What Now with Simo

Train — Substantial — The aims of this podcast — Monty Python's Flying Circus — Village idiot sketch with John Cleese — Providing a useful service — An effect behind the surface effects — Writing sketches also for or featuring the others — Introducing the next topic — The themes of mystery, hope, and love — “Platitudes” — Shorthand for something less damning? — Troubling — A sickness of thought — Authentic realities — Love or not? — A creator who absolutely believes in love and mystery — David Lynch — Wild at Heart (1990) — Earlier mention of this film in season 4 — The Wikipedia article — Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as Sailor Ripley and Lula — Mystery, love, hope — Barry Gifford's novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula (1990) — Hope and the ending of the story — Things work out — The love of Sailor and Lula — Their own world — In love, devoted to each other, and into each other — Important in any romantic love — Getting off on each other — Mr. Lynch's clear belief all along — Twin Peaks (1990–1992) — Blue Velvet (1986) — Film critic Roger Ebert's comments on Wild at Heart — Misunderstanding — He had taken the film to be parody and satire — No, presented without guile — Eraserhead (1977) — Leaving Dune (1984) out of the discussion — More Frank Herbert's creation — No interest in seeing the new film — Plastic and oil — Side track, main track — Icons and iconography vs. living, conscious, evolving, human beings — Mr. Lynch was into all of it — No parody, no satire — It's a love story — Humour also — No dishonest moments — Trilingual (Finnish, Swedish, English) announcement (Jämsä) — Twin Peaks season 3 (2017) — Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) — Evolving understanding of “mystery”, “mysticism”, “mystic” — Murder mystery — Mystification — Nature mysticism — Direct experience of something — Problem about talking about these things — Anecdote about speech and experience — Being taken out of the moment — Failed communication — Deflated moments — Beyond words — Words and deeper feelings — Language came after — Its limits — Experiences beyond language — Acknowledging my contradictions — Walt Whitman on contradicting oneself — “I contain multitudes.” — A matter of authenticity and of compatibility — Lifelines — Fresh air, water, wood, the sky… — Forgot to mention stone (earth) — Shoulder bag as pillow — Grounding element — My rock collection once upon a time — Eventually let go of it — Who owns rock? — Downsizing — Owning stuff as a mental and physical burden — Hoarders — Back into nature — The hippo stone — Playground sandbox — The four elements as a principle applicable to both art and life — Philip Glass — Koyaanisqatsi — Director Godfrey Reggio — The Qatsi trilogy — Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaqqatsi (1988), Naqoyqatsi (2002) — The basis or bases of all matter — Something missing? — Balancing the elements — Applies vastly — Differing ratios — An ideal balance — A matter for intuition — Many works these days try to be all earth and fire — None of the creative arts? — Water, fluidity — This understanding goes back to our earliest art — Prehistoric cave art — Discussions between Pierre Estève (much more knowledgeable than me on this) and me — Monolingual (Finnish) announcement (Orivesi) — Creative record — Already an understanding of the four elements — Elegance a very advanced quality — Pablo Picasso — Panoramas and layouts — Disclaimer about personal ignorance — Later in time — Not an expert — Philip Glass and Samuel Beckett — Letting go of things tiring or even nauseating — Burdens of the past — The elements applied to our own places of living — A tool for troubleshooting daily life — Balcony drenched with fresh air — Phone alarm — Bathing in fresh air — Bath tub — Perfecting the elements — Good sleep — Journey ending — Returning

8 August 2024 (recording date) — Beautiful summer morning — Slice of dream country on the outskirts of Tampere — Rowing service gone — The wooden bridge — The cover of At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Bridge modifications — Lagoon — Esthetics — Windows of opportunity — True also with creative works — This podcast — No song-and-dance person — Leafing through the volumes of the podcast transcript books — Word-for-word transcripts — My favourite type of interview or discussion to read — Interview articles used to be edited to a very high degree — With recitations of facts — Thousands of interviews — Some humility — A journal — A place to reflect on my own and other people's works — Some autobiography — Goose-stepping — Looking back on episode 4.15 — A new freedom in music in the early 1960s — A few pieces by The Scorpions and The Ventures — Speed — Cars and motorcycles — Being able to go fast and freely — Emerged in the 20th century — Rock music — Expressing new feelings of freedom — Related feelings of exhilaration — In earlier centuries — Trains — Horses — Not the same thing — Creative update — Backlog — So far this year — One full work per month — What Now with Simo, Season 3 transcript book — Discussions with David Lee Homb and Pierre Estève — Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems (Large Print Edition) — Singles “That Dark, Dark Night” and “In the Fog, Deep” — Album Passages Dark and Light II — Sheet music book Tales from the North, Book I (12 piano duets) — The real world premiere of any of the pieces or the full set — Intentionally crude demonstration album — At Dawn: Early Short Stories (Large Print Edition) — Accessible for people with any visual impairment — A dear project to me — 18-point font for the book of poetry — 24-point for the book of short stories — Also for people who simply prefer to read a large font — Different editions of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass — Enjoyed the large print edition most — Inspired by the references in Northern Exposure — Certain things happen only when reading physical works — Mind quietens down, goes calmer — Tactile and sensual elements — David Lynch tweet — Emphysema — Smoking can't be removed from the equation — Otherwise in great health and filled with happiness — Will never retire

24 March 2024 — Passages Dark and Light II: Passages 1–43

Friday, 9 February 2024 — Table of contents not available for personal reasons

A place of the imagination — Bar / café — Still under construction — My music in the background — Albums and singles — The person in charge of the music — Passages Dark and Light — Tales from the North, Book I — Early Music Archive — “Land of Youth & Beauty” — 1 January 2024 — David Lynch's weather reports — “January one” — Being and becoming yourself — Finding your own things — Patreon plan — Seeking support — Possible future episodes to help people sleep — Sleep issues — Music intended to be calming and soothing — May not work for people with troubled, restless minds — Too easy to tune out — Occupying your attention — Season 3 of Twin Peaks — Freed from anguish for a time — An array of elements arranged in such a way that it alters your state of mind or the way you are feeling — What art can be — We may remember from childhood — Discerning — “Critical thinking” — A lot of my early music — Music system glitch — New stage a few years ago — Directness — “Turtle Morning” — American Indian ponderosa pine flute — Had with me on my travels — Start of the COVID epidemic in 2020 — Dropouts part of this piece (“Stream No. 1”) — Thump — The way I play this flute — Voice out of practice — Plans for this year — Backlog — Started putting out my own creations only in 2019 — At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Creation of more than 20 years — The most central things — Fiction, poetry, music, filmed works — Reading of Lovecraft poem “The Garden” — Early work on four games — Started focusing on my own creative works — Everything a result of long, careful work — Documenting — Preserving the magic and surprises — Responsibility of artists — Everything affects us one way or another — Fiction and nonfiction — The core things — Art & Love series — Dreams after a bad day — Dangerous state — 1) Grisly dream — Place of several rooms — Warning — Someone was going to chop up a body — Podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend — Was able to turn and move the “camera” elsewhere — 2) Bicycling around an amalgam of places where I've lived — Lake shores — Causeway — Bridges — Rain — 3) Meeting in a tunnel system — Brief exchange — Took off jogging down the long tunnel towards the light — Backpack — Felt light, healthy, fit — An uncommon habit developed a long time ago — Sneakers — Reflected real life — Underpass free of ice and snow — Great things about Conan O'Brien — Jim Downey — Saturday Night Live — Scene from Billy Madison (1995) — Adam Sandler — “Everyone in this room is now dumber…” — Norm Macdonald and crafting perfect writing — “Weekend Update” — Objectively good writing and editing — One word created a little vignette or story — What makes us laugh is separate from what we may “approve of” — Close to closing time — Test crowd — Figuring out the configuration of the place — A creative space — Thanks to certain special people

PART 1: SUMMER DAY: One last summer day — Boat on the shore — Did go rowing — Times I had the beach to myself — Later realised why — Water just right — Giving thanks for the beautiful day — Phone alarm — Many motivations — Boat drifting — Oh, a fish | PART 2: RAINY NIGHT: Rainy night on the balcony — Most of the lake recording unusable — Something discussed in season 1 — Artist Curt Swan — Known for his work on the superhero Superman — Feels strange to be talking about this again — A later realisation — Swan was pushed aside — Had to happen — Necessary change — Shifted position — This character — So strange I ever said it — Like another person — A personal reason — A brief good period for those comics that coincided with my teens — Intricate continuity — For the first time a sense of evolving into something more — “Mature” — Disastrous results — Wrong turn — Misguided — Not the right place for those kinds of stories — Simply had some fond memories — Sweet ideals — Being a decent, even a really good person — Intentionally misleading covers — Acknowledging my changed views — Another reason to be thinking of change — Too static — Lacking magic — Things that can make you feel good every day — An insidious way for a person's life to become less beautiful and treasurable — Times of staleness — Even when at the same time creating meaningful things — Why I'm here — Always different levels — Not rejuvenating, revivifying — Being able to wake up refreshed and recovered — Reasons why it may not happen — Sleep deprivation and illnesses — Life becoming more narrow and restricted — Freedom and new possibilities — Change becomes more difficult, if not impossible, the longer the static circumstances continue — Consciously shaking things up — Realising the need for change — Amassing more and more — Then started getting rid of things — Oppressed by all the stuff — Not giving me anything anymore — Seller's tables at Finncon — Long time ago — Sold most of what I had — Happier afterwards — The horror of hoarding — A psychological problem — Mental health issue — Can be extremely damaging — Becoming encased in your collection of belongings — “Will I really miss something that I'm now getting rid of?” — No — That voice should be ignored — Life became lighter — Collecting as a form of hoarding — Seeking security by owning physical things — I love having room rather than stuff — Not enough life for any human being to keep returning to thousands of things — Dust — Mould — The feeling of being normally healthy — Feeling good about being alive and able to breathe easily — Not something to take for granted — Some inner journeys are delusions — Good health is luxurious — Young people's beliefs that they'll always find meaning in the things they currently do — Happiness not in things themselves — No reason to keep a thing anymore — A lighter life — In the here and now — The future is not guaranteed — Wishes for insight and ability to make changes

