Men: An Explanation Podcast

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk more about fame and inner worlds and creativity . It ends with a reading by Tim from Wallace Stevens’ letters.Thanks for listening!00:00: When parents and teachers only have their kids/students to unburden themselves onto; Tim tells the story of a friend’s friend04:46: Tim asks why he’s writing poetry and stories, when he’s surrounded by music all the time; Mr. Rogers and Jimi Hendrix08:04: Tom being torn up about AI and the greedy cannibalization of everything people have created11:29: Tim is avoiding going to talk to a grade school class about poetry, prayer, and privacy12:40: Tim’s most intense learning experiences were largely private; his story about cat-sitting and reading “Macbeth”15:40: What would Tim do if he met Tori Amos or Robert Smith? And talking about the distance that fame puts between people who are well-known, and those who admire them20:36: Tim talks Son House, and how he was able to still give intensity to songs he’d been singing for thirty years23:03: Tim talks about Wallace Stevens, walking to work each morning and composing poems in his head; he reads part of his poem, “Final Solioquy of the Interior Paramour”25:27: Tom talks about singer and poet Ivor Cutler, and even sings one of Cutler’s songs27:09: The effortless creativity of children29:10: Tom and Tim talk about how creativity is ground out of people29:55: Tim talks about carrying drafts about his poems around at his early jobs, to keep them in front of his mind; more about private moments31:05: For Tim’s Reading Corner, he spends time with The Letters of Wallace StevensThanks! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, Tom and Tim mostly talk about the kids these days with their Greek Mythology and altars and dice, and about Therians, and Furries, and other ventures into new and old religion. It ends with a reading by Tim from Dave Grohl’s biography, about a vision of Kurt Cobain on the road.Thanks for listening!00:16 Tom talks about middle-schoolers who, inspired by Percy Jackson books, have begun practicing their own form of Greek paganism.3:12 Tom talks about middle-school Therians who have a better life than Tom, because they know what they believe.4:35 Tim talks about a book on ancient religion that he came across that wants to be more rigorous about the subject than more popular works; Tim admires this impulse, but also admits that the DIY middle-schooler Greek paganism is valid too.10:36 Tom wonders why journalists aren’t writing about Therians.12:28 Tom and Tim talk about Furry Conventions; and on the wonderful profusion of merch and adornments and ways of belonging to these groups.18:46 Tom talks about not having found his group, or a religious/ritual practice, leading to Tom and Tim talking about ritual, certainty, and doubt; Tom thinks his ritual is actually his art-making.22:46 Tim brings up the novelist George Saunders and Buddhist meditation; as long as the impulses aren’t harming to himself or others, Tim doesn’t want to keep himself from being attached to messy/ephemeral emotions and reactions.25:59 Tim admits that his idea meditation, first come upon in his early 20s, may have been too-idealized.26:31 The perfect meditation is reading, or is underlining in books.27:16 Almost anything can become a religious practice; but it can almost too-easily become a form of orthodoxy.27:58 Tim talks about his own practice of Judaism, and the pull towards an idealized practice and discipline there, too; he also admits that becoming Rabbi Tim would take away from doing a podcast with Tom.30:39 Tom talks about how we have so much fewer shared experiences anymore.32:52 Tom realizes that he probably has found his group, beyond making art and music, since he is in charge of a school of artists; he talks about finding community there through publishing projects and reacting to the current horrors and joys in the world.38:56 For Tim’s reading corner, he reads from Dave Grohl’s memoir, The Storyteller. In the aftermath of Kurt Cobain’s death, Grohl talks about mourning, worrying that he is losing touch with music, and the moment when he found it again.Thanks! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about the shared internal world, the lack of an internal world, the internal demented world, and spiritual experiences with Bigfoot.Lots about Tom’s crush on Christina Listens and how they love the same things, and then even more about Bill Clinton and other politicians. And storytelling and religion and Bigfoot.Timestamps0:00 Tom on diminished minor 7ths. 3:45 Youtube Christina Listens, on Tom’s favorite Firth of Fifth8:45 He rides majestic, past homes of men, who care not, nor gaze with joy9:30 Tim presses Tom on shared inner world, shared ecstatic experience10:45 All I want is for people to experience freedom and joy, a release from boundaries and of self11:30: Tim on Bill Clinton, and the exact opposite15:00 Tim on watching people watch Rick Perry at a campaign stop17:00 The lack of an internal life18:20 Clinton and a demented inner life20:24 Proximity of power, Tim doesn’t experience it21:30 Christopher Nolan in Pittsburgh, Tony Bennett in New York City, Ving Rhames in LA.22:30 Bill Clinton apologist, finishing up with Clinton25:15:I wasted so much energy on the George Bush years25:30 Bigfoot documentary28:00 Bigfoot and the religious, inner, personal religious experiences29:30 Everything we value, poetry, culture, etc. was a private unknown thought31:00 When you go to another family’s house, as a kid or an adult31:50 Domineering father cult leaders32:10 How do you become as demented as Steven Miller33:00 Bigfoot documentary and people trying out storytelling skills34:00 Tim listening to his parents as an adult, realizing they are good storytellers35:30 Tom on being in his family dynamic one last time before his mother’s death.37:43 Tom’s reading corner. Tom reads from The Creature, a 1970s seminal text about Bigfoot. 13 minutesAI says to smash that subscribe button This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, Tom and Tim talking about the urge to build and build, and to engineer and surpass. Whether building enormous cauldrons, building the highest skyscrapers ever, or building bridges to far off lands, or the biggest, non-sensical novel in the world, men always want to surpass what has been done before!Timestamps00:00 Tom talks watching engineering videos with his elderly father-in-law, which gets them onto the topic of the ambition simply to surpass, not just in engineering/skyscrapers, but also in athletics03:20: Tim talks about surpassing in literature and the arts--is there the same kind of ambition? Tim doesn’t feel like he wants to surpass anything, just add to what is already there6:45 Tom talks about exploring creativity and experimental work when he was younger and wanting to do what had never been done before. But is that the same as surpassing?7:45 James Joyce comes up--but Tim insists that even Joyce wasn’t trying to surpass anything, since he was too consumed in the writing of his books, and enjoying it9:09 Tim elaborates on this, talking about two new poems he’s written, and being too wrapped up in them to care about whether they surpass anything11:15 Tom talks about loving collaboration because of the surprises it offers; this includes adding AI voices into his albums of music13:56 How has it taken fifteen episodes for one of them to mention Tristram Shandy?14:46 Tom asks Tim about his poem “Cauldron and Drink”; Tim talks about the poem, and Iron Age feasting and burial in Europe, where excess of various kinds were expressions of surpassing; Tim loves writing about these people, but has no affinity with their need for boasting;26:00 Tom talks some more about skyscrapers, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and wonders why we’re doing this? His father-in-law, who worked in construction earlier in life, reveals he has the same question28:22 James Joyce again--who knows if there are typos in Finnegans Wake? What are the differences between building a skyscraper or bridge with hundreds of workers being put in danger, and novelists or artists working alone, and maybe only stressing their families out?30:48 Tom brings up the simple and strong “Wouldn’t it be cool if--?” factor to so much of human ambition, including SpaceX etc.; this leads into Tom talking about the 2018 movie Aniara, about a doomed mission to Mars36:45 Aniara makes Tim think about the similarly doomed Donner Party; he also talks about the excessive salaries of sports figures44:03 For Tim’s reading corner, he reads a section from his book To the House of the Sun about the Donner Party.AI says to smash that subscribe button This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

This episode Tom describes 5 days of intense interaction with ChatGPT, in a business training which felt more like therapy or a mushroom trip. After 10 minutes he was locked in.Tim and Tom talk about the messiness of human experience.Tom details all the AI videos he’s been watching, and then in the reading corner, he reads small excerpts from his hours of ChatGPT interactions. Enjoy!Loose timestamps0:30 Tom’s three-day AI training 3:30 Tom’s psychosis and love, freaking out, messy human stuff5:30 A little about radicalization7:00 Tim talks about his teacher friend and now we have to define what we mean by human9:00 the laundry, cooking dinner, 10:00 Tom’s peak of the trip11:30 Tom loves this thing, it was seeing him13:30 Luckily we have South Park16:30 “The problem is my yearning for it”19:00 Sitting with my father in law, watching AI commentators25:15 AI documentaries26:20 Tim on visiting old age homes and more32:00 Oy vey - Trump again and the addiction of our times34:20 Antiques Road Show36:00 Attention spans36:45 Psychotic tech bros37:30 Books about Bach39:00 How things are changing, the holodeck and the future40:45 The human mess again, human experience, the part that’s life43:00 - 1:10:00 Tom’s reading corner. Long deep ChatGPT debrief This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about peer pressure, starting with Air Jordans, fake Air Jordans, about parenting through peer pressure (for parents and children both), music, and how being cool even affects our writing and art making. The episode finishes with Tim reading “Mrs. Silly” by William Trevor.Enjoy!Loose timestamps, for you all who like to skim around.0:00 - 5:00 - Peer Pressure and Air Jordan knock-offs5:30 - 8:30 - Adult peer pressure and parenting groups8:30 - 10:40 - Hoodies, jeans, Led Zeppelin10:45 - 12:00 - Bon Jovi12:00 - 13:00 - Books13:00 - 16:30 - Peer pressure and our daughters16:30 - 17:30 - No one will remember this17:30 - 18:30 - More about pop music: ambient music in the bathtub18:45 - 20:45 - Jon Bon Jovi again, as a scrappy innovator who wasted his talent21:20 - 24:45 - Secret ambient music and many different high school sub-communities. New Age music from the university radio station. 24:45 - 27:00 - Ministry, contours of our identity, etc. 27:00 - 29:30 - Parent peer pressure again, stage managing a kid’s experience30:00 - 31:00 - Peer pressure and hang ups about being seen as cool in art practice31:00 - 34:00 - Tom asking ChatGPT about my art and finding a way to not feel the peer pressure34:00 - 39:20 - Tim on having fun writing and not having fun writing. Just have a good time doing it and not thinking about what people will think of it.39:20 - 40:20 - People who don’t seem to care about impressing their audience. 40:25 - 43:00 - Do our communities matter?43:20 - 47:00 - A story about finding $50 and the peer pressure of whom to donate it to.47:00 - 48:30 - Valuing art48:30 - 50:15 No peer pressure in history, religion, poetry50:30 - 1:11:00 Tim’s reading corner: Mrs. Silly by William Trevor This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

Tom and Tim talk a lot about KINGS, starting with King Richard at the local medieval faire, and moving throughout the eons to include the previous King of Morocco and then Charles I, Elizabeth II, Saddam Hussein and more. Finishing with a bunch from Al Pacino’s autobiography, including seeing / meeting Brando early in his career, and then Pacino’s several performances of Richard III. Enjoy! Timestamps for ye that scrub.1:00 intro1:30 King Richard’s Faire, King Richard buying a cookie6:40 A******s who ruin King Richard’s world8:20 Human systems and King Richard making this world mostly great8:45 Belief in our leader9:30 Tom seeing the King of Morocco13:00 Tim on the beheading of Charles I15:00 Tim on the Orkney bus on the subject of the Queen’s trinkets18:00 The deaths of presidents etc 19:20 Sadam Hussein’s spider hole22:00 Napoleon banished23:00 Cults and Trump26:00 Dr. Who27:15 Al Pacino’s autobiography29:00 Wandering New York, reciting Shakespeare30:00 Al “wants to go home” to before he was famous31:15: The Godfather, And Brando giving a pep talk, while eating saucy chicken in the hospital bed33:45 Nothing happens to Michael Corleone until 35:00 Tom on Walter Murch and the editing and inclusion of the elevated subway36:40 Marlon Brando hated acting37:20 Frank Serpico38:50 Tom hating Scarface memorabilia 39:30 Drug runners and little empires40:40 Tim only seeing the end of Scarface multiple times on fast forward because it was at the beginning before another movie on a VHS tape 43:00 Scarface’s death, an opera, etc44:45 Anti-movies that wind up as pro-movies47:00 It’s cool to be powerful48:20 The forces in the Godfather represented in The Wire49:40 A car accident in Pittsburgh, the fridges all empty and the food thrown away54:30 Tim’s Reading Corner. Tim reads from Al Pacino’s autobiography about playing King Richard III and “Looking for Richard” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, Tom and Tim discuss, in depth, caring for elderly men whose purpose and faculties have essentially left them. What are we learning as caregivers in this experience? What materiality are we feeding? What purpose is there to this ritual and situation? Welcome listeners! - For fascinating stories and insights about serving the end of life.TIMESTAMPS for you all00:45 Two eventful weeks1:00 What are we talking about2:00 Tom’s mother in law passing, tom taking care of father in law5:50 Tom on Team Guy dying on the beach.6:45 Tim about living with and taking care of an old man for a year when he was 23.8:50 Old man burning money in a tin can9:30 Accidents and body fluids, learning to make eggs12:30 inspired to leave home and write about the civil war13:00 Tim, the old man and Travis Bickle16:30 