ArtiFact: Books, Art, Culture

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The ArtiFact Podcast is a long-form show on books, culture, painting, and music hosted by Alex Sheremet, Joel Parrish, and a revolving door of co-hosts and guests. Each subject is covered in depth and at length, with past shows featuring the Epic of Gilgamesh, Charles Johnson's "Oxherding Tale", Leonard Shlain’s "Art & Physics", John Williams's "Stoner", and more. Opinionated, controversial, and prone to making enemies and friends of friends and enemies, ArtiFact delivers new perspectives on the arts by artists of talent.

Episodes

Friday Dec 23, 2022

ArtiFact #34: A Climate Activist Dissects Ted Kaczynski’s Manifesto | Arnold Schroder, Alex Sheremet

Friday Dec 23, 2022

After embarking on a two-decade terrorist campaign of mail bombs, Ted Kaczynski forced the Washington Post to publish “Industrial Society And Its Future”, or, the Unabomber Manifesto, in 1995. This was an infamous tract on climate change as well as on the philosophical and pragmatic ramifications of accelerating technology.

In ArtiFact #34, Alex Sheremet is joined by radical climate activist Arnold Schroder of the Fight Like An Animal podcast to discuss “The Industrial Society And Its Future”. They tackle Ted Kaczynski’s claims about Leftism and political psychology, his time frame for ecological collapse, his use and misuse of terms such as “freedom”, and more. In assessing the Unabomber manifesto, they conclude that while Ted Kaczynski is often labeled insane or a genius, he is in fact neither. Rather, he is very much within his milieu, as well as a statistically likely end-product of his times.

You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0HNSRH1sKA

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on our Patreon page for patron-only content: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side topics: Alex's "unbelievable" banana; political turning points for Alex and Arnold Schroder; Arnold's activism and upbringing; the nature of the 1990s; political illusions; 90s vs. 2000s Internet, message boards, sever hosting; the over-willingness for everyone, of all ideological stripes, to be subsumed by fads, lingo, non-expression; how right-wing elements use liberal PMC empathy; the failure of social movements, narrowing of political possibilities; Bill Clinton's once-in-a-generation political talent; technological stimulation & human contentment

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV

Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3dSQXxJ

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Arnold Schroder’s website: https://www.againsttheinternet.com/

Arnold Schroder’s Twitter page: https://twitter.com/arnold_schroder

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Timestamps:

0:00 – Ted Kaczynski was neither a madman nor a genius

01:18 – introducing Arnold Schroder, Ted Kaczynski, the Fight Like An Animal Podcast; human nature, human psychology; the first battles fighting climate change have been lost; the Unabomber manifesto

8:54 – why Alex wasn’t impressed with the craft of Industrial Society And Its Future; how Ted Kaczynski is representative of 20th century pathologies; unethical experiments; Arnold’s background growing up in a cult prepared him to better understand Ted Kaczynski

18:00 – tackling the opening paragraph of the Unbabomber manifesto; the Nietzsche / Steven Pinker / Ted Kaczynski connection; ideas of human progress, cooperation; Ted Kaczynski does not properly define freedom; violence vs. authoritarianism

35:16 – ambiguity in Industrial Society And Its Future; some failures of Third Way and Fourth Way politics; the syncretic nature of politics and art; Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring as historical syncretism

50:52 – how Ted Kaczynski’s claims about “optional technology” proved true

58:10 – deeper issues in the Left/Right divide; why modern language of liberalism and conservatism is misleading; environmentalism is only recently a “liberal” issue

01:07:10 – Ted Kaczynski’s claims for Left/Right; hierarchy, openness, sexuality; moralizing about sexuality leads to ideological attachments; a masturbatory issue with zoos; pleasure and dopamine

01:15:45 – the Unabomber’s definition of Left Wing and liberal: political correctness, interest in feminism, gay rights, animal rights, antiracism; Ibrahim X. Kendi & what the Stop Asian Hate campaign got wrong; discussions of class & academia; liberal pathologies, hyper-sensitivities; the Left vs. objectivity; leftists exerting strength

01:31:00 – Ted Kaczynski’s argument about leftist values interfering with climate projects; de-growth and abundance; (slightly) greater scarcity as a psychological positive; discussing transitional states; food crises, inflation, collapse; the 2010s as a turning point

01:57:10 – previewing the patron-only bonus show: Arnold Schroder’s activism, the 1990s, Internet cultures in transition, historical promises, & more

Tags: #Unabomber, #TedKaczynski, #climatechange

Monday Dec 05, 2022

ArtiFact #33: Norman Finkelstein Speaks With Palestinian Refugees On Nakba, Gaza, The First & Second Intifada, Oslo, & Their Memories Of War

Monday Dec 05, 2022

Although Israelis view the events of 1948 as liberation, to Palestinians, this was “Nakba”, or “disaster”. According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, the events of those first few years were tantamount to “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians, a fact that neither Israel nor the international community have been able to properly deal with. How to resettle hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants? Was the original partition of Palestine equitable and just, and if not, what would a logical compensation package look like? Was Israel interested in a genuine peace process, or do the Oslo Accords, Camp David, Taba, and events surrounding the First and Second Intifada suggest that Israel, according to Norman Finkelstein, is frightened of a Palestinian “peace offensive”?