“Season 5 Opening” (@ 0:00) — Second episode of the day — Recorded on different dates — Closer to the mic again — Nicer listening experience — Lake episodes — Drifting ever so slowly — Without larger goals, danger of falling into triviality — Dreams, aspirations — Not selfish things — Couples bickering in grocery stores over trivial things — Triviality has taken over their lives — Many different forms — Obsessions — Hypochondria — Can be learned from others — Empathy for people with this problem — Be careful — Preoccupation with quirks — Irritability, pettiness — Policing other people's behaviour — Bike example — Rageful people — Eliminating ways of wasting time — One way to avoid this fate — Lost human potential — Being creative — Numerous ways — My mother's creativity — She made our whole yard bloom — Kamikaze motorboat — Album Early Music Archive — 50 early tracks — Wide variety of styles — American Indian ponderosa pine flute — My way of playing it — Lovely mellow quality — On Bandcamp, streaming, and for download — Praise for Bandcamp — Great way to support artists — Ways to help artists create more — More income from creative work equals more creative work possible — And faster — Reacting, sharing, word of mouth — Adding tracks to playlists — One thing leading to another — Chains of events — Simply doing my work and putting out information about it — Limits of what artists themselves can do — The rest depends on others — Not becoming an advertising agency — The people I hope to reach — My first single — “Land of Youth & Beauty” — “Lake Presentation” video (2022) for the book Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems — Vision of a book in a lake — Recap of the creation story — The vision happened again with the book with me — Sunlight shimmering — No special effects — The life of an independent creator — Thousands of small steps building towards larger goals and dreams — Albums and a single — Further along on the path — The books of short stories and poems — Cornerstones — Following natural schedules — Pierre Estève: “Time is on our side.” — Faith in time — Drifting and talking — Beach all to myself for swimming — Water the perfect temperature — PayPal donations possible via my site — Calling millionaires and billionaires — Everything helps — The bottom line of how much one can do in a lifetime — Updating my site — New functionality — Picture of all my works so far — Always up to date — More sheet music — Interpretations always different — The way lakes and seas and waves are — No indications of dynamics — Tales from the North, Book I — Same for tempi — Apology for not having yet continued the serialised discussion of Andrew Mellor's The Northern Silence — Peter Falk's memoirs — Reminder to myself — “Season 5 Closing” (@ 30:06)

“Season 5 Opening” (@ 0:11) — Programming of people — Behaviour patterns — Part of the control group — TV, films, games, stories in every medium — More and more inhuman — Even subhuman — Since 9/11 — Torture — Non-critical depictions — Troubling — Many went along with it — The time torture was made legal — Antarctica — Arctic polar region — No justification ever — No free advertising from me — Crept quickly also into science fiction — Past critical depictions of torture and other types of physical, emotional, mental, and psychological abuse — The belief that we can separate fiction from reality — Media literacy — Stopped following broadcast TV about 20 years ago — Stupid stories — Very easy for the writers — Sexual assaults as motivation in stories — Told from the perpetrator's point of view — Not the victim's — Unlike with David Lynch's and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks — Events shown for the horrors they are — Not trivialised — What Alan Moore called “a pornography of violence” — Now common and mainstream in TV series and films — Chemical addiction to this type of content — Leading to withdrawal symptoms — Needing another “hit” — Most of these depictions don't help people process things — The need was created — Few people born with it — Picking you up again — Friends or something else — Not what we should be doing with our lives — Sad waste of human potential and art and creativity — Long process — Is this really what we are here for? — Is this a good use of our time? — Is this the best we can do? — Is this what we are looking for? — One thing addicts can't stand — What I am and am not in a position to do — Wouldn't want a child to grow watching thousands of scenes of torture and rape — Exploitative — Offering nothing to victims of such experiences — Keeping wounds open — Creating and maintaining the addiction — Many forget what beautiful and worthwhile things can be done with art and creativity — People actually pay money to watch rapes and torture — Is this really human? — Can only answer for myself — Everyone free to make their own choices — Tobacco addiction — Scientific facts — Ray Bradbury — The Ray Bradbury Theater — His short stories — How is it possible we often stay away from such beautiful and healthy things? — Time forever lost — The precious gift of being alive — Freedom — “Season 5 Closing” (@ 24:32)

“Season 5 Opening” (@ 0:12) — Heavy heart — Talk it out — Reconsidering last episode — A little knoll — Past discarded recordings — Attempt to have a little fun — Reasoning behind the collage — “I like messes.” — Not letting myself off the hook — Moving on — Possible problem for creators — The best I can — By the time I publish a book — Able to justify everything included and excluded — We could do an experiment — Negative space — Heaviness of heart and spirit — Something very positive — Lou Doillon — French — Discovered her first as an actress in a film — Outshone everyone else — Multitalented artist — Music — Writing, playing, and singing songs — YouTube playlist — How natural she is — Things she doesn't do — Like seeing and hearing a kindred spirit — Links between these various things — My past music — Final stages for my music album Early Music Archive — My 10th year of making music — 50 tracks on this album — Music from up until about two years ago — Newer music of a different stage — Bandcamp and CD Baby — Music can be a hyperlink — All kinds of moments — Getting fully up to date — Backlog — Reminders of things past — Someone I knew in another lifetime — Past, present, and future mix together — The books of early short stories and poems — Not an excusing label — More on art as a circle — The artist, the creation, someone who experiences the creation, and the circle returning to the artist — That final part of the circle of art — It matters — Motives that don't apply to me — Motives that do — Meaningful to hear reactions — A common misunderstanding — Theatre example — With an audience or without? — Alan Moore / BBC Maestro videos — My past regarding him — His pieces of advice on writing — Can no longer get into his works — Because he does everything — Not leaving room for the audience or imagination — Paraphrasing — The opposite of what works for me — Too much detail already filled in — No room to imagine — The original Star Trek (1960s) gave just enough detail to spark the imagination — Kirk, Spock, McCoy — Not too much information — No longer part of my mental landscape — At that point, I'm out — Why am I even there? — Both fun parts already done — Fan fiction — I only want to know a certain amount — Portable black-and-white TV — Playing outside — Snow labyrinths — There was still room for imagination — Few props needed — The limited interest of biographical detail — Trademarked names — Simplistic motivations — Life can't be reduced to single incidents — David Lynch proved with Twin Peaks season 3 that continuing series don't have to end up giving too much information — Season 2 — Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) — The Double R diner — Ed — Shelly — Already enough — Not making it less than what it was — Knowing when to stop — The value can be in the lack of that more — Agent Cooper — Sheriff Truman — Just enough — Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me — Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (91 min.) — Deleted and extended scenes — Edited by David Lynch himself — Norma's moment of quiet desperation — No unnecessary explaining — Drawing our own conclusions — “Season 5 Closing” (@ 44:35)

Veil of darkness — Morning row — Swimming on the beaches — Great privilege — My flashlight — Juice left — Creative activities — TV a lot — Arcane matters — Discussion — Completely against — About seven — Word-for-word perfection wandering off to one side — Come out later — Art is a circle — Talking baloney — At Dawn — Fresh inspiration — You will regret it — Properly continue — Early Music — Ten years — That Dark, Dark Night — Crystallisation — Love — An Iceland Symphony — Let them flow — All the feelings — One plus two — “In the Fog, Deep” — Eight is the number of infinity — Dissatisfied seagull — Dying to write — Be more fluid — How it made you feel — The sun has risen — Waterfall — Thunderstorm — Follow a story — Let yourself — Gentle moment — Absolute disaster — Needing to continue — Trying to backpedal but sliding forward — An oldfashioned fruit machine — This is a dance — From November 2022 to May or June 2023 — Cordial invitation — Nauseous — The full range of human emotions — Arm numb — For nothing — Bring some light and some beautiful darkness — What always is very meaningful

Long period of rains — On my rainy balcony — “Autumn Leaves” — Chet Baker's version — English lyrics by Johnny Mercer — Forecast — A promise of sun — The rains started — Ray Bradbury's “The Long Rain” and “All Summer in a Day” — The 1982 TV adaptation — Days for summer dreams — Beaches overrun with blue-green algae — Dangerous — Things I'm here for — Obstacles — Rejected by Finland — Collectively and individually — Outcast — “Die already, Simo, or go away.” — Dreams and aspirations — Resentment — Unfinished thought — Another chance for Finland — Past midnight — Creating the sheet music for Tales from the North, Book I — Long process — Hoped to receive some support for this task — Sleeping in fresh air — Glass panels — Night thoughts — Earlier picnic episode — Inflatable mattress — Exhausted — Burned out — Back to more energy and joy — All the doors remain closed — Seeking support — Not healthy — About my aims — Part of the international community — Kinship — Something I'm not — Not against Finnish things — 2023 — Wish for more understanding of the world and of long-term concerns — Topical, passing — David Lynch and Ray Bradbury — Among the most socially conscious in the deepest, most lasting sense — Universal human subjects that will never go out of date — People who seek to ride passing trends — Different needs — Imaginary exercise — Do you feel a burning desire? — Time-specific struggles — The full spectrum of human emotions — Many kinds of Bradbury stories — Timeless stories — “The Night” — “The Lake” — Beginning of July — All the losses — How much life is behind and how much remains ahead — Futures — Reading people — Seeing into a person's soul — Beneath the surface — Do I have a future? — Those very special dreams — Art & Love — Second volume close to completion — Real dream experiences — Physical and emotional effects — So many topics and several people — Their beautiful works — I wish — Burning too much — Honesty — Sharing the reality of things — Passing on some humanity and warmth — Idiots downstairs — Good night and wishes