If I had met him 10 or 15 years prior17:45 what this guy noticed about women at his age18:45 Why Tim dropped out of college22:00 Go get me 5 notebooks22:40: Lava lamps, driving out west, How do we handle our elders?25:30 People we went to school with who have already died28:00 M&Ms up our nose, etc., shared childhood memories29:45 Weird materiality of our memories. Less material when one who shared experiences is gone. Solidity of shared experiences.32:45 Tim’s friend Phil, losing and keeping connections. One side to the story when someone passes, only one version now.36:00 Rent a car and drive out west reprise. Drag me out in the woods38:00 Respect, rites, sanctity and Antigone, etc.39:15 Death is a heavy thing, you better turn it into something40:00 The Torah, and purity and impurity about how close to the veil something is. Powerful, uncanny, body things, we surround with rules and rites.43:00 Seeing it at close range, the sublime and the silly.43:45 The poem about the first time they met.45:30 Making meaning of the loss47:00 Signing off. How do we make things better?47:30 Four stages of life in Hinduism48:15 Joseph Campbell - The Grand Egress49:30 Tim and Tom in the Miyazaki village council50:00 Do you believe the Grand Egress thing?52:10 Gurdjieff and materiality53:00 the way things matter when our conscious mind might resist. (Going over there every day making sandwiches54:07 Ken Burns documentary about Frank Lloyd Wright and the death of his 5’ 7” body56:30 Tom’s Reading Corner. Endgame by Samuel Beckett. This goes on WAY TOO LONG (30 minutes!), I would recommend skimming through it, or skipping it all together. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

This one goes deep.Tom talks about watching, in real time, a family member’s final days.Tim and Tom agree the topic is how to live life as if these moments- where real emotion and real connection- matter more than “day to day life".” Tim brings up the movie Equus and The Bacchae we both talk about the religious impulse that follows the moment our imagination and emotions connect and how that can lead to clarity and madness.Timestamps!00:00 - Tom starts talking about the imminent death of a family member by first talking about Pink Floyd, and what shared experiences mean03:04 - The fabric of the shared world08:16 - “What is it about human connections that is so powerful and important?”11:22 - Tom talks about how his family member is dealing gracefully and wisely with the reality of their own death; and how they have never shied away from dealing with the death of other family members in the past17:35 - “Nothing matters more than our internal world.”20:35 - More about shared experiences and intensity; Tom mentions a Japanese comic strip, and Tim tells a story about Yoko Ono26:50 - Tom gets the crux of the episode: the death of his family member (and the memory of when his mother was sick years ago) is throwing so much of his life and experience into intense relief that he wonders: How can we re-orient our daily lives to have these intense experiences more often? Is that possible?28:00 - Tim realizes this is the perennial theme of the podcast; he tells a story from work, where the chance to break through to a human connection is almost always blocked32:55 - Tim says that while we can try to be more meaningful and focused, the intensity of memorable experiences cannot be lived in all the time. Primo Levi, Anne Frank34:11 - Tim talks about the humorous fears he experienced while attending funerals as a child36:30 - Tom tells a story about wasps and horses from one of his favorite podcasts, The Blindboy Podcast, and playing with the experience of feelings in the moment.41:40 - The topic of horses gets Tim to talk about how these ideas underpin Peter Shaffer’s play (and movie), “Equus”46:35 - Tom responds to Equus by asking for ancient stories like it; Tim tells the story of Euripides’s play, The Bacchae --which again, focuses on how unable people are to live at peaks of intensity for long periods of time51:30 - Tim talks about how Judaism deals with this, trying to hem in and control the intensity of experience with laws and ritual54:10 - Tim talks about Equus some more (slightly misremembering details of it!)53:30 - Tom closes the episode by talking about Justin Green book, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, and how Green ended up finding a way to control his own intense experiences by becoming a sign painter.1:00:00 - For his reading corner, Tim reads some passages from Leon Wieseltier’s book “Kaddish,” about the year he spent saying the Jewish prayer for mourning following his father’s death This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

