Otis Brown's Podcast

Just a few thoughts on defending my doctoral dissertation twenty years ago today.Dedicated to the memory of Michael T. "Timo" Gilmore

A bit of news about my decision to walk the Earth--at least while I heal from shoulder surgery. 

Hey! Hope you are well. Here's a little update on the state of the Otis Brown Podcast! 

A quick note to my listeners. 

This week on Otis Brown Podcast, I rerun an (unfortunately) still relevant Podcast from July 15, 2020 on the state of the pandemic and some of the ways our response to it continues to be cultural rather than medical or epidemiological.Hope you enjoy. If you remember this podcast and don't care to listen to it again, please be patient. NEW CONTENT COMING SOON!!Thanks, as always.  

Some news on the podcast along with my apologies for (finally and inevitably) missing my (self-imposed) deadline.Thanks! 

In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I recount a chance meeting with an old friend and explore the complex feelings we have when new information does violence to old memories.Key words:J.D. Salinger.  The Catcher in the Rye, Seymour: An IntroductionEugen Herrigel. Zen in the Art of ArcheryLooking Glass "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"Dixie Fire 

Wear your lifejacket! In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I tell only the latest story of having to help pluck someone out of a would-be watery grave. I also talk about a bunch of old dead New England writers and painters, just because I always do . . . 

Hey, what do you do if you get a tax break? Pay down your credit card? Go out to eat? Bezos and Branson build cool rockets that the rest of us can look at on our phone! What fun! In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I offer some thoughts on the centibillionaire space race and make the (rather obvious) observation that Jeff Bezos is no John Glenn. Key words:Jeff BezosRichard BransonJohn Glenn Friendship 7 Gil Scott Heron: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," "Whitey on the Moon"Lightnin' Hopkins: Walking This Road by Myself, "Happy Blues for John Glenn" 

Just a little coda to the Wonderful World podcast. Image is Joe Everson's amazing "Louis Armstrong."

In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the new Questlove film Summer of Soul, which makes visible, for the first time to a large audience, the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. Dubbed the "Black Woodstock," the HCF was truly its own unique thing and its invisibility in the American cultural landscape has been a tragedy. The podcast is intended as a primer for the film and doesn't really contain any spoilers and, I hope, it also offers some useful insights to those who have already seen it.Enjoy.  

The Louis Armstrong of your time might be living in your town right now, and if you don't find him, you will still come out more than conqueror (just to be clear, a reference to Zora Neale Hurston and the great song of the same name by Estelle!) . In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I think about Ralph Ellison's assertion that there was a Charlie Parker in every town. I also encourage my listeners to embrace local music and discuss a painting by the NOLA artist Todd Lyons.   

An ad for Popeye's classic chicken sandwich? A rant about the Toyota Prius? No! It's this week's Otis Brown Podcast, wherein I think about my life behind the wheel of a pickup and the contemporary "list" country songs about trucks. Keywords:Blake Shelton "Boys Round Here"Tim  McGraw "Truck Yeah"Jerry Jeff Walker/Ray Wylie Hubbard "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother"Steve Goodman/John Prine/ David Allen Coe "You Never Even Called Me By My Name"Jefferson Airplane "We Can Be Together"Amiri Baraka "Black People" Patty Hearst Popeye's Classic Chicken Sandwich 

This week's Otis Brown Podcast borrows a title from the great fly fishing essayist John Gierach's 1999 book of the same name. Gierach's humorous and insightful writing casts a long shadow over the podcast and his 1986 book Trout Bum provided a practical handbook for much of my early life. The text I engage most this week, though, is Richard Brautigan's wild and scenic Trout Fishing in America. I hope I do justice to my passion for catch-and-release fly fishing by translating it into something edifying or at least enjoyable for you.As always, thank you so much for supporting the podcast! 

James Joyce's great novel Ulysses is set on today's date 1904; the date is observed around the world in what are called Bloomsday celebrations. In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I reflect on my experiences with Bloomsday and wonder out loud why so many people celebrate a novel that so few read. 

In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I think about why I get hung up on assessing my hobbies in terms of economics or A though F grading. I reflect on the toxicity of allowing academic or professional standards to rob us of the simple joy of doing something for its own sake. I also discuss the circus, Bob Ross and paint-by-numbers paintings.I hope you enjoy it!Thanks for sticking around for Season II of the Otis Brown Podcast.  

In this first full episode of season two of the Otis Brown Podcast, I reflect on why I picked up a shabby little cabinet on the side of the road and put more time and money into restoring it than I would have spent on making something good! Through a conversation about woodworkers James Krenov, Christopher  Schwarz, Roy Underhill and Shakespeare's 130th sonnet, I attempt to articulate a theory of second hand stuff and second chance lives. So, in the spirt of Malcom Butler (the patron saint of second chances), I start the second season of the podcast with some thoughts on all that.Thanks  

Reflecting on the first year of Otis Brown Podcast!Thanks so much everyone for supporting the podcast. It means so much to me that any of this has meant anything to you. 