Ray Bradbury's writing process — Secret self — This podcast — 2020 — Spontaneity — Backlog — My wandering way — Some intentions behind my podcast — Almost an anti-podcast podcast — Special guest episodes — One-person operation — No haphazardness — Morning at the lake — Calm — Now you're closer — Experimentation — Learning — Alan Moore — J. Michael Straczynski — Babylon 5 (1990s) — Online before most of us — Newsgroup — Demystifying the creative process — Obfuscation — Acting out of narcissism — Many different Alan Moores, then only one — Laundry to the laundrette — Occult and mystical subjects — Regular person — Personas — Not my kind of people — An outlet for thoughts and feelings — No local friends — A bug — Sometimes completely aimless — Being a human being — Free of all nonsense, façades, personas… — A record of moments both good and bad — At my best and at my worst — Ensuring this podcast will remain available after my own time — Currency vs. longevity — Glimpses of one person's life — Breeze — Perceptions — Something I hope will change over time — Celebrities — Simple realities re: all of us — Throwing up, diarrhea, bodily functions — No one any different — A fancy — Heroic, saintly images — Cultivating a mystique — After I finish recording — Letters and conversations — Communicating verbal thoughts — Thoreau and his journal — Our time's way of doing things — Warning about social media — More permanent, lasting form — Non-fiction book series Art & Love — Second volume nearly finished — Companion series — What Now with Simo vs. Art & Love — Recording things worth recording — Works by others — Written, polished, unlimited series — Accountable — Coming topics — Navigating in this world as an artist — Peter Falk's memoir Just One More Thing: Stories from My Life — Delightfully constructed book — But that's another story

Recording conditions — A topic — Filming — Bridge — Last summer — Perfect shot — Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems video — The vision of the book — Updated YouTube video descriptions — Illusion or mirage — What caused it? — Long winter wait — Andrew Mellor's book The Northern Silence: Journeys in Nordic Music & Culture — Serialised discussion — First two paragraphs — Special, even sacred things — Light in Finnish forests — Immersing oneself — The time problem — Attempts to gain more for creative work — Burning the candle — Weird one — Quoting permission — The sounds of a Finnish lake — People swimming — Finnish architect Alvar Aalto — Quote from musicologist, folklorist, and educationalist Pekka Hako — Buoys — Cushioned recorder — Ambience — Jean Sibelius — Tapiola — Spirit of the forest — “Forest winds and creaking trees” — Disorienting — Structure — Only key shift — Evocation — Silence — Minor to major — Single key — Music I grew up with — Film music — Game music — Background music — The X-Files example — From suspenseful to major — The Shangri-Las: “Leader of the Pack” — A whole story in a few minutes — Amazing composer and arranger (“Shadow” Morton with two co-writers) — The tragic moment — Upward shift — Ecstatic moment of release — Discussions with Pierre Estève — Silence, pauses, negative space — “The natural state” — Rocks — Editing or not — Sleep aid — Bringing light and lightness — Intention — Gull message — Talked out — Being alive — Beauties of the lake — Back to shore

The Paul Williams lyrics — Can you guess? — Following up — Talking past things — Too noisy and windy — Not morning — Golden time for lake episodes — The wind — Human and animal activities — Bird fight — Their own business — At the lake and in the boat — Past summers — Ran the boat ashore — Weather forecast — More regular podcasting — Broadcasting — Radio shows — Always liked finding my own way — Maybe just didn't find the right programmes — Tastes and interests — Northern Exposure — Chris Stevens (“Chris in the Morning”) — His radio show — Ideal — Terrific talk, real honesty, curiosity, great music — End of tangent — One important thing — Train wanderings, thoughtwise — Respect for living performers — Pianists — What I didn't want to do — That should be theirs — Real performances — The sheet music — For others to take over one day — For this music to be complete — Questioning — One last thing — Adrift — Catching the thought — Fishing — Simple question — Simple answer — Not an option — All I could do — Going home — Salvage something — When it's like the world is new and young again

Hello — Song by Paul Williams — “Nice to Be Around” — An interstitial episode — On a train — Family trip — Cup of coffee — Wooden stirrer — Second album — Tales from the North, Book I — 12 pieces — Piano duets — The nature of the album — The primary function — Introducing the pieces into the world — One rendition — For others to perform — Not mimicking actual performances — In the digital realm — In no way “definitive” versions — Liner notes — Not pre-empting — Professional performers — Virtual version of a piano from Abbey Road Studios — Spitfire Audio — Mrs Mills Piano — Bright and loud — Lacquered hammers — Lovely quality of detuning — Nice tang — Limits I set for these renderings — Soft and loud notes on this piano — Transparent results — All kinds of pianos — Tack pianos, honky-tonk style… — Overall volume — Concert grand piano — What some composers have done — Vertegrand — Upright piano — Artistic sensibilities — To demonstrate — Chopin nocturnes and preludes — Interpretations — Text notes — Bandcamp — This piano integral to the composition process of these pieces — Pro Tools — Preferred way of working now — Working directly with the final sounds — Sheet music — An Iceland Symphony — Musical notation — Notation app Notion for iOS, iPads — At a remove from what you want to hear — Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) — More flexible — Better choice — Piano roll interface — Classical music — Faster and better — Horizontal lines — Grid resolutions — Freedom to experiment and make changes — Having the music live — The upshot — Sheet music coming — Something else coming — Thousands of notes to notate — Ownership and copyright — Books — Reasons for self-publishing — Full control — David Lynch — Final cut — Absurdity — Movie example — Editing — Painting — Announcement (Jämsä) — Knowing when something is 100% how it should be — Publishers — Co-creations — Nothing wrong with it as such — Covers — Back cover descriptions — Advertising — Likeminded souls — Horrible covers — Many happier cases — Depends on the individual — Amalgamations of intentions — Pain only starting — Any artist at some point starts to know — Commercial writers — Responsibility — Not about ego — Can't betray that inner voice — Otherwise distorted — At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Amazon — The earliest of the stories from 2001 — The searching years — My most special things — Magazine anecdote — What would happen then? — In this day and age — 1950s or 1940s — Ray Bradbury — The world has changed — Legwork — Agents — Heartbreak and pain — Tunnel — Sleep aid — Long excursions into wildly peripheral matters — A great purpose — In real life as well — Relationships — Gift of sleep — Learned from Northern Exposure — Bernard — Chris Stevens — Good advice potentially anywhere — Blessings — Office jobs — 3rd anniversary episode with Pierre Estève — YouTube — Mangling — 1st of June — Lake episodes — 10 minutes of your life you'll never get back — The music of nature — The music of the train — See you soon

Sky Flowers: “Murmuration” pt. 1 (@ 0:00) — Intro — Sky Flowers: “Murmuration” pt. 2 (@ 0:39) — Locations — Megaliths of Carnac in Brittany — Shapes — Sourcier — Pythagore / Pythagoras — Special properties — “Gymnopédie Baaka” pt. 1 (@ 2:34) — “Sunriders” — High place — Echo — Rhythm — “Afterlife” (@ 4:28) — Fresh air — Temperature — Senses — Creating outside — Atlantis II: “The Sunken Isle” (@ 7:01, feat. Alyssa Landry) — Houses — 20th floor — Sunrises, epic storms — Black Moon Chronicles: “Incantation” (@ 10:18) — Theory — “Fairy Tales” (@ 12:06) — Adventure games on an island — L'Île-d'Yeu — Patricia Ruscito, programmer Pierre Gaudillère — Children of 8–18 — Weather — One rule — “Calm Morning” (@ 15:22) — Cameras — Drawings — Schools — Learning by themselves — Surprises — Pedagogically interesting — “Opera Baaka” (@ 19:05) — Adults — Director — Space — Computer voice — Homer Simpson — Perceptions — Dracula: “Harmonic Flow” (@ 22:01) — Learning from each other — Fresh ideas — “Curu” (@ 24:29) — Teacher of English — Research — “Good News from the Multiverse” (@ 27:00) — Communities — Northern Exposure — Deo Gratias: “Gaia” (@ 28:31, feat. Alyssa) — Adolescents — Porn magazine — Justified — Nazi captain — Sweets and a plushie — Pixel art — Teacher of Spanish — Objected at first — The girls helped — Atlantis II: “Knees Up” (@ 33:11) — Le Dossier de la Torpille (The Torpedo File) — U-boats — Coordinates, longitude, latitude — Motivation — Atlantis II: “Fintan's Tree” (@ 36:51) — Stones — “Toyos” (@ 39:13) — Earlier days — National Education — Atlantis Evolution: “Limules célestes” (@ 41:32) — Sound patrimony — Isturitz — Stalactica — Bone flutes — Spaces — 10,000 to 50,000 years ago — Resonance — Conchs, whistles, rhombes (rhombuses / bullroarers) — Outside — “Forest Spirit” (@ 45:28) — Nature — Greek theatres — Acoustics — Colosseum — Black Moon Chronicles: “Destiny” (@ 49:11, feat. Alyssa) — Applying results — “Honey Joy” (@ 51:25) — CD-Rom extras — Bios of Pierre and of Stéphane Picq — Boring lessons — “Itamaracá” (@ 53:00) — Piano and flute — “Journey to My Roots” (@ 55:34) — Horizontal and vertical culture — Dracula: “Elfin Song” pt. 1 (@ 58:06, feat. Alyssa) — Insights — Notebook — Sharing — Dracula: “Elfin Song” pt. 2 (@ 1:00:45) — Games — “Pacha Mama” (@ 1:02:37) — David Lynch — Musical storytelling — Leonardo da Vinci — Biomimicry — Twin Peaks — Connected — Atlantis II: “Stars” (@ 1:07:15) — Rare artists — “Ombres du Soir” (@ 1:09:26) — Credits — Inspiration — Interviews vs. discussions — Wandering — “Gymnopédie Baaka” pt. 2 (@ 1:14:47) — Studios — Architecture, woodworking — Always more — Atlantis II: “Illumination” (@ 1:18:58)