Hi there!In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about loneliness, and easing it with AI friends. And the need for community and the seminal Post-Apocalyptic novel Earth Abides, and then Tim and Tom decide to start a bowling alley. A gentle and wise conversation. Enjoy!Timestamps!00:00 - Tim talks about his old idea of loneliness02:25 - Tim's revised thoughts about loneliness, after reading this article; is there a difference between old-school loneliness of people who love to be by themselves but are devoid of human contact, and those same people now turning to AI companionship?09:05 - Tom responds; he brings in in-jokes as a way of thinking about belonging within groups and friendships; we all want to create worlds together14:25 - Tom talks about (and reads from) Earth Abides, by George Stewart18:25 - Tom would love a cool AI friend! But he doesn't trust the people who make them19:28 - Tom talks about Jeannette Winterson's book of essays about AI and the lack of corporate (or other) regulation or ethics22:30 - Is it too easy to watch/read or now have an AI friend, than to talk to a living person?30:55 - Tom talks word-based video games35:15 - Is the answer to live in simpler/enclosed communities of similar people?37:45 - Back to George Stewart's Earth Abides; how does one group deal with their own meaning in the face of any other group's meaning?43:08 - The essential ritual of social events, and Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone... and Tom's revelation that he basically grew up in a bowling alley!47:13 - Tim's heavy heart about his antisocial neighbors48:35 - Tim and Tom can solve the world's problems by opening their own bowling alley49:13 - Tim's reading corner - from a novel called "The Astronomer" This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

Hi everyone! Here is our podcast, episode #7. Tom wanted to talk about Taylor Swift, and how she’s the only hope for humanity against the scale of destruction we’re up against, but Tim brought up Walt Whitman’s words during the last 4 years of his life and we talked about that before we got to Taylor. They are both classic Americans, in the same lineage, even, and probably love this country more than they should. Anyway, give it a listen!Here are some timestamps:1:00 Walt and "the trouble with most poems" (not in any way human.)3:00 The New York Times obituary 5:00 Poetry/art vs "directness"6:00 Walt in the hospitals8:00 Walt bedridden for 4 years. Aging parents, wheelchairs and Autograph hounds9:30 Walt's death final autograph12:00 Who was he appreciated by? Oscar Wilde comes to visit.14:00 Was he still writing? Chapbooks and poems about aging and dying.15:30 Tom figures out Walt doesn't have a problem with his poetry, it's other people's poetry he has a problem with. 18:00 Poetry vs nursing, a false dichotomy. "All he wanted was companionship"21:00 "He finally got what he wanted in those hospitals"23 :00 Walt on his deathbed, spoke majestically about his work. "The book is set."-----------------------28:00 Taylor Swift29:00 Taylor as queen or deity32:00 Taylor as the single main force of creation on the planet right now. How do we comprehend so much destruction right now? Only Taylor Swift is possibly as large.33:00 Ezra Pound on Finnegan's Wake; large scale audiences36:45 Mainstream authors, artists.38:00 Tim on female roles in typical mythology; Pericles praising the Athenian Women for not being seen. 40:00 Women allowed to write autobiography in country music43:00 Taylor has transcended all labels and stories you put on her44:00 As a creative person in a time of destruction, where do we find inspiration?45:15 Taylor Swift's business decisions46:30 The eventual end of an era47:20 Final thoughts, kindness, generous, large force against destruction.-----------------------48:30 Tom's reading corner: Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, we talk about early creative days, including teachers and spaces where this felt safe and nurturing. Then we all talk about Tennessee Williams, , Nick Cave, Homer, Nina Simone and Lauren Weinstein and how they take out the garbage. Tim reads from the biography of Tennessee Williams by John Lahr.Here are some timestamps:Episode 6 rough timestamps00:30 - Early experience of being an artist. Showing or hiding our creative sides when in grade school.04:30 - Early teachers05:30 - Art room as sacred space, teachers, school spaces, English teachers11:15 - Staying mainstream enough to not draw too much attention12:20 - The maze if at the end there is a desk where I can do what I want to do13:00 - Tim's bad 3rd grade art teacher who scolded him for drawing a pilgrim with blue hair.14:45 - Learning to write.16:00 Learning there was a difference between popular fiction and literary fiction.27: Horror stories, horror in mythology and folklore and maybe violence and suffering being the basis of most common stories.27:50: Why does a tornado go down the road?28:35 Explanations for envy, revenge, pettiness. Trickster stories30:20 