Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films

Who is Godot? Whether God, objet a, or an abstraction from any object that is supposed to resolve dramatic suspense, it is clear that Vladimir and Estragon imagine him to be an agent of salvation (even if they can’t remember exactly what it is that needs saving). Perhaps the name is meant to satirize any states of expectancy—aspirational, libidinal, political, or religious—insofar they seem to be a means to a kind of spiritual completion that is impossible. Except, arguably, in the imagination, including its refinements in the products of the arts. If Samuel Beckett is too cool to provide us with ordinary entertainment and edification, does he mean to bore us, berate us, or do nothing at all? Erin & Wes pass time by discussing “Waiting for Godot,” and whether frustrating expectations is sometimes better than either violating or gratifying them. Upcoming Episodes: The Mummy Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of the 1949 classic film “The Third Man,” about friendship and betrayal, and about the stories we tell ourselves in order to love, survive, kill, or even die. Upcoming Episodes: “Julius Caesar.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Like many of its genre, the film “Elf” connects Christmas spirit to the sorts of bonds that hold together families and communities, despite their inevitable tendencies towards conflict and dissolution. Wes & Erin discuss this 2003 classic, what it means to believe in Christmas, and how this is connected to the possibility of a genuine community. Upcoming Episodes: “Julius Caesar.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Erin just published her first book, “Avail,” which you can order here: https://www.pauldrybooks.com/products/avail “Avail” features a long prose-poem which titles the book and winds through sections of lineated, often formal poems. The prose-poem comprises a series of lyric meditations on the image of the veil—from religious and cultural veils, to veils imbedded in idiom and metaphor, to veiled women in art and classic films, to veils drawn and parted by illness and death—which slowly divulge the harrowing details of the poet’s blood disorder. Throughout, allusions to classic film, literature, and art serve as the “veils” with which the poet attempts to obscure the self-estrangement and vulnerability her illness has induced—insecurities which follow her long after her recovery. In a poem about a break-up set during her career as a jazz singer and against the backdrop of a 1930s screwball comedy, she longs “to shake life by the martini (but stay self- / possessed), to star in the movie of myself / instead of playing second lead.” During a visit to Naples, Mt. Vesuvius becomes “a Crawford eyebrow / arched over the bay.” And in California, after a trip to the Getty Villa, she recalls Sontag’s “missive on allusion, that no part / of any work is new, that all is reproduction.” By the end of the collection, O’Luanaigh has fashioned from the sum of these various allusions her own poetic identity, unveiled in the poems themselves. Upcoming Episodes: “The Third Man,” “Elf,” “Julius Caesar.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Nurse Ratched likes a rigged game, according to R.P. McMurphy. And it’s true that the game he is playing—lawless and hedonistic, but also vital and free-spirited—is unwinnable on her sandlot. As their conflict develops, we seem to be asked to compare the therapeutic value of McMurphy’s introduction of the Dionysian, to Ratched’s attempt to enforce an ordered calm within the psychiatric ward over which she is absolute ruler. What happens when the Godzilla of superegos takes on a libidinal King Kong? Wes & Erin discuss the 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Upcoming Episodes: Erin’s book “Avail,” “The Third Man,” “Julius Caesar.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website

The short stories we cover in this episode pit the magic of art against that of scientific discovery. In one story, a woodcarver transcends his materials and his own humble talents to create a sculpture that bears an otherworldly resemblance to a real woman. In the other, a scientist uses his estimable but flawed powers to improve on Nature’s design by removing a birthmark from his wife’s otherwise-perfect face. The varying results of these efforts seem to correspond to the extent with which love, that most magical of forces, underscores them. “You cannot love what shocks you,” the scientist’s wife remarks when her husband expresses how disturbed he is by her imperfection. What’s the difference between collaborating with Nature and mining her secrets? Where is the line between imitation and interpretation? And can love only work its magic through the creative, rather than the critical, faculty? Wes & Erin discuss two short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne: “The Birth-Mark” and “Drowne’s Wooden Image.” Upcoming Episodes: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Julius Caesar.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website

The clash between Eli Sunday and Daniel Plainview, between religion and industry, steeple and oil derrick, might come down to something like the difference between a gift and a skill. Eli calls himself a son of the hills of Little Boston, an inheritor of land and legacy, a member of a family, and of a faith imagined as a family. Daniel calls himself an oil man, but only after reciting his resume as proof that he’s earned the title. He tends flocks of derricks, not people, and he leases both land and family to strategic, rather than communal, ends. Yet ultimately, each lacks what the other has. What is a gift without control or discipline, a skill without purpose or meaning? And is there a difference between a gift and luck? Wes & Erin discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film “There Will Be Blood.” For more analysis, check out Way Too Close on YouTube: https://youtu.be/J3usJ4fqOJU Upcoming Episodes: Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark” and “Drowne’s Wooden Image,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Julius Caesar.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website