“Season 5 Opening” (@ 0:00) — Welcome to the heart of Tampere — Café — The year 2023 — Several episodes in preparation — Following season 4 — Collections of full seasons on YouTube — Season 5 will also have other audio elements in every episode — Music — Natural sounds — Lake episodes — Outdoors — Rowboats — Sound design — Context — Anti-podcast podcast — Ginger tea — Andrew Mellor: The Northern Silence: Journeys in Nordic Music & Culture (2022) — Need for changes in my life — Immersed in the Nordic countries — Insightful and thoughtful — Another quality I appreciate — The darker sides — Honesty — In the two very first paragraphs — Finland — Journeys abroad — Iceland — Paris — London area — Sidcup — COVID epidemic — Byways of thought — The forbidding nature of Finnish forests — Not fairylands — Vast — Dangers — Profound loneliness — In the right company and places — Wild animals — Bears — Immersing oneself in water — Bathtubs — Premier Inn hotel — Best form of relaxation — Bad decision by some Finns — Born surrounded by lakes — The Land of a Thousand Lakes — Swimming — Close contact with water — Light filtering through the woods — Quote — Many awards — Overwhelmingly positive reviews — A difficulty in my life — Backlog — Writer and composer — The simplest words — My interests in things from other cultures — Gaining perspective by traveling — The Hero's Journey — An aspect matching human psychology — Deserving of proper concentration — Made me smile — Screenplays — Dream of Snow — The game Serena (2014) — One of four writers — Poem “Oisín and Niamh” — Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems (2022) — Based on a Celtic legend — Myths retold and modified — My version — Clue about blue eyes — Celtic otherworld Tír na nÓg — State of being in love and loved — Book title in the game — Simo Sakari Aaltonen — Finishing the screenplay — Love the format — Films — Long-term agenda — Art & Love, Vol. 2 — 124 short chapters — Concision — Several albums of music — Bandcamp update — Passages Dark and Light (2022) — Tribute to Angelo Badalamenti — One of the greatest composers of all — Twin Peaks — Timeless music — Speaking to our hearts — The right place for the tribute — The importance of finishing the backlog — Having final cut — David Lynch — Making my books from beginning to end — Café closing — Important aspects of all books — Large fonts — Limiting your audience or not — Bye — “Season 5 Closing” (@ 30:31)

Atlantis II: “Astralia 1” (@ 0:00) — Welcome — Sky Flowers — Installation and album — Part of the main exhibition Flowers of Change — Roppenheim The Style Outlets — Village of brands — Consumerism and art — Sky Flowers: “Clouds Above” part 1 (@ 3:26) — The street — Special mental place — Senses — QR code — Sky Flowers: “Clouds Above” part 2 (@ 6:13) — Relaxed with beautiful things — Unusual — Strong reactions — Atlantis Evolution: “Memories of Atlantis (Reprise)” (@ 9:26) — Like a second exhibition — Deo Gratias: “Panthalassa” (@ 11:23) — Darkness — Gratitude for sight — Dragon Lore II: “Into the Legend” (@ 13:50) — Healthy effect — Experiences at the Isturitz caves — Music in Penumbra — The complete experience — Sky Flowers: “Pluie d'Étoiles” (@ 18:18) — Silence, negative space, pauses — “Wall of Sound” — Atlantis: The Lost Tales: “Spitzberg” (@ 21:32) — Active listening — Freedom — Obscura: “Lux Perpetua part 1” (@ 24:41, feat. Alyssa Landry) — Hot in Paris — Fan — Context and information — Ambience — Music for two new games — Scenario like in The Last of Us (2013) — Sound design first — Obscura: “Libera Me” (@ 27:41) — FPS (First-Person Shooter) example — Music matching actions and feelings — Applying new knowledge — Atlantis Evolution: “Life Cycle” (@ 32:06) — New directions — Being outside — Also psychological — Reactions — Moving quote — Joy — Peaceful — Plastic pollution — Connectedness — Dragon Lore II: “The Last Valley” (@ 37:33) — Picnic — Lying down outdoors — The sky — Clouds — Childhood — Sky Flowers: “Pareidolia” (@ 42:11) — Layers of speed — Landmarks — Anchors of health — Dragon Lore II: “Troubadour Song” (@ 48:58) — Negative or positive — Being in the here and now — Atlantis: The Lost Tales: “La Tisseuse de Destins” (@ 51:09, feat. Alyssa Landry) — Intense art — David Lynch — Twin Peaks season 3 — Dark relaxing — Dracula: “Gothic Love” (@ 54:29) — Dystopian and utopian — Being outside of both when doing things — Garden — Learning from nature — Atlantis Evolution: “Utopia” (@ 57:11) — Silence — Ways of understanding it — John Cage anecdote — Anechoic chamber — Pierre's same experience — IRCAM in Paris — Birdsong — Animals in the garden — Bamboo: “Esprit de la Forêt” (@ 1:00:34) — Recording and sounds of technology — Planes and field recordings for Atlantis II in Ireland — Post-production — Atlantis II: “Highlands” (@ 1:03:34) — At the lake — Recording not simple — Water — L'Île d'Yeu — Special way of recording water — Atlantis II: “Return to Atlantis” (@ 1:08:05) — Biomimicry — Janine Benyus — Interaction of an ecosystem — Systemic — Forest — Atlantis Evolution: “The Village” part 1 (@ 1:10:55) — Instruments and associations — Accordion — Madagascar — Atlantis Evolution: “The Village” part 2 (@ 1:13:23) — Couples dance music — My parents — Resonant frequency — Composing in situ — Genii loci — Atlantis II: “Places in a Ring” (@ 1:17:16)

“In the Fog, Deep” (@ 0:00) — Season 4 finale — Grief — Doors closed — An Iceland Symphony — Progress in life — Age and new directions — Making music — People driven to art and people doing art as a hobby — Creating something new — David Lynch and his life's work — Inspirations — Ideas — Never copy — Basis in reality — Possible misinterpretation of my aims — Ray Bradbury — Pierre Estève — Vangelis — Twin Peaks — The last thing anyone should expect from me — The real thing — Waste of talents — Our special things — A turning point — Receiving and creating — Journey through the history of music through its recorded forms — Late 19th century — No longer getting something from something — Repetition and repertoire — Horrifying — Beethoven — Wagner — Enough — Future generations — Bob Dylan — A supposed basic truth — Wiped out — Taboo — A dystopian vision for future children — Mozart — Schubert — Anton Bruckner — Just examples — Speaking to young hearts and souls — Endless, oppressive obligation — Limits — Fresh things — An adult mistake — 1,000 years from now — New music speaking to people now, in the future, and perhaps for all times — Outgrowing things — Superheroes — Enjoyable shared experience watching some of the films — Marvel — Specific context — Correction about Alexander Toth — DC Comics — Layouts — Educated guess about what happened — Told to tone down his creativity — Warren Publishing horror comics — Happens over and over in the world of art — Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) — Quentin Tarantino — Twin Peaks season 3 — Like fine wine — Importance of leaving things out — Uses of language — Faddish creative styles — References — Longevity — Later audiences and audiences around the world — Changing perspectives — “Weird” — Philip Glass — You can't address the present — Here now, gone tomorrow — Sense of responsibility — Theoretical frameworks — Missing the point — Genuinely possible to do new things — Formula scenes — “All is lost” — Calculating manipulation — Mr. Lynch's freshness — Inner lives — “Inciting incident” — “The idea tells you everything.” — Wrapping up — “Land of Youth & Beauty” (@ 35:03) — Full audio from the “Lake Presentation” video for Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems — Farewell for now

Northern Exposure dream — Rich and long — Many scenarios and segments — Dreams are a gift — Places familiar from earlier dreams — Another puzzle piece — Stan Jones song “Riders in the Sky” (1948) — A seed for Ennio Morricone — Great Western music — Finding my own way — Sergio Leone asked him to write in the style of Dimitri Tiomkin's Western soundtracks — Born in Russia, moved to the United States — “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling” from High Noon (1952) — Later instrumental music — The two influences — Spotify playlist “What Now 1956–1959” — Performance by Nelson Riddle — Music composed by Tiomkin — Two John Wayne movies — Rio Bravo (1959) and The Alamo (1960) — Johnny Puleo & His Harmonica Gang's “You Are Always in My Heart” — Now in the 1960s — Journey through music — So far listened to 72,268 tracks — Created 3,201 playlists — New: “What Now 1960–1964” — Name and cover art changes — Great freedom — The Scorpions: “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” — The Ventures: “Pipeline” and “Spudnik (Surf Rider)” — Firing the imagination — This freedom never existed before — How elusive it is — Only some very special artists have the key to that freedom always — David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE (2006), Mulholland Dr. (2001), and Twin Peaks season 3 — So much more to do with that freedom — Freedom and fragmentation — With regard to my own work — It comes through you — It's somewhere out there — Flowing through what you do — Can't be faked — You know the real thing immediately — Marketing tricks — May take a long time — Finding your way to ever more true and real things — Goes for life as well — Don't settle if… — Feeling truly loved — “You are the one. I don't want anyone else.”