In this video, Norman Finkelstein, scholar of Palestine and the Holocaust, author of “Beyond Chutzpah”, “The Holocaust Industry”, “Gaza”, and “I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It”, convenes a panel with Alex Sheremet and several Palestinian refugees. These are scholar Mouin Rabbani, activist Sana Kassem, B’Tselem researcher Musa Abu Hashhash, and activist Arwa Hashhash.

They discuss their families’ experience fleeing Israel’s war of independence, the destruction of Palestinian homes, the apartheid system of law, arrest, detention, harassment, and subsequent wars.

Norman Finkelstein, who is himself the son of Holocaust survivors, often tells the story of his parents’ shock at Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinian refugees. He credits them with his moral understanding of the world and his interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Norman Finkelstein’s website: https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/

Mouin Rabbani’s work at Jadaliyya: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Author/4114

Sana Kassem’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SanaKassem

If you found this video useful, support us on our Patreon page and get patron-only content: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Timestamps:

1:25 – introducing the panel and their recollections

10:41 – 1947-1948; the Israeli War of Independence; Palestine’s Nakba Day; how the Israeli Declaration of Independence tapped international law to create Israel; Musa shares his refugee experience after fleeing the last Palestinian village in 1949; Sana relates her family’s experience of fleeing war; Mouin describes his family’s escape from the last Palestinian village in Haifa; Arwa’s claim that the logic of oppression and occupation cannot last

36:04 – the 1967 War; Mouin describes Israel’s use of napalm; Sana describes painting her light bulbs blue to avoid Israeli airstrikes; Musa describes his family’s loss of property

47:40 – Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Sabra and Shatila massacres; Israel’s reputation begins to decline; Sana’s experiences in Beirut during the war; legal racism against Palestinians in Lebanon; Palestinian inability to inherit property; Mouin describes post-1947 Israeli laws dispossessing Palestinian property; the role of Jordan in the Palestinian refugee crisis, Jordanian claims over the West Bank

01:03:51 – the First and Second Intifadas; Arwa recalls her father’s arrests, inability to go to school, Second Intifada; Musa recounts Israeli harassment of him and his family, detention conditions; Musa shares his disappointment with the First Intifada; Mouin describes the closure of schools and universities as collective punishment against Palestinians; the use of identity cards to restrict movement; labor rights in Israel and Palestine; Musa on continued targeting and harassment of his family; Norman Finkelstein describes house demolitions for stone-throwing; debating hope in Palestine; Norman Finkelstein on Gaza’s March of Return as the Third Intifada; lack of support from West Bank, Fatah

02:06:14 – the Oslo Accords; why the Letters of Mutual Recognition were a red flag for negotiations; Norman Finkelstein recalls his reactions to Oslo; Noam Chomsky’s warning about the Oslo Accords; the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE; Morocco’s normalization agreement, Trump’s recognition of Morocco’s claims over Western Sahara and the Sahrawi people; the role of Arab states in Palestine; Mouin clarifies Arab-Palestinian relations; Sana on the role of money in the PLO

Tags: #NormanFinkelstein, #freepalestine, #gaza, #israelpalestine, #apartheid, #westbank

Tuesday Sep 27, 2022

ArtiFact #32: Terminator vs. Terminator 2 - Judgment Day | Ethan Pinch, J. Schneider, A. Sheremet

Tuesday Sep 27, 2022

James Cameron's "Terminator" film series combines the best of Hollywood while remaining unburdened by its convention and cliche. In “Terminator” (1984), Cameron casts an apparently reluctant Arnold Schwarzenegger into the role of T800. From the opening shots of a nude, physically unfamiliar, almost biblical figure surveying Los Angeles, to the slow, complex, yet satisfying buildup of drama/plot machinations, the first Terminator is an example of novelty and craftsmanship in genre film, while “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” takes it all a step further through deeper explorations of character.

In ArtiFact #32, Alex Sheremet, Ethan Pinch, and Jessica Schneider compare the two films as they try to imagine seeing them for the first time. Questions discussed include: how does Arnold Schwarzenegger, as actor, add to the films without much acting? How does his character (even if programmed) change? Are human beings becoming more efficient thinkers and killers to compete against Skynet? Are narrative arcs “enough” to make a good film?

