Crow (American Apartheid), but rather on the subsequent FBI investigation.  It portrays the FBI as a heroic organisation bursting with concerned liberals, but also as solving the case via maverick vigilante violence.  Systemic racism is effaced.  In other words, according to Mississippi Burning, black people are invisible, or are passive and cowardly; Civil Rights workers are foolhardy victims; and the problem is neatly solved by a benevolent establishment going righteously outside the law to punish the bad guys – bad apples who are bad because they’re just inbred hicks.

With this episode, we’re all acutely and especially aware of the structural flaws inherent in our show… i.e. we’re all white guys.  This episode is, nonetheless, an attempt to grapple with the fact that WWA has, up til now, been heavily white-centric.  But we’re inevitably going to underperform here.  We in no way wish to talk over PoC who are talking about issues like this.  We’ll be happy to hear input and criticism.

[Jack here to add a personal note: I deliberately chose Mississippi Burning to address the overpowering whiteness of our subjects to date… which shows a fair bit of privilege and privilege-blindness on my part because a) Mississippi Burning isn’t about African Americans, as mentioned… in fact, it is a film that thieves an African American story from African Americans, and b) I unthinkingly chose a story about African Americans suffering, and which portrays them as passive victims.  I’ll try to do better in future.  I can only hope our critique of this film on these terms stands for something.]

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Some Links To Things Menioned in the Episode:

The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen.

We Are Not Afraid by Seth Cagin and Philip Dray.

I Am Not Your Negro – new documentary about James Baldwin.

The 13th – documentary based on The New Jim Crow.

Do The Right Thing – Spike Lee’s classic.

The Butler

The Garrett video Jack mentions.

Here’s the article written by Chris Gerolmo, Mississippi Burning screewriter.…

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