Back at the lake — Episode of updates — Water perfect for swimming — One of my very favourite things in the world — Immersing myself in water — Lake, swimming pool, bathtub — When I start to float — Your own private world of blueness — The good type — The fresh smell of the lake — If you could bottle that… — Pierre Estève's new album Sky Flowers — On Bandcamp — You never know what to expect — All kinds of musical realms — Musical explorer and adventurer — Flowers of Change — Fresh listening — Store selling used books and magazines — The memoirs of Peter Falk: Just One More Thing — Columbo — A book very much after my own heart — Varied and modular style — Kin to David Lynch's Catching the Big Fish, John Cage's Silence, and my own Art & Love series — Mostly short chapters — Great use of titles and subtitles (subheadings) — Adventurous and fun books — Small chunks — More light on negative space — Thinking and talking became a second-best choice — An illustration of negative space — Negative space defines the work — It opens and frees you up — Book designs I dislike and like — A joy or a chore — Why I do things the opposite way in my own books — My music now on numerous streaming and download sites and social media platforms (e.g. Instagram and TikTok) — Passages Dark and Light — All this is legit — The music remains completely owned by me — Will never give away the copyright to my work — Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music — More than 150 platforms — Royalties — Art full time — Living the dream — A huge plus of Bandcamp — Warm thanks to my first supporters there — Stephen, Roberta, and Michael — You made this possible — Working on new albums — Folk song “The Three Ravens” — Spotify playlist for 1956–1959 — Raveny rendition by Frances Faye — Three crows on the wooden bridge — On the cover of At Dawn: Early Short Stories — When things like this happen — Something I believe

Weather totally amyaazing — Midsummer — Drifting and talking — Quick course correction — Too close to a marker — A whole episode about negative space — Other thoughts — David Lynch film Wild at Heart (1990) — Starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern — Beautiful sequence — Gas station — Drive through a desert — Trying to get good music on the radio — 100 miles to go — Horrible stuff — Violence, death, health issues — Lula — Sailor Ripley — Powermad (band) — Letting go — From heavy metal to a classical song — Richard Strauss's “Im Abendrot” (“At Sunset”) (1948) from Four Last Songs (Vier letzte Lieder) — “Abendrot”: “evening red” — Different versions of the song — Rowing — Great tempo — Finnish for “world”: “maailma” — “Earth” (“maa”) + “air” (“ilma”) = “earthair” (“maailma”) — Concise way of saying “planet” — Earth surrounded by air (the atmosphere) — Negative space

A short afternoon row from beginning to end without talking, with some quieter parts when filming.

Good morning from the lake — Back to rowing — Future presentations of my books — At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems — Hardcover and ebook — Low profile for the moment — The Land of Youth and Beauty — Feeling truly loved — Then you feel young and beautiful — Chronological age — Chris Stevens in Northern Exposure — A kind of companion book — Title, cover design, nature — No assembly line — So many things — Screenplays and stage plays — Poems from a time of searching — From my heart, soul, and secret self — The most special things — Many styles and topics — Now a very clear sense of direction — Markers to my future — The commentary section of At Dawn — Dates and comments — Classical poems — Sonnets — Other rhyming styles — Different rhyme schemes — “Oisín and Niamh” — From the game Serena (2014) — Free verse — Stream of consciousness — Spare poems — Happy, unhappy, absurd, funny… — No dates — Pedantry and lyricism rarely go together — Earliest poem from the year 2000 — Magazine of the Department of English — Only hardcovers and ebooks in the future — The beauty of the hardcovers — “These are now the final versions of these books.” — Royalties about the same — No gouging — Every piece of art is a result of the artist's whole life — Not only the mechanical action — Avoiding getting killed for thousands of days and night — Great relief — Weight off my shoulders — A local lake monster — Finishing things — Need to update website — Readings and other types of events — Videos — A right time for everything — Forgot to bring a hat — Sun beating down on my head — Looking forward to working on future creations — Backlog project — Many things to do and feel — Great feeling — Bare stage or fresh page — Visual art — Early music — Transcripts — Long intervals between episodes — David Lee Homb — Pierre Estève — Some future episodes — More room to breathe — Episodes on a more regular basis — Need to prioritise — Future presentations — Dedicated episodes — Spontaneity — Thank you for joining me on my little rowboat — Beautiful morning — Take care

Good spot for a picnic — Green grass — Forgot the pillow — Shade — Sandwich — S.Pellegrino sparkling natural mineral water — Shoes — Rainbow-coloured blanket — Helmet — Why haven't I done this before? — I don't believe in beating yourself up — Easygoing — A long time ago — Academia — Dry place — Parties and picnics — May Day — That part of the day — In warmth with a breeze — Basic things most important — Fresh air — The smell of grass — Colours — Tastes — Smells — A touch — Senses — Art & Love, Vol. 1 — Next part — Chapter on sensuality — Not hedonism — Indulgence leads to unhappiness — Distorted looking glass versions — What I see right now — Sunglasses — Bottle — Black bag — Shoulder bag from London — Zoom recorder — Lime-coloured helmet — Adjusting mechanism — Cars — Buildings — Hotel — Red brick factory — Caterpillar beer festival tent — Lakeside — Future topics — At Dawn: Early Short Stories — Passages Dark and Light — Ambushed — Amusement park — Creepy Carnival — Everything has its own time — Pushing, imposing, forcing — No — Eating the sandwich — Your battery — Eating outside — Perfect picnic moment — Very early summer — Buzz — “It was a picnic kind of a day…” — Mouthful — Taking photos — Thanks for joining me — Moving on — Sun — Find myself a city bike — Packing up — Paper Tiger — You're on my leather gloves now — For protection — Crumbs for birds — Down the hill, past the dandelions — Take care

“Season 4 Theme — 2nd Anniversary Opening Version” (@ 0:00) — Two years from recording the first episode at Hótel Vellir in Iceland — My mother's passing — My parents — “2nd Anniversary Lyre” (@ 1:52) — New leather couch from Denmark — “Passages Dark and Light — Part 1” (@ 2:40) — Note regarding earlier symphony discussion — At Dawn: Early Short Stories for a later episode — The three first Psycho films — Anthony Perkins — Lasting use of language — David Lynch and Ray Bradbury — Henry Purcell: “What Power Art Thou” from his opera King Arthur (1691) — David Lynch swearing — The music of Ron Jones — Sleeve notes from Film Score Monthly — What Star Trek was originally meant to be — Once upon a time — A person like a dragon — Philip K. Dick quote from his novel VALIS (1981) — Ideas — Intuition — Everything connects — Authentic and right — Don't fake it until you make it or you may break it — Negative space — A novel can be any length — Freshness from leaving out all the extraneous things — The Hours (2002) — The Elephant Man (1980) — Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) — INLAND EMPIRE (2006) — Healing devastation — Best possible advice for dealing with trauma — Readings of Ray Bradbury — “The April Witch” (1952) — How can we forget beauty? — Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) — The suburb scenes — Roy Neary played by Richard Dreyfuss — Metaphor for creativity — Artists can eat their cake and have it too — Northern Exposure did that often and well — John Williams quoting from “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio (1940) — Happy ending? I think not — Immature vs. mature — Field of Dreams (1989) — Dignity — Actors with dignity often get exploited for undeserving stories — Bryan Cranston — Jonathan Banks — The emotional toll this takes on the makers and viewers — I must speak my own convictions — Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones as examples of immature storytelling — Modularity as a creative principle — Quote about good teachers — Paul Chadwick's Concrete — Melissa Strangehands — Art commenting on art — Drawing from life itself — Art in your favourite TV series — A rock garden — Fragmentation — More on art in story worlds — Do comedians exist? — Moments that would shatter the psychotic intensity of many series — “C'mon, man. Don't be stupid.” — Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, Seinfeld — Dreams of Norm Macdonald, Philip Glass, and David Lynch — All the things stories are — One thing, two things, three… — A series for the young at heart — Dear listener of the future — Drink cans — H. P. Lovecraft poem: “The Garden” — “Lovecraft's Garden” (@ 42:41) — “Passages Dark and Light — Part 2” (@ 43:49) — Fake drinking in films and TV series — Imagine a world without potatoes — I had a dream of you today — About half done with the remaining notes — Cheering anecdote — All the music has been composed and performed by me — The future of my music — A video can give the best possible sense of how a book looks and feels — Good wishes to good people — Much love — “Season 4 Theme — 2nd Anniversary Closing Version” (@ 53:20)

Northern Lights, Op. 2 No. 1 for Lap Steel Guitar: “A Beginning Is a Difficult Place to End” (@ 0:00)© 2022 Simo Sakari Aaltonen. All rights reserved.

“Notes to Self” (@ 0:25) — Backlog — Some individual points — Line by Rod Serling — “What are you, some kind of sadist?” — Nicholas Meyer on specificity and universality — The very picture of a violinist — Sir Yehudi Menuhin — Poster in a café — Tastes in music — Plastic people — A really bad idea — Symphonies were originally not expected to be heard by any single person more than once — What types of music and what pieces of music you can listen to over and over again — Expectations of Beethoven, Mozart, and others — Very different now — Expected relistenings — Theme music for this podcast — Most advertising jingles annoy on purpose — Angelo Badalamenti's theme for Inside the Actors Studio — Twin Peaks theme by him and David Lynch — Highly relistenable — Sometimes you hit those times in life where the heaviness of what you need to experience is overwhelming — You can't express love generically — Devalues expressions of love — The companion playlists: “What Now with Simo 1952–1955” and “What Now with Simo 1956–1959” — No longer tweeting about new additions — On Spotify — Sharing beautiful creations with others

Year 2022 — On a train — Warmth — Finland has two great festivals of light and warmth — Midsummer and Christmas — Human warmth is a miracle — The most difficult thing to get across in art — Harder than comedy — Everything needs to be just right — Sense of balance and lightness — The Finnish Christmas song “Varpunen jouluaamuna” (“Sparrow on Christmas Morning”) — Prose translation in the season 4 book — Upcoming books and updates — The season 3 book will be special — Now all episodes play on all devices — A lot of catching up — Several books in the first half of 2022 — Collection of short stories — Hardcovers — Excellent printing — A tremendous change — Avenues of expression — Before the Internet and social media — We used to live in a world of far more limited freedom — Trilingual (Finnish, Swedish, English) announcement (Orivesi) — Algorithms — Editorial process — Nobody was in control of their own words — People have largely forgotten this — The bad old days — Everything was controlled by gatekeepers — The freedom of expression we now have — Struggle of thousands of years — Any threat to this needs to be fought — Always have final cut (David Lynch) — The rest of my backlog — After that, whole new fresh projects — Creations from times of searching — Different and distinct — These times — Blind faith in life working out — Even when it makes no sense to believe that — Light on the horizon

