Podcast appearances and mentions of Don Quixote

In the early 17th century, an aged veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a book. It was the story of a poor nobleman who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. Don Quixote is an early 17th century fictional character made famous by the Spanish author, Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616). The story’s influence on North American literature is immeasurable. E226. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/bphog1URND0 which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. Not Just the Tudors podcast available at https://amzn.to/3OelJnj Suzannah Lipscomb books available at https://amzn.to/44M1dQ6 The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World by William Egginton available at https://amzn.to/3pSrvkY What Would Cervantes Do? by William Egginton available at https://amzn.to/3NKWtDG William Egginton books available at https://amzn.to/3OelFUB ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: Creator of Don Quixote: Cervantes by Not Just the Tudors podcast with Suzannah Lipscomb & guest William Egginton (History Hit). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At the time the saga of Don Quixote was written by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), the city of Guanajuato in central Mexico was an important colonial town due to the area's large silver deposits. Because it was an important Spanish site, the city today boasts of lavish colonial architecture and a historic town center that is recognized by UNESCO for its cultural heritage. The city proudly holds an annual international festival in honor of Cervantes and his famous characters and story. E227. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/FXj0tjljTpE which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. Not Just the Tudors podcast available at https://amzn.to/3OelJnj Suzannah Lipscomb books available at https://amzn.to/44M1dQ6 The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World by William Egginton available at https://amzn.to/3pSrvkY What Would Cervantes Do? by William Egginton available at https://amzn.to/3NKWtDG William Egginton books available at https://amzn.to/3OelFUB ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: Creator of Don Quixote: Cervantes by Not Just the Tudors podcast with Suzannah Lipscomb & guest William Egginton (History Hit). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Should you move to Spain in 2026? Well, it depends. A blog called Expat Money recently published a list of the "top 7 reasons you should never move to Spain" and I don't think the author was wrong about them... I just think that Spain has some intangibles that make it a great place to live, and that for most of us, moving abroad is more than a mathematical calculation. Support this podcast at https://expatmadrid.com/donate/You can read my article here, obviously I've lived in Spain for 22 years and I'm somewhat biased: https://expatmadrid.com/reasons-never-move-spain/If you're looking for a more athletic type of holiday, check out my friend Raul over at https://biketourinspain.comI'll be going on his tour of La Rioja and Camino del Cid in a couple of months, and I've got two episodes on here about other bike tours, look for "#76 - Route of Don Quixote" and "#94 - Extremadura Bike Tour" for more about those.

Today on the Conversations on Dance podcast we are joined by Susan Jaffe, Artistic Director of American Ballet Theatre. Susan reflects on ABT's Spring Season, the challenges of the Met season shifting later into summer, and the company exceeding attendance goals while continuing strong ticket sales. She talk about how Executive Director Barry Hughson's arrival has strengthened fundraising and operations, freeing her to focus on artistic work. She previews the upcoming Met lineup—two weeks of Swan Lake, Cranko's Onegin, and 10 performances of Don Quixote with seven Kitri/Basilio casts. Jaffe details her Don Quixote refresh: keeping the 1978 production, tightening storytelling and pacing, making music cuts, adjusting mime and choreography, and more. See ABT at the Met June 17 - July 18th. Tickets available at ABT.org: https://www.abt.org/performances/summer-season/Listen to our other episodes with Susan here: https://www.conversationsondancepod.com/search?q=susan+jaffeListen to Conversations on Dance ad-free on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/conversationsondance____________________________________Introduction: Conversations on Dance with Susan JaffeJoin hosts Rebecca King Ferraro and Michael Sean Breeden on the latest episode of the "Conversations on Dance" podcast as they engage with Susan Jaffe, the esteemed artistic director of American Ballet Theatre (ABT). They dive into the intricacies of ABT's performances, the innovations under Jaffe's leadership, and the exciting future of ballet.Reflections on the Spring SeasonSusan Jaffe begins by reflecting on the challenges and triumphs of ABT's spring season. Originally set for mid-April at the Metropolitan Opera House, a shift pushed performances into summer, prompting concerns about audience engagement. Despite these challenges, ABT exceeded attendance expectations, experiencing what Susan coined as “Timothée Chalamet moments” – standing ovations each night. With the support of Executive Director Barry Hughson, the company navigated these changes with finesse, focusing on enriching its artistic offerings while maintaining strong ticket sales.Previewing the Met Season: New Approaches and Old FavoritesAs the discussion shifts to upcoming performances at the Metropolitan Opera House, Susan announces a packed lineup featuring two weeks of "Swan Lake", George Cranko's emotionally rich "Onegin", and a refreshed "Don Quixote" (Don Q). The conversation reveals how adjustments