In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I discuss the Urban Chicken Movement, William Carlos William's poem "XXII" (aka "The Red Wheelbarrow") from his 1923 collection Spring and All, as well as an earlier poem, "To a Solitary Disciple," the Allen Ginsburg poem "A Supermarket in California," the Taj Mahal song "Cakewalk Into Town," from Recycling the Blues and Other Related Stuff, and just about everything else! You know the drill--it's an Otis Brown Podcast. I hope you enjoy it and THANKS! 

Now that the Graduation season is upon us, let's think about unlearning, let's sing the virtues of resisting training, let us move confidently now in the direction of our dreams .  I don't know. In this week's podcast, I tell a story about a friend who wouldn't throw a ball for a dog and reflect on a life spent mostly on a front porch playing a guitar and complaining about the heat.I hope this is something you relate to and enjoy. 

In this week's podcast, I reflect on the early stages of what we are all hoping is the end of the pandemic and offer some thoughts on what we might become when we reach that point , as Katherine Anne Porter writes at the end of Pale Horse Pale Rider, where "there would be time for everything." Keywords:Katherine Anne Porter Pale Horse Pale Rider, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" Louis ArmstrongMark TwainTom Rush "Wasn't That a Mighty Storm" Wislawa Szymborska "A Word on Statistics" 15th Century Morality Play Everyman *the image of Pops is a photo of a painting hanging in my kitchen by Todd Lyons that Mrs. Podcast bought off the fence at Jackson Square last time she was in NOLA. 

Social anxiety, stage fright, glossophobia, lonesomeness, melancholia, I got 'em all. Yet, I persist. In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the perks of not being a wallflower and tell some embarrassing stories on myself, stopping along the way to explore paintings by Edvard Munch, the writings of Soren Kierkegaar and songs by Hank Williams and William Tyler.Enjoy! 

What is live music anymore? Does an autotuned, canned music high wire stage show even count? I don't really have an opinion on whether it does or does not, but I know for sure one performer one guitar and an audience still matters, no matter what the kids are calling it nowadays and there's still a lot of it to go around.In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I discuss Jason Isbel, Greg Brown, Ryne Doughty, Samantha Crain, Freakwater and some other poets with guitars who continue to hold my attention. Keywords:Jason Isbel "Tupelo" Greg Brown Ryne Doughty Spring Done SprungSamantha Crain "Elk City"Freakwater Old Paint Adam Carroll "Ricebirds" Townes Van Zandt "Lungs" Jerry Jeff WalkerJohn PrineSussurrus 

Pardon the bad puns--I can't help myself. In this week's podcast, I ask why de-oculation is solely the domain of the Greeks, the Bible, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, A. B. Longstreet, Davy Crockett, Cormac McCarthy, the TV show Deadwood--oh wait, everyone is obsessed with blindness in art! In an iteration that seems Biblical, but is unique to the American "Old Southwest," taking out your adversary's eyeball in a brutal hand-to-hand no-holds-barred fight called the Rough and Tumble is a favorite literary subject and rural pastime. I explore all of it and more in "The Eyes Have It," this week on OBP. Please like, follow, subscribe and tell a friend!Thanks (and, seriously, take care of your eyesight)   

This week's Otis Brown Podcast takes its title from Peter Case's great "The Open Road Song." I seem to be obsessed with singing this song lately. I've also been thinking about what constitutes "professional dress" for me and how this period of isolation may be changing that. Though I'm in a position to flout expectations of professional dress in my workplace, I fully-realize that not everyone has or wants that option, so I also want to use the podcast description to promote "Dress for Success," a really wonderful organization that has been helping economically disadvantaged women pull themselves out of poverty by providing them with the necessary professional attire they need to get and keep the career jobs they have trained for and deserve. If you would like to explore the organization or make a donation, you can find them online at www.dressforsuccess.org.Thanks! Be well friends.Keywords:Peter Case "The Open Road Song"Smoke (1995)Repo Man (1984)Cormac McCarthy, Suttree (1979) Emmylou Harris     John Randolph NealJohn Scopes"Scopes Monkey Trial" Clarence Darrow William Jennings Bryan H.L. Mencken Ralph Waldo Emerson "Self-Reliance" 

In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the culture of dueling in America and add some thoughts on Hamilton and Jackson--two of America's most famous duelists. Key Words:DuelingAlexander HamiltonAndrew JacksonMark TwainThe Tragedy of Pudd'nhead WilsonWilliam FaulknerAbsalom, Absalom!Thomas McGuaneThe Sporting ClubLin-Manuel Miranda Hamilton: An American Musical 

In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the monkeys who explored South American 40 million years ago. If we all came from the same place--however you imagine that--how did we get to where we went? The answer, of course, is that we went by boat. In Monkey Armada: I dwell in possibility, I follow Emily Dickenson, from whom I borrowed the podcast's subtitle, over the horizon of reason and into the possibility that the urge to voyage by boat co-evolved along with language as the oldest of primate traits. 