Finnish Christmas song: “Varpunen jouluaamuna” (“Sparrow on Christmas Morning”)

“Winter Is Here” (@ 0:27) — My tribute joke to Norm Macdonald — A reason why many old poems no longer play — First world problems — Hundreds of poetry readings from 1923 to the 1950s — Listening to some during morning exercise (5 to 6 a.m.) — Wordsworth, John Donne — Donne's “The Sun Rising” (1633) — Raging at the sun — Determines the comings and goings of lovers — Casts an imperious eye — How privileged? — A natural phenomenon an adult should be able to accept — Painstakingly, by hand, maybe with a quill and ink — “Saucy pedantic wretch” — Spinning creative wheels — Picture the scene — Waking up — How dare the sun shine when it pleases? — Guy ranting at the window — Undercutting everything I just said — Ponderous readings and readers — One early 20th century style of reading poetry — Quivery voice — This type of tone — “Wherefore must this orb of yellow” — Where did this style come from? — A product of a particular section of civilisation — Johan Huizinga — Play can very well include seriousness, whereas seriousness excludes play — Now there are all kinds of approaches — A short, immature vignette — Lost or not? — Right person or not? — Not difficult to tell — Do you end up letting go of your greatest aspirations? — Does your world get ever narrower? — Kick down the fence — Find life again — “Some thoughts from the Twilight Zone.” — The Twilight Zone largely grew out of the creations of Ray Bradbury — Discussed often in Blu-ray commentaries — Rod Serling — The Ray Bradbury Theater — Glad things worked out the way they did — The world is richer for it — Stephen Sondheim — An episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm — Officer Krupke — Krup you

So many of our problems come from misuse of language — “What is the meaning of life?” — Not possible without language — Like the memory of a wind that came and went — Questions of self-worth — At some point in the past — Need to be responsible with language — Any idea can potentially live forever — Self-defeating and other-defeating ideas — Ruthless — Mosquitoes — Getting rid of deeply seated thoughts — “A high standard” — Nonsense thinking about perfection — Emotional self-abuse — Physical effects — No difference — Another basic flaw — “Failure” and “success” can only apply to a process that has come to a conclusion — Aiming at the Moon — All part of the journey there — The only real failures — Our ways of abusing language are multiplying — An imaginative exercise — If you want to suffer more — Come up with new levels of gradation re: failure — A destructive type of thinking — Better ways — Pierre Estève: “Time is on our side.”

An illustration — Something I and Pierre talked about — Silence, negative space, and room — Tight vs. looser editing — Exact same background music (“Fresh Start”) — Postponing some topics — Great losses recently — An uncle, a friend, Dean Stockwell — The passing of Norm Macdonald — He was the first outside my personal circle to have an impact on this podcast — Early in season 1 — Norm's encouraging tweet — Messaging — Sent him my books — The prospect of doing a podcast with him — Amazing amount of appearances on podcasts etc. — Kept his cancer secret — He's hugely important — Free — A good soul — Feeling of freedom and space — Two different energies people can create — Dave Chappelle — His last Netflix special — Thoughts get stirred around — Not telling others what to think — Narrow path of only currently approved thoughts and opinions — Religious — Authentically what he was — His way of being — Relaxed — No rush — Pauses — Natural pacing — Unlike many other performers — Breathing naturally — Same kind of calm as with David Lynch — Patron saint of this podcast

“Season 4 Theme” (@ 0:00) — Welcome — “Fresh Start” (@ 0:33) — New cover art and theme tune — Looking back on season 3 — Discussions with David Lee Homb and Pierre Estève — Great feedback — All music in my own episodes is by me — No ready-made elements — Hardcover books — An Iceland Symphony — Short episodes — Introductory episode — Original idea and secret hope — Chris Stevens in Northern Exposure — Pierre's music — His and David's generosity — David's first book of poetry Awake, I Dream — Future plans — Next steps with An Iceland Symphony — Book of short stories later this year — Catching up with transcriptions — Season 3 book of transcripts — Including full transcripts of the discussions with David and Pierre — A million other things — Welcome aboard — Good wishes

Atlantis II: “Rainbow Bridge” (@ 0:00) — Cahors — Avignon — Nature and wild places — Dragon Lore II: “Sanctuary” (@ 2:02) — Listening — Sound is a miracle — Field recordings — Studies — Learning — Your own voice — Confidence — The best way to learn — Pleasure in the doing — Teachers — David Lynch — Rules vs. principles — John Cage: Silence (1961) — Freedom — Atlantis: The Lost Tales: “Spitzberg” (@ 12:20) — The way Mr. Lynch learned screenwriting — Restrictive rules — Surprises — Changes in mood — Season 3 of Twin Peaks — Current reading and films — Many interests — Edward Bernays — Rules of propaganda — Short film Propaganda — Noam Chomsky — Poetry — Technical things — Janine Benyus and biomimicry — Ken Loach — Lars von Trier — Also some Hollywood movies — Dracula: “Flying Over the Mountains” (@ 20:50) — Koyaanisqatsi (1982) — Baraka (1992) — Story told without words — Director Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass — Collaborations — Not an effort but a joy — Stéphane Picq — Early computer music — Cryo's Dune (1992) — Atlantis: The Lost Tales: “Crystal Winds” (@ 27:30) — Instrument collection — Ireland, Turkey, Indonesia… — Male and female voices — Atlantis II: “The River” (@ 30:44) — Studies in singing, conducting, composing, and more — Alyssa Landry and Gaëlle Zydian — The end of Atlantis II — Two flutes — Atlantis II: “Child” (@ 34:12) — Invisible links that music can reveal — Utopias and new worlds — Architecture — A full ecosystem — The flying ships — Great musical challenge — Pythagore / Pythagoras — Atlantis: The Lost Tales: “Awakening” (@ 39:19) — Atlantis II: “Tepec” (@ 41:41) — Caves in Southern France — Stalactica — Isturitz and Oxocelhaya — Prehistoric — Concretions — MADe In series — Bamboo — Metal — Stone — Lithophones — Senses — Bamboo: “Flowering Mystery” (@ 47:39) — Longevity — Tuned stalactites — Perfect fifth — Cave paintings — Elegance — Essence — Engravings — Animating images — The impulse to do art — Bows — Communing — Spirits — Atlantis Evolution: “Worlds Beyond” (@ 55:19) — Relief paintings — Places chosen by sound — Echolocation — Resonance — Iégor Reznikoff — Reverberation — Fundamental — Resonant frequency — Atlantis Evolution: “Ancient Shells” (@ 1:03:05) — The spirit — World music — Earlier attitudes to music — Béla Bartók — Debussy and the Javanese gamelan at the World Fair in Paris — Tchaikovsky, the celeste, and “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” — Obscura: “Temptacium” (@ 1:09:57) — Will our music last? — Political problem — Atlantis II: “Highlands” (@ 1:12:26) — Gregorian chant — Songs like “Greensleeves” or “Scarborough Fair” — Cultural links — Prejudices — Clarity and elegance — Language that lasts — Negative space — Ray Bradbury: “The Lake” — Simplicity vs. complexity — Obscura: “Lux Perpetua part 2” (@ 1:18:13) — Silence and space — Atlantis II: “The Tower in the Well” (@ 1:20:26) — What does or can art do? — Art is both given and received — Positive and negative impact — Atlantis Evolution: “Memories of Atlantis” (@ 1:23:06) — New approach — When are you happiest? — Atlantis: The Lost Tales: “La Lune” (@ 1:25:51)

Atlantis: The Lost Tales: “Sunriders” special remix (@ 0:00) — Introduction — Welcome — Composer and artist — Sound experimentation — Recording company Shooting Star — Non-profit organisation Art Science 21 — Crossroads of art, science, and sustainability — Bandcamp page — Website — Something special coming — Vangelis — Music and friendship — Closer relationship — YouTube — Huge instrument collection — Flowers of Change — A special project — Collaborative — Forests of flowers — From recycled plastic bottles — Interactive — Light and sound — Like a video game — Evolving — Augmented reality — Grenoble, France — Flowers of Change, Flowers of the Anthropocene — Changes — Transhumanism — Science, nature, and biomimicry — Immersive experiences — Mix of music and sound effects — Generative music — More composed parts — The forest in Atlantis 4 and the Flowers of Change forest — Atlantis Evolution: “Quiet Stream” (@ 12:50) — Sound design — All part of the same thing — Tuning sound effects — Ron Jones and his music for Star Trek: The Next Generation — Atlantis Evolution soundtrack — Ambient sounds and music — Field recordings — Canarias (Canary Islands) — One of the possible locations for Atlantis — Greece — Atlantis Evolution: “Pillars of Heracles” (@ 19:03) — Atlantis: The Lost Tales: “Muria” (@ 20:51, featuring Alyssa Landry) — The water considered as an instrument — The rhythm of the waves — Catching the essence — Opera — Everything counts — Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone — Once Upon a Time in the West — Fitting scene to music — With the music removed — Only the meaningful sounds — Freedom from realism — Field of Dreams example — When you're an artist — Atlantis II: “Rhea's Garden” (@ 27:05)