to the season were strategically planned to cater to both New York residents and the influx of summer tourists.Don Quixote Gets a RefreshThe process behind updating "Don Quixote" was intricate, with Susan focusing on tightening storytelling, enhancing choreography, and making selective cuts to maintain audience engagement. Her collaboration with renowned figures such as Susan Jones and forthcoming music director David LaMarche highlights a commitment to retaining the piece's essence while injecting fresh energy.Conclusion: An Invitation to Experience the MagicThe episode closes with an invitation from Susan Jaffe for audiences to experience the magic of ABT's upcoming performances. With refreshed classics and bold new directions, each ballet is crafted to captivate and inspire. Whether a longtime fan or a newcomer, ABT's vibrant season promises unforgettable experiences for all.Join the ConversationListen to the full episode for a detailed exploration of ABT's artistic journey. Subscribe to "Conversations on Dance" for more illuminating discussions on ballet's vibrant tapestry. Visit conversationsondancepod.com for more information and to explore sponsorship opportunities.LINKS:Website: conversationsondancepod.comInstagram: @conversationsondanceCOD MerchListen to COD on YouTubeJoin our email listSponsorship information Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lords: Ron https://grumpygamer.com/ Kevin https://rubixsqube.itch.io/ Topics: Do you do easy or hard tasks first? Magic (not the gathering, prestidigitation) as it exists in 2026 The thing that makes text adventures interesting The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, by Tracy K. Smith https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55517/the-universe-original-motion-picture-soundtrack Trash vs Treasure: ultra distant galaxies, little red dots, and brown dwarfs Weird hobbies Microtopics: Forgetting what you were going to say about prescription toothpaste. Microsoft Encarta '94. Back when computers were charming. A roguelike where the screen is always scrolling. Doing the hard tasks first so you no longer have to think about them. Trying to cover air quotes audially. Protaskination. Solving a topic for the first time ever. Advertisements for card tricks. Art forms involving lying to people. Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie. Using the language of punctuation to make people lean forward. Donnie Osmond being a jerk. Self-working card tricks. One of the greatest gifts ever given to you by the universe. Winning $6000 in a single spin of roulette and then retiring from gambling. Leaving decks of cards in bars that are 80% the same card. A mail order service that emails you a video of a begloved man preparing your order to ship. Why you own a nine of diamonds single card forcing deck. Video reviews that never discuss or show what the product being reviewed actually does. Dorky magicians in the Youtube era. The text adventure community adopting the Twine community. Zork's physics system and lighting model. A medium in which a single auteur can make a complete work in a few months. The Many Worlds interpretation of Twine adventures. Implementing gamepad controls for a text adventure. Complete inability to drop items in graphic adventures. A Dropping Place. Media in which only the author be clever vs. media in which the consumer can also be clever. The "that doesn't seem to work" response. How you interact with Starship Titanic. Robots saying inscrutable stuff to you. A firm turn-around wrong-way barrier. Keeping the magic of the text parser in your head even as you figure out exactly how it works. A text adventure with auto-complete. Pulitzer-winning poetry about the entire universe. White noise and black noise. The dark we've only ever imagined, now audible, thrumming. Learning how to hear poetry. (Like, at all.) A way of thinking about how the universe was born. Modern jazz as another way of exploring existence. Reading Shakespeare and having to look up "moiety" again. Reading a modern translation of Don Quixote and being annoyed that you can't find a modern translation of Shakespeare. Retreating away from the camera in horror. Unchecked ambition and desire for power. Shakespeare except it's a bunch of lawyers. Romeo and Juliet in the Globe Theater except everybody is shooting each other with guns. Bill and Ted's Excellent Use of Febreeze. JWST images of little weird pimples. Astronomers looking at Interlopers and saying "get this trash out of here" Leaving bugs in your game because they make the game more interesting. There's no such things as trash: it's all treasure to somebody. Throwing a disc up into the fizzlers. Playing a video game and thinking of a way to really fuck your game up and being compelled to find out if the developers thought of it. Always doing exactly what the game tells you not to do. Going to the Sega booth at E3 and playing Sonic as slowly as possible. Playing games in a way that makes the Sega representative come up and talk to you. The production glitches subreddit. Comb filtering. Arguing about whether it's a mistake that you can hear Alanis Morissette inhale. Parts of games that you need to polish and parts you can leave unpolished. Jim's secret to shipping video games. Polishing and honing and perfecting so much that you ruin the finished product. Picking hobbies that don't scale. Eating the top 1000 soups in the history of planet Earth. The kind of person who gets fulfillment out of people appreciating work you've done for them. Letting your wife know that you do have hobbies, actually. The Dead Poet's Society scene about measuring the relative merits of poetry. Jamming on the coffee table synthesizer, and thinking the whole time "I should make a finished song to upload to a web site" Years of meticulous cutting and shaping.