You may also watch this discussion on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIRS9DIl3bk

If you found this video useful, support us on our Patreon page and get the 2+ hour, patron-only “B side” to this conversation: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B side topics: Jessica learns the final piece of her Zoom puzzle; why Ethan Pinch’s pet rabbit made Alex think differently of him; explaining why Bruce Ario’s (as well as Walt Whitman’s) poems creep up upon the reader; Jessica assesses Bruce Ario’s Enneagram types via his novel Cityboy; how death de-fangs “threatening” artists; Ethan Pinch goes off on the British Monarchy, explains Queen Elizabeth’s hidden, understated power; the monarchy’s control of British media; Prince Andrew’s arms sales to dictators; Aleksandr Dugin’s “The Fourth Political Theory” doesn’t differentiate between strains of liberalism; Jessica on Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story on Netflix; thinking about psychopathy, human violence; debating the best artist biopics: Vivian Maier, Amadeus, Into The Deep (on Herman Melville), Emily Dickinson; making fun of Amanda Gorman; art & futurity

Read Jessica Schneider's article on Terminator 1: https://www.automachination.com/great-action-great-storytelling-james-cameron-terminator-1984/

Read Jessica Schneider's latest book of poetry, Ekphrasm: https://www.amazon.com/Ekphrasm-French-Painters-Paintings-Natures-ebook/dp/B0B53ZB2TV

Subscribe to Ethan Pinch’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/AnthropomorphicHorse

Read the latest essays from the automachination universe: https://www.automachination.com/

Read Alex's (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Timestamps:

0:18 – introduction; how James Cameron’s early films were formative for Jessica and Alex; arguments for why Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the superior film; Ethan on the shifting stakes between films

9:38 – craft in the Terminator films; symbolism, psychology, how Arnold Schwarzenegger realized over time this was a worthwhile film; seeing the film for the first time; Ethan on the Cold War and Freudian themes; Alex on the use of death, humanoids in Terminator 2 as a nightmarish factor; the comparison to Chris Market’s “Le Jetee”; the Hitchcock connection

25:32 – Jessica on the characterization of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton); smaller scenes as interstitial character-building; how Terminator and well-crafted genre films separate consistent thinking from mere aesthetic preference;

40:43 – Alex on capturing the logic of AI, computer programming; object-oriented behavior in human beings vs. machines; the Freudian / Cold War themes as under the auspices of competition, survival; the attempted Dyson killing as Terminator-like; sociopathy, narcissism vs. robotic behavior; Ethan on the films’ haunted future; The Prisoner and the “white ball” as the sum of incipient human fears; the cliches in the first film’s ending vs. the fact that “the real action” hasn’t been shown from the future; the introduction of behavioral constraints

01:03:15 – cynical apocalypticism into Terminator 2: Judgment Day; the Philip K. Dick connection; how the film makes fun of answers and non-answers, such as John Connor’s interruption of his mother’s spoken/writerly cliches about motherhood; the use of music; do cultural references date James Cameron’s films?

01:15:00 – the use of Los Angeles as both topical, as well as prophetic; turning LA’s Hollywood back upon it across films; Jessica on 90s culture

Tags: #Terminator, #JamesCameron, #scifi

Sunday Aug 28, 2022

ArtiFact #31 – Ryusuke Hamaguchi & Orientalism | Ezekiel Yu, Alex Sheremet

Sunday Aug 28, 2022

Although Ryusuke Hamaguchi has been a well-known Japanese film director for some time, it was only with 2021’s Drive My Car that his name entered the West. In ArtiFact #31, Alex Sheremet and Ezekiel Yu dissect Hamaguchi’s two best-known films: 2018’s Asako I & II, a romantic drama with strong anime overtones, and Hamaguchi’s breakthrough film, Drive My Car. Neither Alex nor Zeke are impressed with these films – from the cliched scripts, to poorly sketched characters, to cinematography which adds little to the films’ lacks, to a strange Orientalism (as well as Occidentalism) in the portrayal of women and love, neither Asako I & II nor Drive My Car deserve much staying power.

You may also watch this discussion on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjTPfXXdSPw

If you find this video useful, consider supporting our work on Patreon and get the patron-only B side to this conversation: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B side topics: Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” (2019); objectivity & subjectivity in the arts; the perils of artistic reflexivity, as in the rap world; why even the best critics & writers will have blind spots; Dan Schneider’s artistic blueprint; the coming of art that we might not even recognize as art; objective criticism is often accused of pretentiousness, yet subjective critique can just as easily be accused of narcissism; objective criticism is expansive; why removing most constraints eliminates true freedom; Zeke’s desire to bridge analytical criticism with James Baldwin-esque cultural comment; Alex’s method of writing means a lot gets thrown out; turning one’s back to the future means one will ultimately not be accepted by it

Ezekiel Yu’s review of Asako 1 & 2: https://www.automachination.com/beauty-filth-ryusuke-hamaguchi-asako-i-ii-2018