Good morning — Back at the lake — Some basic truths about healing and human life — Speaking from experience — Bad advice and good advice — Getting out of the house — Active outdoors — Nutrition — Health and happiness — Depressed, down in spirits, in despair — What will never help — When summer got here — Daily activity — You can't get to a better place by only thinking — Choosing activities you enjoy — Moping around — Not making light of difficulties — The bottom line — Dwelling on past events — To do so for some time may be healthy — But only for some time — The first step — Admitting there is a problem — Endless things to choose from — We must use our bodies and full physique — Staying truthful — Things nearly all adults carry around with them every day and night — This shared human experience — You become part of the club — Incredible beauty — Incredible pain — Breaking the cycle — Rowing and swimming — Lakes — Blue-green algae — Some creative work every day — Towards a better, solid, happy future — Lake all to myself — “Mirror-calm” / “Peilityyni” — Art evening with filmmaker cousin Matti Harju and composer Jarmo Kämäräinen — Untangling knots — Art totally necessary for human existence — Exhibition (Ars 108) — Dance performance — Composition “Autuaita ovat autuaat” (“Blessed/Blissful Are the Blissful/Blessed”) on the accordion by composer, performing musician, visual artist, and organic farmer Kusti Vuorinen — Took me somewhere else — On Spotify and YouTube — An old factory converted into a performance and exhibition space — Old plushy chairs — Lovely-feeling place — Coming episodes — Empathy for anyone struggling with difficult emotions — The right balance — Positive but truthful — Destructive false positivity — Looking in the mirror — Never just others, never just you — Both — Floating on a pineapple

Welcome back to the lake — Windy but warm — Bradbury land — Many of them — Years looking for it — Lakes — Carnivals — Some good futuristic things — Summer mornings, days, evenings, and nights — Green grass — Freshly mown lawn — Learned rowing from my father — Principles of responsible boating — Centre of gravity — Orientation and direction — Oars in water — Genius inventor of rowing — Saving a little bug — Cheering encounter — Traffic lights — Headphones — Audio books, poetry, etc. — Thanks for riding the city scooter on the road — More irresponsible scooters — How life should be — Unhappy people who have it all — Happiness comes with moments — Finishing the thought on Bradbury land — First visit to Tampere in 1990 — Field trip to the amusement park here — Unhappy times much later — Simply the wrong parts of town — Right in my backyard — Heaven and hell next door to each other

Early morning on the lake — An Iceland Symphony: A Theatrical Symphony for All Ages — First large-scale composition — Book of sheet music — 21 sections — Calls for performers of all ages — Started writing in early 2019 in Iceland — All of Iceland and all Icelanders — Children and teenagers and adults — A land where childhood is still possible — Grocery store anecdote — “Pabbi” (“Father”) — The voice of a child who had had a genuinely happy, safe childhood — Good families and bad families — Good conditions and bad conditions — Children are the future — People of more advanced years — General respect for elders in Iceland — Works created to last — Philip Glass on how you have to write for the future — Musical languages — Guided only by own taste, feeling, and intuition — On the form of this symphony — Theatrical — Stage actions, staging, and lighting — These elements may not be omitted in a full live performance of the work — A full theatrical experience — Performance instructions included in the sheet music book — Concert suite — Ideal performance spaces — Stage, curtains, dynamic lighting — Publishing the sheet music only the first step — Further work on audio renderings — Intended to be performed by living musicians — Access to the early rough “demo” renderings — Book on Amazon as paperback and ebook — The secret to being a bore is to tell everything (Voltaire) — A work I believe in — Morning and good night

An audio message recorded for a friend on my phone — An interview with Philip Glass — His early years — One of the most successful composers of our time — Film music, operas, and countless other types of pieces — His first opera — Back to driving a taxi — Opera doesn't make a profit — Nothing to fall back on — Always working on many things rather than a single big thing — Not allowed into the usual concert venues — Radically different music — Music with repetitive structures — Gatekeepers of the classical music world — He was the future — A threat to the existing order — No connections in the establishment — No encouragement from anyone in the wider musical world until he was in his 50s — He didn't owe anyone anything — An excellent position to be in — Independent — Published his own music — An honest person — Finding the audience on his own — Only started making a living from his music in his 40s — A long road — Inspiring — Two types of creative people — Making just what you like — How I need to have my life

Rod Serling — A gift to all writers — Worked hard all last year — Gift to myself — The 60th anniversary Blu-ray set of The Twilight Zone — The best presentation of this material ever made — Serling himself never got to see it in this astounding quality — Lighting, filming, sets, costumes — Super quality — A treasury for any creative person — Creative insight — Keys to creativity — Apologies to my friend Maren — Incredible amount of extras — A complete, self-sufficient masterclass for any writer — The episodes themselves — Studying them to learn about every aspect of filmmaking — Short films — Acting, lighting, cinematography, staging — Two ways to learn — Personal curiosity — The extras — Serling's pitch to the sponsors — Even greater treasures — Serling's lectures on writing — Taught writing — Insight — Commentaries — Martin Landau — Serling's comments on his own work — Razor sharp — Thank goodness for these recordings — He did so many things right — Great respect for the craft and those who practice it — His perfect style of narration — Just saying it — Norm Macdonald's similar approach — His style on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update — Stripped to the essentials — Something every creative person needs to do — Becoming yourself — A common theme with many of my favourite creators — Samuel Beckett — Philip Glass — Clearing the table — Getting rid of all the baggage — A completely free stage — The best starting point — John Cage — Starting from the very essentials — His book Silence — The lasting value of The Twilight Zone — Serling's works and words — One of the best writers as well as teachers of writing — More awake

The discussion with David Lee Homb very special for me — Never had a peer group of creatives for long in life — How different life would've been — Easy connection among likeminded souls — Something to do with creativity, caring, and wanting to have a positive impact — Selfishness closes a person off from any meaningful path in life — What we can do for others — A question with art also — What effects? — 10:14 p.m. — Night for the soul — Straight talk — Friends and not — Those who disappear — Maybe due to being overwhelmed and maybe due to lack of caring in the first place — True friendship — Heartfelt discussion — The concept of this podcast — Final stages of editing on An Iceland Symphony — I dream of theatres and other places — Another dream so real — May dreams be shared? — Wrong directions — That feeling in the pit of your stomach — It always knows — Intuition — Time and life sometimes play tricks — Derailed for a while

Heartfelt messages — Reaching out to likeminded people — Saying what feels right — David Lynch — Therapy and creativity — Tigger — ADD / ADHD — Doctor in Beverly Hills — Bouncing rather than medication — Effects on creativity — Insidious effects — Changed brain chemistry equals changed personality — Upcoming book of poetry — Started writing after Phantasmagoria — Pulling through the dark years — Self-realisation — Helping — Working title Out of the Darkness — Final title Awake, I Dream — Writing process — Dreaming awake as well as asleep — Illustrations by Rodrigo de Oliveira Vilela — Great souls and good fortune — Question from Nicole Etter — Archaeology and geology — History — Painting — Questions from Nelson Miguel and Michael Shaw — Dealing with the difficult times — Writing — Musicals and screenplays — Hiking, camping, the outdoors, mountains — Fresh air and the quiet — Telescopes — Stargazing — Leading male actor look — MacGyver — Steve McQueen — Favourite roles — Southern dialects — Horror films — Phantasmagoria (1995) — JAG — The Drew Carey Show — Street Soldiers (1991) — The Channeler (1991) — Desert Storm — Long Beach — International value — Blockbuster — Memories book — Mente Criminal (1991) — Actor Jorge Luke — Spanish — Director Pepe Loza — David's house in L.A. — Guests — Sunset Boulevard — Poster — Theatre — Playing Jim Morrison in a play — Singing a cappella — The Doors: “The End” — Morrison anniversary — Gray-haired couple — Saw Morrison at The Whisky (Whisky a Go Go) — Casting director for The Drew Carey Show — Gray Matter anecdote — Birthdays — Fellow Libras — Poets and artists — Retro gaming convention question — Started travelling in his early 20s — Jamaica, England, France — Motorcycling in France — Spain, Monaco, Monte Carlo — Museums — Getting to know life in each place — Finland — The future — Music — Hippie — Lynyrd Skynyrd — Old rock 'n' roll — Classical — Pretty much any genre — Leonard Cohen: “Hallelujah” — “Me and Bobby McGee” — Musical friends — Of Mice and Men — Supportive place — What scares you in real life? — The Exorcist — The Omen — Jaws — Aliens — Scuba diving — Deep, dark water — Rappelling off cliffs — Themes in poetry — Bernard Pivot / James Lipton questionnaire (Inside the Actors Studio) — Thanks

First anniversary — Special guest David Lee Homb — Actor and writer — This podcast started in Iceland on 24 March 2020 — Sierra's groundbreaking adventure game Phantasmagoria — Live actors in computer-generated sets — Nothing can replace a real actor — Lead male role — Kindred spirit — Same wavelength — Two-part episode — Skype recording — David's introduction — Great things coming — Starting on his acting career — High school — Theatre — Ballet for 9 years — From stage to screen — His self-imposed apprenticeship — Second year in Los Angeles — Sasha and Orson Welles — Orson's 16-millimetre practice reels from his early 20s — The vault — Early days in Los Angeles — Honda Gold Wing motorcycle in Arlington, Texas — Father's advice — The Steve McQueen / James Dean thing — Erik Estrada — CHiPs — Porky's — Car city — Getting the van — A condominium on wheels — Studies in New York — American Academy of Dramatic Arts — Audition in Dallas — Scholarship — Getting the run of the place at night — Invitation to teach the advanced acting class — Formal studies vs. learning on your own — Innate talent and learned skills — Variety or Hollywood Reporter interview — Theory and experience — Teaching packed classes — Teaching yourself — With Ernest Borgnine, Lois Nettleton, Douglas Barr, and Lisa Hartman in Wes Craven's Deadly Blessing (1981) — Ready for L.A. — Crossroads moment with a fellow Texan — We all make dumbass moves — ADHD — Part of his creative side — Pasadena — Rose Bowl parade — Van broke — Gilmer, TX — Kilgore, TX — Auto shop — Trust between Texans — Texan honesty — Questions from Michael Shaw — Getting cast in Phantasmagoria — Troy Donahue — Laughlin, Nevada — Casino town — Hiking and scouting all day — Call from familiar casting director — Earlier game for Electronic Arts — Call from the director's wife — Flight to L.A. — Met with actor Victoria Morsell, writer and designer Roberta Williams, and director Peter Maris — Roberta's happiness at his casting as Don — Time right after Phantasmagoria — Thousands of letters — Answered every single one — Nelson Miguel very talented — Arrogant Hollywood stars — Talking to people — Coming up next time — Transcript