In the opening lines of Moby-Dick, Melville describes the wharves of Manhattan, where "posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries." Why do people take vacations just to stare at the empty sea? What do they see when they see the sea? In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I share some thoughts on the subject based on my experience as a long-time sea gazer and sailor.Thank you!And enjoy! 

Most of us have shaped objects with our hands. I want to explore how objects have shaped us through our hands. Though scientists who study haptic or tactile memory are reluctant to make assertions about touch memory and personal identity, I'm more than ready to make that leap! In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I tell the story of the first great guitar I ever played and think about how that moment may have shaped my life as a guitar maker and as an individual. 

Hey! Help me complete the map: I need some U.S. states! I would be eternally grateful if you would like, follow, subscribe and spread the word of Otis Brown Podcast.And, too, I'm already eternally grateful that you continue listening to my rambling improvised lectures.Thanks!

In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the Thomas Cole painting "The Oxbow"(1836) and muse on its use of the signs and symbols of his life in freemasonry. Are they a secrete code? Do they get us closer to the heart of the painting? Are we all looking at the same world here? Through a reading of the painting, I hope to take us to a conversation about our subjectivity and our deep need to control our understanding of the world. I hope you enjoy.

The Western is the most enduring American genre. In a perpetual state of revival, the western vanquishes all comers as the most important genre of American film. It has profoundly shaped who we are and how we are perceived as a people and I have a few thoughts on the subject. In this week's podcast, I discuss the Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly film High Noon, the Clint Eastwood films Unforgiven and Pale Rider, and the John Wayne films True Grit and The Shootist. I explore the push/pull of the genre and the complicated relationship we have to it. I hope you enjoy!

We all lose stuff, but where does it go? Is somebody finding it somewhere? In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I interrogate the lost and found game. Along with a reading of the Tom Waits song "Take It With Me," a Robert Earl Keen song, and novels by Frank Norris and Joseph Conrad, I offer some thoughts on what it means to possess an object. Thanks friends!Be well.

In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I offer some thoughts on the work of another great Mississippi native, the saxophone genius, template for all hipsters from then until now, the king of cool, Lester Willis Young, "Prez," born in Woodville Mississippi, August 27, 1909. I explore Lester's musical relationships with Mary Lou Williams, Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Marie Bryant and mention his proficiency with profanity--a thing I admire, even while I refrain for the sake of the podcast. Enjoy!Keywords:Lester YoungMilt HintonWilliam "Count" BasieMary Lou WilliamsBillie Holiday Coleman HawkinsNat "King" ColeBuddy Rich Gjon Mili "Jammin the Blues" (1944)To Have and Have Not (1944)Ernest HemingwayWilliam FalknerHumphrey Bogart

I this week's podcast, I tell the story of Marty Stuart taking inspiration from the The Dean of American Bassists, the great Milt Hinton. Marty discovered the photographs of the jazz great in the late 1970's and began his quest to do for country music what Milt was doing for jazz through his photography. Eudora WeltyMilt HintonMarty Stuart Lester FlattEarl ScruggsBill MonroeElla FitzgeraldGeorge JonesLoretta LynnSteve Earle

Interesting Stuff: reflections on the American place with side trips into literature, art, music, culture and language. Otis Brown's Podcast is a weekly 20 minute monologue podcast often addressing current issues through the lens of personal anecdotes and American Art and Culture--think of it as a radio show you can listen to whenever you want. With free-ranging stories built around cultural figures from John Lewis to Dolores Huerta, musicians from Little Richard to Dolly Parton and painters from the cave painters of Chauvet to living artists like Wayne Thiebaud, Otis Brown's Podcast attempts to construct literary narratives that try and make sense of the beautiful American mess we walk with in the world.If you haven't already, and you don't mind, please like, subscribe and follow wherever you listen to Otis Brown Podcast--and please, please share with your friends!

In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I discuss my chief pedagogical goal, my life as a teacher and my method that I call, "Let's pretend we're talking about a poem." It's not all me, though. I also discuss the great HBO show Treme, the new Pixar film Soul and a Billy Collins poem. I hope these reflections on what a teacher is and does are interesting to anyone who has ever tried to learn or teach anything--not just those of us who have lost our classrooms to the pandemic. Thanks!Keywords:Billy CollinsDavid Simons Jon BatisteStephen ColbertWendell Pierce Pixar's Soul HBO's Treme Papa Celestin Marie Laveau"The image is Eudora Welty's "Sideshow"I love that a professor is one of the sideshow "freaks."

Hobo mythology permeates 20th century American culture. While not quite as pervasive or expansive as American western mythology, the myth of the American hobo enjoys a unique position in American culture in that it continues to live and evolve. In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore some hobo writing, briefly discuss the films The Wild One with Marlon Brando, Hobo, the 1992 John T. Davis documentary, and Who is Bozo Texino? the wonderful 2005 film by Bill Daniel. I offer some thoughts on hobo art and writing and consider the place of the hobo in the American mythos. Hope you enjoy.