Ezekiel Yu’s review of Drive My Car: https://www.automachination.com/vacuum-taciturn-ryusuke-hamaguchi-drive-my-car-2021/

Alex Sheremet’s review of Haruki Murakami’s “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years Of Pilgrimage”: https://alexsheremet.com/review-of-haruki-murakamis-colorless-tsukuru-tazaki-and-his-years-of-pilgrimage/

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV

Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3dSQXxJ

Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxB

Podbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUo

iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Timestamps:

0:18 – introduction; Orientalism in Hamaguchi’s Asako 1 & 2, Drive My Car; the “anime” qualities of Asako 1 & 2; Baku as a JRPG hero; Asako and Baku have no reason to be attracted to one another; why the English title is potentially good, but wasted; the two forms of bad writing in Ryusuke Hagamuchi

21:04 – Ethan Pinch on Orientalism; the John Williams / Stoner connection; both films feature badly written women; women presented in animalistic fashion with no internal life; the awful motorcycle scene in Asako 1 & 2; why the film’s side characters are more interesting; how a good scene goes off the rails; more mechanistic problems with the writing; how the goofy landlord character is the Orientalist “weak Asian male”, a trope familiar to those who follow right-wing journalist Andy Ngo; how anime techniques get misused without a real object; the hypocritical portrayals of Asako; critiquing a bad ending; some of the film’s worst lines

52:07 – Ryusuke Hamagushi’s Drive My Car; how the film begins with an absurd setup which can only let the viewer down; puerile “slice of life” drama; the Orientalist reviews of Drive My Car; contrasting Hamagushi’s films with “Some Prefer Nettles” by Junichiro Tanizaki; an hour in, Hamagushi offers little depth to the characters; the ‘inner’ drama of Uncle Vanya; Occidentalism in Hamaguchi; Alex on Murakami’s fiction; Misaki’s character is just as empty as everyone else’s; on forced characterization; the weird necessity to “redeem” bad characters (if they’re pretty women); the objectification of Oto by all characters; mystery requires substance; the lamprey Orientalism; the film’s notion of an all-forgiving, all-illuminating love

Tags: #Hamaguchi, #JapaneseFilm, #Orientalism

Sunday Aug 28, 2022

ArtiFact #30: The Dumbest Things Elon Musk Has Ever Said | Alex Sheremet, Dan Schneider

Sunday Aug 28, 2022

Elon Musk is a South African entrepreneur who has recently entered America’s cultural (and political) wars. Celebrated by Joe Rogan and Sam Harris, Elon Musk has carved out a level of celebrity most CEOs don’t get to enjoy, amassing 100 million Twitter followers, marrying his brand to his own persona, and encouraging a cult-like audience which publicly defends Musk against bad publicity. Long derided for his business practices, from poor employee and car safety standards, to Tesla lemon laundering, to a wild bet on purchasing Twitter which he is now trying to back out of, his recent foray into politics (including attacks from Donald Trump) has only increased this criticism. In this video, Alex Sheremet and Dan Schneider assess Elon Musk’s self-claims against reality and the documentary record.

If you find this video useful, consider supporting our work on Patreon and get patron-only exclusives: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhnBzyZVwo0

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV

Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3dSQXxJ

Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxB

Podbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUo

iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Dan Schneider’s website: http://www.cosmoetica.com

Dan Schneider’s YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/cosmoetica

Timestamps:

0:18 – how Elon Musk outwore his welcome; body shaming Elon Musk; how Musk’s definition of Political Correctness & “wokeness” is applicable to himself; why has Elon inserted himself into the public sphere?

7:24 – Dan: how can Elon Musk be wrong on almost everything he says?

8:46 – Alex on Elon Musk’s free speech hypocrisy: the alteration of reality by money; SpaceX as having extracted from the commons; why the concept of the self-made man is incoherent

13:57 – Elon Musk’s early history; how Musk shares his father’s flaws while moralizing about them; what does it mean to be “against apartheid” while using slave labor analogues; family drama & blood feuds; why being “self-made” tends to only be about financials

19:54 – Elon Musk fails to understand the public commons; how the commons build up corporations; Elon Musk’s failures with autonomous driving; how the rich socialize costs by not thinking about outcomes

32:50 – Elon Musk is misleading the public on electric tax credits

40:00 – the top few posts in a subreddit critical of Tesla’s cars; Better Business Bureau ratings; the Tesla lemon laundering charges; are EVs greenwashing?

49:30 – Alex on the Inflation Reduction Act; true public investment vs. tax incentives for companies; the traps technocratic solutions create; hypocrisy on crime

59:00 – Elon Musk’s absurd COVID disinformation; Musk doesn’t understand the vaccine or lockdowns; disinformation on the nature of pre-existing conditions & COVID; Musk behaves as if he has no Twitter followers

01:09:20 – Elon Musk promotes the Great Replacement conspiracy theory; what Musk means when he says population “sustainability”

01:17:56 – Elon Musk on simulation theory; he makes a number of invalid assumptions, anthropomorphizes; assessing the typical Musk sycophant

01:27:00 – Elon Musk explains his political leanings; narcissism & virtue-signals; how does the world’s premier environmentalist forge an alliance with climate change skeptics?