Unplanned break — Clearing the cobwebs — Spotify playlist from 1952 to 1955 now over 15 tracks old — The only agenda for it — Period pieces or timeless quality — Recent Icelandic earthquakes — Best wishes from Finland — Increasingly less interested in comics — An art form as good as any other — Films, TV series, theatre, music — Limitations — Following real passions — The possibilities of theatre — Potential — Feeling of freedom — Music and theatre are a wide open stage — The poetry of T. S. Eliot a dead end — Not helpful as a model — Tiredness, hopelessness, giving up — Fresh things not laden down with the past — The meaning of life — In good moments that question becomes meaningless — Actual neurosis — Good life — Being active and having fun — Bathtub — Sauna — Swimming — Rowing — Fireplace — These elements in stories as well as real life — Postponed topics — Back to a good rhythm — New pieces for mystery ensemble — Tidying up the sheet music for An Iceland Symphony — Great progress with the first Northern Exposure book — Screenplays and stage plays — Approaching 1st anniversary of this podcast — Good wishes

Recap: TV, malls, driving — Lighter episode — Happy 75th birthday to David Lynch — Spotify playlist — “Scène” from Act II of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake — London Symphony Orchestra/Anatole Fistoulari — Dragnet premiere correction — Favourite film of 2020: The Vast of Night — Subtle depth — Nothing about it needed excusing — Favourite TV series: The Right Stuff (Disney+) — Science fiction and science fact — Authentic and down to earth — Alan Shepard's first flight — Simulator felt more real — The virtue of being a slow burn — Better and better — A genuinely mature series — Misuse of the word “mature” — Parks and Recreation — Comedy series — Perfect casting — Ron Swanson — Aubrey Plaza — Jerry — Chris Traeger — Completing a point — Sensuality, TV, and films — This basic human thing — Nourishing the senses

Season 2 transcript book now on Amazon — More than 41,000 words — Introduction, footnotes, and bonus chapter on The Ray Bradbury Theater — Book series — Happy with this volume — Closer to my ideal of being like a late night radio programme — Thanks to Alessandra for checking my facts regarding S.Pellegrino mineral water — Course correction re: sharing my journeys through different realms of art — Reasons against it — Spontaneity and total freedom — Sharing only the most interesting things — The Spotify playlists will continue — Tens of thousands of tracks — Not possible to share folders on Spotify — A future possibility — One task too many — Foregrounding the wrong thing — Slowing down everything else — Not enough breathing room — Prefer to avoid any academic approaches — Northern Exposure book series — Fresh — Straining your processor — Adjusting my working methods this year — Will finally publish my music and other things — Avoiding stuffy places — Gems — Better a bit late than too late — Letting reactions mature — A wake-up call — More time for relaxing and unwinding — Taking care — New TV — Much more immersive to watch from a big screen — Like being there — Bradbury on input and output — Soundbar — Solid dark-wood table from IKEA — Three truly relaxing things — TV, driving, shopping — Great mall on an international scale — Streaming — Blu-rays, DVDs, videos — No YouTube ads — Mirroring device screens — Now also my “typewriter” — Scrivener — Composition Mode — Black background, green text — Music through the soundbar — iMac Pro — Games on the big screen — Life upgrade — Things that make a place a home — End to deprivation and tension — Next week a blank slate — Bathtub

Welcome to 2021 — Journey through art — Music, film, TV, books, comics, more — About dates — Spotify playlist: “What Now with Simo 1952–1955” — Tony Bennett's “Blue Velvet” — January 1952 — Version by Bobby Vinton in the 60s — Used by David Lynch in his film — A threshold moment — Modern era — “Riders in the Sky” — Caccini's “Amarilli” — Ages for reference — David Lynch turned 6 — Philip Glass turned 15 — Jean Sibelius was 86 — John Cage 39 — Ray Bradbury 31 — Gene Roddenberry 30 — Charles M. Schulz 29 — His Peanuts strip was 1 year and 2 months old — Rod Serling was 27 — The Twilight Zone would start in 1959 — Harlan Ellison was 17 — Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) 11 — Vangelis 8 — Edward James Olmos 4 — Larry David 4 — Births still in the future — Jerry Seinfeld in 1954 — Norm Macdonald in 1959 — H. P. Lovecraft had died in 1937 — Dragnet premiered on NBC — Moonlight Sonata by Rudolf Serkin — Dave Brubeck — Frank Sinatra still singing forgettable songs — Marvel's 4-panel cover layouts for horror and SF comics — DC Comics — Harry Houdini debunking spiritualists — Aztec history — EC Comics — Quality vs. quantity — Wallace Wood getting ever better — His protégé Joe Orlando — Keeping up with the times — The clothes in their comics — Season 2 transcript book — Playlist on Spotify — Comments and messages welcome — Social media and website — Good wishes for 2021

Season 2 finale — Over 5,000 listens since 24 March 2020 — Dark events and crossroads in time — David Lynch writing and directing Wisteria for Netflix — Published Art & Love, Vol. 1 — A legacy creation — 100 years from now — Future-proof language — Encapsulations and essences — The substance of a person's life — 124 chapters — Preserving or diminishing the value of a creation — Imagine a theatre stage — The books of transcripts — Future wishes — An Iceland memory — A country where childhood is still possible — Intuition — Norm Macdonald Has a Show and Norm Macdonald Live — Warmth — Jane Fonda, Michael Keaton, Drew Barrymore — How rarely many comedians seem to enjoy their work — The Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch — Some of the warmest music ever — Beauty as strong as the dark — Sensitivity — Speaking from the heart — The ultimate guide for art, love, and life — Curt Swan — Superman — John Byrne, Marv Wolfman — The kindest faces — Superhero comics vs. the films — Russ Cochran — EC Comics — Graham “Ghastly” Ingels — Stephen King, Ray Bradbury — The Old Witch — MAD magazine — Steven Spielberg, George Lucas — “Wicked Game” — Apple — The best tools — Financial independence — A new leaf — Season 3 starting 1 January 2021 — An Iceland Symphony — Reinventing — Art and freedom — Samuel Beckett and Philip Glass — For future listeners — Thoreau's Journal — Creative freedom — “I want to do this” — The 4-verse Serena poem about Oisín and Niamh — Tír na nÓg — The Land of Youth and Beauty — Crash and Zzap! 64 from Newsfield — Reading (1:14:01) — Roger Kean and Oliver Frey — Into the Christmastime — Curb Your Enthusiasm — Seinfeld — See you soon

14 October 2020, 4:39 p.m. — A long, almost baroque autumn dream — This time of year — Halloween on the horizon — 21 October — Libra — Proud of my mother — Eye surgery — Back to the dream — Gusty winds — Possibility of falling branches — Storm approaching — Seaside town, autumnal — Huge old house with creaking wooden floors — The home of a friend — Housesitting — Old-time things — Flea markets — Remains of lives — Lace, wood, porcelain, vases, curtains, carpets, armchairs, ornaments — Fresh — Good, fresh air — Wooden spiral staircases — The depths of the basement — Others moving about — The scariest adventure game ever made — Horrible things could happen — Frustrating timed sequence — Laboratory storage room — A fully formed place — Hewn stones on the embankment fronting the sea — A square at the edge of the sea — Tall trees — Theatre, old wooden floors, music boxes, leaves scraping along cobblestones — My dream landscape — My stories — 4:56 p.m. — Alice in Wonderland — What was the magic? — Wistful — The song “Alice in Wonderland” (1951) — Disney adaptation theme tune — Audiobook on cassette — Preparations for season 3 — An intuitive concern — Small-hearted people — Derailing dreams — Nothing as precious as potential for bringing warmth to others' lives — DC and Marvel comics from the early 20th century — Very few worthwhile stories — Layouts — Alexander Toth — Will Eisner — Mr. Toth's uncompromising quality — Take care

An episode of diary entries — Sunday, 20 September 2020 — 12:05 p.m. — “The Song of the Volga Boatmen” — The emotional arc of waking up on some days — A feature of art — Emotional underpinnings — 12:22 p.m. — Norm Macdonald video of Letterman appearances — “Calypso Blues” by Nat King Cole (music) & Don George (lyrics) — A song that can bring a smile — Version by Mona Baptiste (early 1950s) — Sultry, interesting, relaxed — 23 September, 12:31 a.m. — Rod Serling talking to a group of young writers — Norm Macdonald's comment on The Twilight Zone — Probably the best TV series of all time — If only one TV series could survive — Only the original series — A series that gives you something — Alienation, loneliness, times of feeling lost in life, etc. — Dark in a healthy, helpful way — Northern Exposure — Anyone who watches it will benefit from the experience — The opposite of heavy — Back to The Twilight Zone — The dark gem — Should play in all countries at odd hours — Always swimming in our collective electrical subconscious — A pure, clarifying anger — Rod Serling cared — Genuine mystery and imagination — A sense of theatre — Virtually all science fiction series try to be multimillion-dollar films — The real gold of the future — The virtues of theatre — Most creators of science fiction, horror, or fantasy have no sense of imagination and mystery — David Lynch was right — Mystery is no longer appreciated — It can bring any type of story alive — Things that won't — Mystery, imagination, heart, and magic — 7 October 2020, 8:31 p.m. — Long pause — Even one great song — Songwriting — There had never been a song like “Riders in the Sky” — The kernel from which Ennio Morricone unfolded his western music — A reminder about life — Now is the only time — Quote from Kim Stanley Robinson's Pacific Edge (1988, from the Three Californias Trilogy) — “What do you talk about when you're falling in love?” — When the apocalypse comes — Its own paradise — We don't get everything — Fate is a strange thing