Men: An Explanation Podcast

Men an Explanation: Fame and Creativity

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 friend 04:46: Tim asks why he’s writing poetry and stories, when he’s surrounded by music all the time; Mr. Rogers and Jimi Hendrix 08:04: Tom being torn up about AI and the greedy cannibalization of everything people have created 11:29: Tim is avoiding going to talk to a grade school class about poetry, prayer, and privacy 12:40: 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 them 20:36: Tim talks Son House, and how he was able to still give intensity to songs he’d been singing for thirty years 23:03: 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 songs 27:09: The effortless creativity of children 29:10: Tom and Tim talk about how creativity is ground out of people 29:55: Tim talks about carrying drafts about his poems around at his early jobs, to keep them in front of his mind; more about private moments 31:05: For Tim’s Reading Corner, he spends time with The Letters of Wallace Stevens [https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Wallace-Stevens/dp/0520206681/ref=sr_1_1?crid=M4QLMQ5WM90O&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GVKvNMtyPtslHvonpqn3xH1_0XmdW3boiJM0K_ubm5ILLk3BImiRyNsdvU5OoeejfoNU9-cPuwefNtAuELWax9mykPYfE9kouZ939nQaO15qFyL4GnEi52OB-mkuH8ETVkApW5hjK96MMTS0GRFMmMShH8SNobgYOhynBkYLBNnaffGpj4V0dkLUNmg53b2ihvzVrq9eOE5pv66B-W7aONhlDE2cGRlVjQe-Q71HES0.hs6i1KhVo7A9T4w5TBQYB9Ih9Xw6KThc9rt4NbYtNqU&dib_tag=se&keywords=wallace+stevens+letters&qid=1776948354&sprefix=wallace+stevens+le%2Caps%2C533&sr=8-1] 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 [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Men an Explanation: New and Ancient Religions

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 [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Men: An Explanation. The Ecstasy and The Demented, and Bigfoot

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 [https://www.youtube.com/@OKCHRISTINALISTENS] and how they love the same things, and then even more about Bill Clinton and other politicians. And storytelling and religion and Bigfoot. Timestamps 0:00 Tom on diminished minor 7ths. 3:45 Youtube Christina Listens, on Tom’s favorite Firth of Fifth 8:45 He rides majestic, past homes of men, who care not, nor gaze with joy 9:30 Tim presses Tom on shared inner world, shared ecstatic experience 10:45 All I want is for people to experience freedom and joy, a release from boundaries and of self 11:30: Tim on Bill Clinton, and the exact opposite 15:00 Tim on watching people watch Rick Perry at a campaign stop 17:00 The lack of an internal life 18:20 Clinton and a demented inner life 20:24 Proximity of power, Tim doesn’t experience it 21:30 Christopher Nolan in Pittsburgh, Tony Bennett in New York City, Ving Rhames in LA. 22:30 Bill Clinton apologist, finishing up with Clinton 25:15:I wasted so much energy on the George Bush years 25:30 Bigfoot documentary 28:00 Bigfoot and the religious, inner, personal religious experiences 29:30 Everything we value, poetry, culture, etc. was a private unknown thought 31:00 When you go to another family’s house, as a kid or an adult 31:50 Domineering father cult leaders 32:10 How do you become as demented as Steven Miller 33:00 Bigfoot documentary and people trying out storytelling skills 34:00 Tim listening to his parents as an adult, realizing they are good storytellers 35:30 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 [https://www.reddit.com/r/bigfoot/comments/15v7yng/the_creature/], a 1970s seminal text about Bigfoot. 13 minutes 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 [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Men: An Explanation. Surpassing surpassing surpassing!

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! Timestamps 00:00 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 athletics 03:20: 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 there 6:45 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 it 9:09 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 anything 11:15 Tom talks about loving collaboration because of the surprises it offers; this includes adding AI voices into his albums of music 13:56 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” [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/imc3DWZsS5g]; 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 question 28:22 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 Mars 36:45 Aniara makes Tim think about the similarly doomed Donner Party; he also talks about the excessive salaries of sports figures 44:03 For Tim’s reading corner, he reads a section from his book To the House of the Sun [https://www.amazon.com/House-Sun-Tim-Miller/dp/0979870747] 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 [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Men: An Explanation. AI Love, AI Psychosis, Cults and Old Age

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 timestamps 0:30 Tom’s three-day AI training 3:30 Tom’s psychosis and love, freaking out, messy human stuff 5:30 A little about radicalization 7:00 Tim talks about his teacher friend and now we have to define what we mean by human 9:00 the laundry, cooking dinner, 10:00 Tom’s peak of the trip 11:30 Tom loves this thing, it was seeing him 13:30 Luckily we have South Park 16:30 “The problem is my yearning for it” 19:00 Sitting with my father in law, watching AI commentators 25:15 AI documentaries 26:20 Tim on visiting old age homes and more 32:00 Oy vey - Trump again and the addiction of our times 34:20 Antiques Road Show 36:00 Attention spans 36:45 Psychotic tech bros 37:30 Books about Bach 39:00 How things are changing, the holodeck and the future 40:45 The human mess again, human experience, the part that’s life 43:00 - 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 [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]