01:40:35 – Elon Musk on art; says the video game Elden Ring is “the greatest work of art” he has ever experienced; Musk brings ideology to his Netflix critique because he is incapable of engaging art

Tags: #ElonMusk, #Tesla, #SpaceX, #ArtiFactPodcast, #simulationtheory

Monday Aug 22, 2022

ArtiFact #29: Abortion, Roe v. Wade, & The Constitution | Alex Sheremet, Dan Schneider

Monday Aug 22, 2022

Roe v. Wade was overturned June 2022 by way of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a decision that was decades in the making, yet little prepared-for. At Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing, she insisted that abortion is best viewed under the Equal Protection Clause rather than that of strict privacy, while in other contexts called Roe v. Wade a poorly argued decision bound to wither away. Despite this, little was done to formally ensure abortion rights.

In this video, Dan Schneider and Alex Sheremet discuss how Roe v. Wade was argued, what could have been added/subtracted, and analyze abortion rights from a holistic and constitutional lens. Dan Schneider also goes into detail about his experience with abortion prior to its legality and easy access, describing illicit medical procedures, medical harms, doctor/patient rape, and other forms of abuse which were rampant in the pre-Roe world.

You can also watch this discussion on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p_NC9UnHCs

If you find this episode useful, consider supporting our work on Patreon and get patron-only exclusives: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Dan Schneider’s website: http://www.cosmoetica.com

Dan Schneider’s YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/cosmoetica

Timestamps:

0:18 – introduction; why Alex believes Roe v. Wade helped in its own undoing

3:43 – Dan goes through the constitutional amendments which support abortion rights: the First Amendment: 1) establishment of religion clause; 2) genetic self-expression

8:41 – Alex: those against abortion *also* don’t seem to believe that a fetus is a person; why the total lack of desire for abortion-is-murder law enforcement?; infantilizing laws

11:55 why a fetus is “a human tissue” vs. “a human being”; why we might grant more “life” to praying mantises

13:28 – Amendment 4: the coming wave of “unreasonable searches and seizures” due to abortion restrictions; how Amendment 4 grounds “the body” in a right to bodily autonomy

18:14 – how the 9th Amendment guts originalism; denying unenumerated rights is radical right-wing judicial activism; 10th Amendment & all rights “to the people” – the individual is supreme

25:54 – Alex: Amendment 13 prohibits abusive limitations on one’s body; how religious arguments about “the objectification of women” paper over their own desire to objectify women by even worse means: sexual-biological demands, a demand to “perform” by way of the body

29:50 – Amendment 14: how the Due Process Clause & Equal Protection Clause protect abortion

32:20 – Alex: intuitive weaknesses in the privacy argument; Roe v. Wade didn’t make use of the best pro-abortion arguments, which the 14th Amendment also provides; Dan on Dartmouth College v. Woodward; Alex on Judith Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” providing an excellent framework for abortion rights; Dan on the Supreme Court

42:50 – kooky Great Replacement comment under our Christopher Langan video; mass dumbing down of culture & abortion politics

44:342 – uh-oh……………

49:00 – failures of the Democratic Party; *juicy* backtalk on Clarence Thomas; Democratic Party hypocrisy on abortion

01:02:00 – abortion & the Bible; do people become more right-wing as they age?

01:12:13 – Dan Schneider describes 1960/70s prostitution, illegal abortions during restricted access in New York; confronting anti-abortion protesters in the 1980s

01:35:02 – responding to Leah Libresco Sargeant’s New York Times article on classic abortion vs. ectopic pregnancy

Tags: #abortion, #roevwade, #constitution

Sunday Aug 14, 2022

ArtiFact #28: Richard Linklater’s BEFORE Trilogy | Jessica Schneider, Alex Sheremet

Sunday Aug 14, 2022

American filmmaker Richard Linklater occupies the space between Hollywood and the indie film scene, combining some of Hollywood’s refinements with unexpected inversions and sleights of hand. Perhaps best known for “Boyhood” (2014) and the Before Trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight), these latter films defined some of Richard Linklater’s chief concerns: the passage of time, the role of nostalgia in youth and adulthood, and the tension between fantasy and reality.