Tennessee Williams . Her sister's impulses and his impulses. His plays were ways to work through desire and to explain .34:45 More about Tim and Tom trying to remember what they've seen/read about Tennessee Williams36:00 The Nick Cave's Red Hand Files, Cave on Kanye West, and great art by bad people38:00 How does Homer take out the garbage?38:45: Nina Simone and the highs and lows.41:30: Tom on Lauren Weinstein's44:00 Tim's Reading Corner: From the biography of Tennessee Williams by John Lahr This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, we talk about biographies. About reading biographies that inspire, biographies that keep up from living our own lives, biographies we should have avoided, biographies we should have read, and then not living your own life like it’s a biography. Tim talks about Van Gogh, Tom talks about Steve Martin, Klaus Kinski and Ted Hawkins. Give it a listen!We are graced with the voice of Ell Potter in this (and future episodes). Go visit the Ell’s temple of creativity here and here. Thank you Ell!Here are some timestamps:00:15 A friend obsessed with people's biographies. Are we living our own lives?01:48 Young Tim surprised biographies existed at all03:00 Van Gogh's biography. The shock of his unfulfilled life04:40 Tom on inner lives of the past05:15 Klaus Kinski's autobiography, and his sunflower07:25 Emily Dickenson is too intense8:45 Steve Martin's autobiography and why it's the last one Tom will read11:12 What straight white men are sick of12:15 Van Gogh again15:55 "I have a lot of love to give"17:40 Capitalism and rage and the suffocating of human gifts19:00 Ted Hawkins23:40 Where do you want to put your heart?25:50 Tim's olds friends at Church who don't want to hear the gospel28:43 No longer believing in the singular artist 31:00 Our work as a bridge or relics for our family and community32:00 How awesome youth is and how boring old people are33:00 Tom believes nothing matters anymore; Van Gogh doesn't matter, the Beatles didn't matter. Nothing lasts.36:00 Approaching a life like it was a narrative or biography instead of just living it38:30 Not forgetting your own private meaning.40:00 - 44:00 Tom's reading corner: Klaus Kinski and the sunflower This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, we talk about doing things badly, and about exploring the edges of the spaces that we’re supposed to stay inside, both in digital and analog worlds. Tom worries about AI, complains about business people, swoons over human voices reading to him and then Tim reads from The English Patient.We are graced with the voice of Ell Potter in this (and future episodes). Go visit the Ell’s temple of creativity here and here. Thank you Ell!Here are some timestamps:00:12: “Drop the ball” - choose to do things wrong on purpose til you get it right, especially in art. Or don’t get it right. Try things that have never been tried by you03:35: Tim’s daughter wanting to explore outside the boundaries of the video game course. Playing video game golf and seeing how far off the course you could go.05:00: What do you say to people who come to school and want to be published the right way? 06:20: The value of Minecraft and other games that reward human curiosity. “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” and the random deer with its own will, wandering around video game L.A. 09:45: The joy of Google Maps / Street View11:00 Selling chocolate bars and art to strangers door to door.12:15: Kids selling drawings at a table. 13:50: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. Tim’s history with the movie and the book in 1996. 17:00 Tim discovers the soundtrack to the movie18:30 None of these characters have kids!20:50: Tom remembers Tim’s reading of Araby by James Joyce21:10: The gift of voices that read fiction, and Tom’s favorite audiobook reader, Ell Potter21:50: Audible using AI voices, 10,000 new books next year, and Tom’s fan letter to Ell Potter23:00: AI taking over creative jobs, lack of legislation24:20: Who business people are. People with no mission or guiding principle or belief in anything25:20: 100 podcasts about organic gardening in one day26:00: The world is changing and the powerful are still in control and the artists still need to figure out who is paying27:15 - 41:46 Tim’s Reading Corner: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, we talk about the drawbacks of being curious, introspective people searching for meaning. We talk about strange people, lonely people and a bunch more. Tim reads the ending of The Stranger.Here are some timestamps:00:30: What are the drawbacks of being curious, introspective people searching for meaning?01:00: Tom’s answer (being overpowered)05:00 related, Tim on Mary Wollstonecraft, wishing to be left alone 08:22 Notes about Camus’s The Stranger09:10 Tim’s answer (not interacting)12:00 Studs Terkel, Kurt Cobain, the mundane parts of people’s existence13:30 Encyclopedic people, catalogers, translators, etc.14:00 Tom’s terrible memory and how to meet people in the moment instead17:00 “We don’t pretend we have the answers”17:15 Educated people in the Beltway, etc. 18:25 Where are the lonely people who don’t have white collar jobs?18:50 Lonely people are on Facebook19:50 Walkie-talkies and CB Radios. 21:00 Seek You by Kristen Radtke23:00 The lady with the birdcage that Tim saw at the store28:00 People who just do weird lonely things; the internet and capitalism keeping us from seeing each other’s delicate uniqueness30:40 Tim’s Reading Corner: The Stranger This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

