Why are we so blind, why do we see so little, when there is much around us to see?
So asks philosopher Alva Noë in Strange Tools, an exploration of how art objects contain, persuade, envelop, and direct our attention. What happens when we love a song, poem, or a moment in a day? How do these works of art direct and misdirect our attention? What––physically, emotionally, actually––happens to us in these moments of transport? And how can we talk about any of this without poorly paraphrasing that direct experience?
These are the questions Podcast Editor Josh Wagner was left with at the end of our last episode of Poetism. So, in this week’s installment, Josh invited Mitch Therieau, a Stanford researcher working on contemporary literature, to unravel the interstices of Lisa Robertson’s R’s Boat (2010) and the Airborne Toxic Event’s 2011 hit “Numb” off of All at Once.
Robertson’s poetry captures fleeting moments of stillness and the everyday, placing them in complex and abstract forms, while Numb’s soundscape desensitizes listeners to the world around them. Over the course of their conversation, Mitch and Josh plumb the surface-level depths of Robertson’s avant-garde poetry and trace the music history at the core of the Airborne Toxic Event’s track.
Longtime listeners might be interested to compare Mitch’s idea of what America is with Josh’s––way back from his first episode with Back in America.
Stay tuned for next week’s episode with Los Angeles-based filmmaker and tap dancer Johnnie Hobbs, featuring Amiri Baraka and D’Angelo and The Vanguard.
Check out frontman for the Airborne Toxic Event Mikel Jollett’s 2020 memoir Hollywood Park.
Listen again: Divers from the EPIX/ BBC Docuseries “Enslaved”: Diving on Shipwrecked Slave Ships
SETI – Dr. Seth Shostak – Searching for E.T.
Poetism Part 7: Can you describe it all? Scott Stevens on the Cocteau Twins & Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Poetism Part 6: Can you experience? Michael Leon Thomas on Whitehead and Pharoah Sanders
Poetism Part 5: Can you speak for others? Lorenzo Bartolucci on Seamus Heaney and Hozier
Poetism 4: Can you break a word? Gabriel Ellis on SOPHIE and Jos Charles
Poetism 3: Can You Feel It? Johnnie Hobbs on D’Angelo and Amiri Baraka
Poetism Part 1: Patrick Rosal and The Doors with Fang Liu
Doug Steinel: Cancel Culture in Classroom
Cargo-Sailboats are Back-at-Sea, Creating a Greener Supply Chain
Bruno Sarda: “Climate change poses a systemic, existential risk to the future viability of your system”
Students Becoming Pro: the Interns Behind the Mic
Navi Radjou: Is Frugal Economy a Viable Alternative to Capitalism and Could it Save our Planet?
How would you go to Zoom School as a homeless youth? We asked Bridging Tech, a charity devoted to overcoming the digital divide
Listen Again: Guns, God & the 2nd Amendment in America - David Treibs Christian & Guns Activist - Prof. Robert Spitzer Constitution and Gun Control Expert, SUNY Cortland
Derrick Jensen: Are We at the End of the World or just the End of our Civilization?
International Women's Day - Listen Again - Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings: Black Feminism, Civil Rights…
Who should get the vaccine first? We didn’t know so we asked a philosopher
Listen again: Eric Marsh - Being a Black man today in America
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