You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/CIgmRNDTpNQ

If you find this video useful, consider supporting our work on Patreon and get patron-only exclusives, such as the B side to this conversation: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

Topics covered in the patron-only show: Alex shows off his wild Tortie cat; Bach’s role in Jessica’s new book; Jessica’s COVID experience; the possibility of long-term COVID damage on biological systems; Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”; the weirdos trying to prove via Natural Language Processing that Jane Austen is the greatest writer ever; the coming tyranny of the “artsy programmer”; Jessica diagnoses Alex’s psychology; why Dan Schneider (not Nickelodeon Dan) is “extremely giving”; poking fun of Dostoevsky’s “Notes from Underground”; Jessica reads a poem from her new collection, “Ekphrasm”; Alex describes plans for a book diving into 90s culture + politics from all angles; Jessica praises Quentin Tarantino’s, Spike Lee’s stylistics; on “Good Will Hunting”; serendipity among artists; Jessica explains how Emily Dickinson changed her life; Alex reads the first poem (a sonnet) he has written in many years, about a black woman, Connie Marie Hobbs, who was murdered in the 2000s only to be scrubbed from the Internet; how Ezekiel Yu has vastly improved as a writer; Jessica has her 3rd glass of wine; Alex describes an animal’s response to personal musk

Jessica Schneider’s essay on “Before Sunrise”: https://www.automachination.com/wistful-dissolve-richard-linklater-before-sunrise-1995/

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Timestamps:

0:18 – introduction; Jessica Schneider’s three essays on the Before Trilogy; thanking a particularly generous Patreon subscriber for getting us closer to $500

2:17 – why Jessica Schneider has always been moved by these films, and “Before Sunrise” in particular

05:40 – Alex explains why coming to the films late doesn’t really take away their more intellectual appeal; how Jesse’s public access television idea turned into now-dead Internet fads

12:56 – digital vs. analog narratives; the thorny topic of dick pics; The Wonder Years connection; “young adult” artistry done well

18:36 – “Before Sunrise” plays with the idea of a ‘new dawn’ by making it undesirable & riddled with anxiety; “Before Sunset” is shorter, more manic in its energy, yet has a more poetic and definitive ending

26:00 – Richard Linklaker makes some intelligent choices with the German couple at the beginning of “Before Sunrise”; Jessica on fantasy vs. reality in the Before Trilogy; Alex on “Before Sunset” as a structural bridge between the films with a totalizing force, as opposed to functioning as a standalone work; how the “magic” disappears in “Before Midnight”

33:35 – Alex defends the Jesse of “Before Midnight”: both Jesse and Celine wanted the same thing, yet to reach it, Jesse had to sacrifice significantly more; how Richard Linklater establishes flaws for both characters

39:34 – Jessica on the Terminator 1 & 2 connection; the viewer’s waning or increasing attraction to Julie Delpy / Ethan Hawke as they mature; Alex explains why his romance and nostalgia have diverted into a richer appreciation of present-day reality (“an intellectual wall comes up”); Europe vs. boring-ass United States; Alex talks about the time Jessica “lost” him in the middle of a jog in Texas

45:27 – how the Before Trilogy slights Americans; connecting these films to the only good sequence in Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person In The World”; how “Before Sunrise” uses the gradual build-up of romantic tension vs. the give/take buildup of subtle (and not so subtle) resentments in “Before Midnight”

50:53 – Alex on the “pitter-patter” of little insights in “Before Sunrise”; the possibility of additional films; the co-willing, co-manipulation in “Before Sunset”; poet/beggar character interrupts the fantasy world in “Before Sunrise”

01:07:45 – the films are Ethan Hawke centric rather than following Julie Delpy’s character; why Jesse is always the one in a foreign setting; Woody Allen’s “Husbands and Wives” vs. "Before Midnight"

01:17:30 – getting lost in time’s instantiations

Tags: #RichardLinklater, #BeforeTrilogy, #BeforeSunrise, #BeforeSunset, #BeforeMidnight, #EthanHawke, #JulieDelpy

Sunday May 15, 2022

ArtiFact #27: Thomas Pynchon vs. Kurt Vonnegut | Joel Parrish, Alex Sheremet

Sunday May 15, 2022

Published just a few years after Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five”, Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” uses many of Vonnegut’s postmodern literary techniques: serpentine plots, anchoring phrases/themes, implicit and explicit political commentary without over-moralizing, humor (or attempts at humor), pastiche, and more. Yet the two books are wildly different in accomplishment. What accounts for such differences? How can we differentiate good from bad artistry in works of similar aesthetic predilections? In this video, Alex Sheremet and Joel Parrish debate the merits and de-merits of these two novels while focusing on characterization, sentence construction, insight, social commentary, the use of epigraphs, anchors, and fulcrums, while keeping the big picture in mind.