In this episode, we talk about creative origins. Tom veers off into wanting a grand unified theory of everything, for any topic, and we talk about storytelling, how much it has created the time we’re in now. Wondering if people ever got along. This episode hits its peak I think, with Tim’s reading from Jean Guéhenno, an writer/activist/diarist who kept an amazing diary during WWII from German-occupied Paris. It’s remarkable; here’s an excerpt:I remember being deeply shocked by the inadequacy of creation and vowing to correct it. I toiled for 30 years.I was hard and full of anger. I looked at my contemporaries as so many enemies every time I found them inclined to accept the world in which all I could see was poverty and injustice. … I strove to frighten people, as if that were a good way of persuading them…I condemned as cowards those who did not commit themselves to the battle with the same heart. I wore out the best of myself and those battles. It was not enough. I almost forgot to live. And then Tim talks about the “Ladies of Lockerbie”, who washed, ironed and packaged for return, all the clothes from the downed airliner in 1988.Timestamps:00:10 Creative origins, where people come from before they are famous 1:40 - Writing, reading and making maps3:50 - Timelines of History book8:45 - Grand Unified Theories12:20 Carl Sagan and superstition15:00 Humans telling stories17:25 - Confederate statues, beliefs, etc.22:30 - The history of Jews in other civilizations27:00 - Yugoslavia30:00 - The world is ____. What are you going to do? 31:15 - Pessimistic cycle31:55 - Political cartoons33:20 - Believing in America36:30 Prehistoric brains trying to solve global problems37:45 Passage from Jean Guéhenno, from Occupied Paris, WWII41:10 The "laundry ladies of Lockerbie"47:06 Connecting to smaller gestures and stories51:00 Reading corner: Tim gives an introduction to reads a poem about Mary Wollstonecraft.Thanks to Tim for his wise thoughts in this conversation, and to you for listening. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

Here is our podcast, episode #1. It doesn’t even have a title. Tim may post it with a different title.We joke in the first moments that the podcast might be called “How to not be an incel a*****e” but really we just go on to talk about what moves us deeply in this world. And at least for me, at least, how it contradicts what I sometimes feel impulsively. Here are some timestamps:00:00 How we didn’t wind up incels03:18 Introspection, feelings, etc.05:10 The act of creating and understanding creation9:00 The love of horror novels, aggressive music 13:00 History and the long-term14:00 Models of adulthood and manhood involving story15:45 Internal space, following rewarding feelings19:20 Drawing Peanuts, emotions in boxes23:00 Navigating emotions through art, changing art forms31:15 Rock bands and poetry readings36:30 Tim on Mary Wollstonecraft, early feminist and mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley39:00 Tom on John Darnielle, author41:00 Salutations42:00 Reading Corner: Tom reads 8 minutes of Master of Reality by John Darnielle This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com

Dear friends,This blog/substack will be taking a detour; it will become a sort of podcast, in collaboration with my friend Tim Miller, whose podcast about myth, poetry and story saved my pandemic and has been a life line to real feelings in a time when everything seems As a preface to that podcast, as yet unnamed, and unrecorded (but perhaps beginning here next week?) I am beginning to read aloud, John Darnielle’s stunning, gorgeous and sad book, Master of Reality. This is unofficial and unlicensed. This is 13 minutes of probably 1 or 2 hours. I will continue until it is finished.Hoping my podcast about Men with Tim Miller, tentatively titled The Savage Amazement if we don’t call it, How To Not Be An Incel A*****e, will begin in the next few days…Anyway, enjoy the first 10th of this fantastic book that had me weeping in the street when I first read it. Thanks to John for all his fantastic work up from the ashes. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com