This conversation can also be watched on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN2QvbzqgD8

Timestamps:

0:24 – the Thomas Pynchon / Kurt Vonnegut connection; Gravity’s Rainbow as a narcoleptic; how Joel’s reading of a Thomas Pynchon debunk make him better understand the arts; using Post-Modern aesthetics for good & ill; comparing the first ~200 pages of Gravity’s Rainbow, Slaughterhouse-Five

12:50 – dissecting the Thomas Pynchon fanboy; good ideas vs. proper execution of those ideas; epigraphs in Gravity’s Rainbow, reading through the first sections and its clichés, various artistic failings; why the text is the equivalent of a Hollywood action film for those to “cool” and “smart” for such; how Pynchon goes from solid paragraphs to total formlessness; when writers try to overwhelm the senses, get cutesy for the sake of cutesy, & flail; Captain Beefheart vs. Thomas Pynchon, music vs. the written word

55:24 – dissecting the epigraph & opening chapter in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five; why Vonnegut’s opening is so much more dense than Pynchon’s, despite being more elegant & having less “stuff”; setting up phrases, words, ideas as pivot points & fulcrums; characters in Gravity’s Rainbow (~700 of them) vs. those in Slaughterhouse-Five; how Kurt Vonnegut ‘gets at’ war with no grisly imagery & pure metaphor; why Kurt Vonnegut continues to be ahead of his time artistically & in terms of his observations

01:40:09 – what is the purpose of the ‘Adenoid scene’ in Gravity’s Rainbow?; Thomas Pynchon systematically ignores the need for wit in such over-the-top scenes; later references to the Adenoid as word & fulcrum are empty, vs. Kurt Vonnegut’s treatment of similarly memorable phrasings

01:56:33 – Joel on later sections of Gravity’s Rainbow & why they are (marginally) superior; how the text presaged a balkanization of the arts into niche for self-indulgence & self-titillation; some better passages in the text; Section 9 & the (pointless) harping on the V2’s Poisson distribution as having an obscure salience

02:14:50 – Thomas Pynchon’s vs. Kurt Vonnegut’s treatment of race; why Kurt Vonnegut’s comments on racial riots are still ahead of their time

02:23:32 – the great “war in reverse” scene in Slaughterhouse-Five; why it works in terms of pure writing & character development; analyzing Billy Pilgrim as a non-heroic character & why Kurt Vonnegut made his choices; the role of luck & happenstance in the text & beyond

02:39:05 – Kurt Vonnegut’s treatment of free will vs. determinism; art theory in Slaughterhouse-Five; a few miscellaneous scenes

02:54:30 – some terrible sex scenes in Gravity’s Rainbow; why Thomas Pynchon had the right idea for the book’s ending to simply focus the movement of a V2 rocket, as opposed to moralizing about war; final thoughts on the text, why Thomas Pynchon / Gravity’s Rainbow was “meant to happen”, whereas writers such as Herman Melville were historical & cultural flukes; final thoughts on Kurt Vonnegut

Joel’s website: https://poeticimport.com

Read the latest from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Dan Schneider’s review of Gravity’s Rainbow: http://www.cosmoetica.com/B1277-DES88...

Tags: #ThomasPynchon, #KurtVonnegut, #SlaughterhouseFive, #GravitysRainbow, #Postmodernism, #ArtiFactPodcast

Sunday May 15, 2022

ArtiFact #26: Hermann Hesse’s ”Steppenwolf” | Joel Parrish, Alex Sheremet

Sunday May 15, 2022

In Herman Hesse’s “Steppenwolf”, we get a dense text which draws on various philosophical traditions in service of richly characterizing its protagonist, Harry Haller. What does Haller think and why? Are his flights of fancy a mere defense mechanism, or is there genuine depth behind his observations? How do the book’s less obvious (but no less important) moving parts all cohere? How can modern authors use some of the same tactics without leaning into what, a century later, might veer a bit too close to cliché? In this discussion, Alex Sheremet and Joel Parrish cover these and other questions.

You can also watch this conversation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPwCpSDEcnk

Timestamps:

0:24 – introduction to Herman Hesse’s life, work, and our top-down view of Steppenwolf

9:28 – why books touching upon Eastern philosophy need extra care in character development; how Hermann Hesse opens Steppenwolf for a pessimistic or ambivalent reading of the novel’s ending

16:04 – explaining the faux introduction to Steppenwolf’s “inner” text; how Herman Hesse taps Nietzsche; is the introduction’s final set of claims universally applicable?; meta-issues in Steppenwolf

33:00 – appraising the book’s opening paragraph; Jack Kerouac’s negative critique of Steppenwolf; Redditors in confusion once again

47:20 – Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Charles Johnson’s Oxherding Tale; contentment vs. struggle as a clue to Harry Haller’s psyche; his hatred for, and wallowing within, the bourgeois world; more examples of great lines/paragraphs

58:40 – the book’s action & temporal reality; Steppenwolf’s “magic” as a glimpse into Harry Haller’s mental break; the “Steppenwolf treatise” within the “inner text” and its function; humor vs. tragedy as artistic expression; how and why to laugh at oneself; the “multiple selves” posit of Steppenwolf & Siddhartha; why those with mental turmoil often believe their problems are unique, & how Hesse leverages this for the text

01:36:19 – Harry Haller meets an old university colleague; Haller’s self-serving critique of a Goethe painting; Haller given positive & even prophetic traits for being anti-war, seeing the germs of the next conflict

01:51:31 – Harry meets Hermine; some samples of great dialogue, as well as Haller’s growing realization how “rich” his life has been, irrespective of his current state; Alex & Joel argue that there is some critique to be made of Herman Hesse’s use and writing of female characters; Alex gets very controversial on the subject of old-man sex

02:13:20 –Hermine’s notion of permanence and eternity; the conflict of accumulating knowledge for its own sake; the Magic Theatre & beyond; Harry Haller’s gatekeeping as a psychological tactic; are some of the writerly strategies in Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Oxherding Tale done with those books, and now at risk of becoming clichéd tactics and tropes?

Joel’s website: https://poeticimport.com

Read the latest from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Tags: #Steppenwolf, #HermanHesse, #GermanLiterature, #ArtiFactPodcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPwCpSDEcnk

Sunday May 15, 2022

ArtiFact #25: Photography From Josef Sudek To Laura Makabresku | Joel Parrish, Alex Sheremet

Sunday May 15, 2022

In ArtiFact #20, Joel Parrish and Alex Sheremet went through the history of photography from Louis Daguerre (the creator of the daguerreotype) to contemporary photographers. In ArtiFact #25, there are fewer technicals to address and more emphasis on ‘forgotten’ and misunderstood photographers, with more connections to the art world as a whole. Among the questions asked: how can artists understand the techniques of one medium and apply it to their own art? What should the viewer look for in a photograph, anyway? What are the unique advantages and drawbacks of photography, especially in light of “borrowed” tropes such as painting’s still life genre? What do ‘timeless’ photographic shots look like, and is there a difference between those and documentary-style photography?

Photographers covered: Josef Sudek, Zdzisław Beksiński, Francesca Woodman, Hengki Koentjoro, Gordon Parks, Harry Callahan, Josephine Sacabo, Sebastiao Selgado, Laura Macabresku, William Eggleston, Pete Turner

You can also watch this conversation online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au4d8fjlmhQ

ArtiFact #25: Photography From Josef Sudek To Laura Makabresku | Joel Parrish, Alex Sheremet

Timestamps:

0:24 – introduction; why there has been such a glut of good (and terrible) photography the past half-century; Joel on the popularization of photography over time

6:12 – Josef Sudek (1896 – 1976) – his strengths & influence; the use of light, color, motifs, and inversions of expectation; an example of a great cityscape; Sudek’s use of abstraction; some issues with still life photography

53:29 – Zdzisław Beksiński (1929 – 2005) – a look at his paintings, surrealism, & comparisons with his photography; an excellent video montage of his photos; how photography naturally lends itself to a ‘softer’ or more muted surrealism; how to apply these principles across art forms & disciplines

01:26:06 – Francesca Woodman (1959 – 1982) – a young photographer who was known for her selfies; how Woodman was able to subvert the “nude in a dilapidated building” cliché; a (rare) excellent photographic still life; responding some flaws in The Woodmans (2010) documentary

01:48:32 – Hengki Koentjoro – a still-living Indonesian photographer known for his landscapes, oceanscapes, and more minimalist shots; Koentjoro’s subtle use of time-lapse photography

02:50:45 – Harry Callahan (1912 – 1999) – a Detroit-based photographer who was excellent in a number of styles, techniques, and photographic genres

03:06:08 – Gordon Parks (1912 – 2006) – a black American photographer who excelled at everything from fashion photography, to the documentary style, to breaking conventions across genres; how his Red Jackson series on Harlem captures the basis for art’s longevity

03:29:00 – Sebastiao Selgado (b. 1944) – a contemporary Brazilian photographer who is most known for his documentary-style photography, even as he pushed boundaries and tropes far outside of the range of more typical documentary snapshots

03:45:35 – Josephine Sacabo – a contemporary photographer with some of the richest uses of analog-style editing techniques; her dipping into ‘painterly’ processes; Josephine Sacabo as a technician

04:06:14 – Laura Makabresku – a contemporary photographer with a tremendous work ethic & an emphasis on symbolism, folklore, religious imagery

04:30:03 – William Eggleston (b. 1939) – a modern photographer who was a pioneer in the use of color, seemingly “unartistic” or banal shots, & documenting the American South at a time when it was out of vogue

04:42:32 – Pete Turner (1934 – 2017) – a photographer across genres and styles anchored by his expert use of color, whether it’s the depiction of New York City in the 1950s using a now-unexpected palette, his travel photography in Africa & beyond, or his more symbolic work

Joel’s website: https://poeticimport.com

Read the latest from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Jessica Schneider's review of The Woodmans: https://www.automachination.com/so-mu...

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com