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) wrote Don Quixote, an early 17th century fictional character made famous by the Spanish author. This epic novel went on to be read around the world in Spanish and most other languages, making its author one of the most-read writers in human history. The story’s influence on North American literature is immeasurable. Such admiration is displayed by a life-sized statue of Don Quixote de la Mancha and his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza that sits at the bottom of a rock cliff in Guadalajara, Mexico. E225. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/_01dLU4_K_4 which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. Not Just the Tudors podcast available at https://amzn.to/3OelJnj Suzannah Lipscomb books available at https://amzn.to/44M1dQ6 The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World by William Egginton available at https://amzn.to/3pSrvkY What Would Cervantes Do? by William Egginton available at https://amzn.to/3NKWtDG William Egginton books available at https://amzn.to/3OelFUB ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: Creator of Don Quixote: Cervantes by Not Just the Tudors podcast with Suzannah Lipscomb & guest William Egginton (History Hit). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What a lot of fun I had talking to Zena Hitz about Gulliver's Travels. As well as discussing Swift, slavery, genocide, rationality, Christianity, and science, Zena told me that good philosophy is like a box of cake mix and that a liberal education requires you to be freed of false expertise. I also took Zena on a detour to discuss Iris Murdoch, the Catherine Project, and modern philosophy. TRANSCRIPTHENRY OLIVER: Today I am talking to Zena Hitz. Zena is a tutor at St. John's College. She is a philosopher, the author of Lost in Thought. She runs the Catherine Project. She's famous on Twitter. We don't know how she does it all. Zena, welcome.ZENA HITZ: Thank you, Henry. It's great to be here.OLIVER: And we're talking about Gulliver's Travels because it is 300 years since it was published, and it's a book that you love.HITZ: A book that I've loved for a long time.First Encounter with Gulliver's TravelsOLIVER: So tell me, when did you first read it?HITZ: Well, it was an important moment for me. I was in high school, and I was admitted to a scholarship summer program which offered college courses at different campuses. There were some normal-looking college courses at normal-looking colleges. And then there was this course at St. John's called Science as Literature, Literature as Science. [laughs] It had this description that was just unbelievable. And I thought to myself, “This is the one, obviously the one to go to.”So I went, and we read books that no one in their right mind would assign to high school students now, and maybe not then. The fragments of Parmenides, Plato's Timaeus, selections from Aristotle's Physics, Gulliver's Travels. After reading a number of—preface to Ptolemy's Almagest, geocentric astronomy. And we read Gulliver's Travels after reading selections from Hooke's Micrographia, so the inventor of the microscope, and Galileo's Starry Messenger, which is one of the great first uses of the telescope to discover the nature of the moon and the satellites of Jupiter.So then we read Gulliver's Travels. We also read Emma and Flannery O'Connor and various other things. And one of the faculty who was running it said at one point, “Well, we thought we'd throw a bunch of things together and see what you could do, what you could make of it. We didn't actually have an idea of how these all fit together,” which I think was probably true.At any rate, I think I came to Gulliver's Travels thinking about these scientists who were looking at very large things and very small things, and thinking in general about the follies of human perception, whether that was shown in literature or philosophy or what have you, the ways in which human perception and knowledge don't work very well. And I think Swift is still one of the best people to—Gulliver's Travels is still one of the best books about that because it's in the mode of a travel diary, an eyewitness account.Gulliver is trained as a surgeon, by his own account. He at one point says he was a bit of a projector in his younger days, someone who undertook scientific projects. And he's a terrible observer, the worst imaginable observer, and Swift so brilliantly lets us see through his eyes, lets us see all the things he doesn't see. And I think it's not just about seeing and knowing. It has a very profound, I think, moral and political set of commitments. So it's a very humane book. It's social criticism, but from a point of view of a very deep humanity. So I've always loved the book for these reasons since then.I came back to it more recently because it is part of the curriculum at St. John's. So when I came back to teach there, I began to reread it. The other experience I had was that I wrote a long essay on it when I was an undergraduate. So those are my—I'm not any kind of expert. My knowledge of the historical context of the book is limited. It's not zero, but it's limited. But I have always loved it as an account of human understanding and its failures and the way that might impact how we live and how happy we can be.The Houyhnhnm ProblemOLIVER: Have you changed how you think about it as you've taught it?HITZ: I have not really changed the way I think about it. It gets more—like all of these books, the more you read them, the more comes out of them, the more details come up. Hilarious. The more jokes you get, the more . . .I think the one more recent insight I had was, I hadn't understood the full horror of the Houyhnhnms in the last book until relatively recently. I think that took me some time to really take on. It's one of the cases where Gulliver's misperceptions are a bit harder to see, and I think many readers just assume that Swift is endorsing the praise of the Houyhnhnms in some sense or other.OLIVER: There are some very serious critics in the past who have called them Swift's ideal beings. Which at this point in history seems unthinkable, but it has been a belief among serious readers.HITZ: Yes, yes. And also common among students. Yes, it's absolutely one of the wrongest opinions you could have about anything, I think.OLIVER: Why does Swift allow us to make that mistake? Are we bad readers out of the context, or has he made too good a job of his diversions and concealments and ironies?HITZ: That's a great question, and I'll just take a stab at it. I think that he has hit on a mode of misperception which is very deep to us, and it's something that we're much more guilty of. We could imagine that if we were in a place where everyone was small or everyone was large, we might make mistakes like Gulliver makes. But we all live, I think, in communities that are a bit like the Houyhnhnms. And so we are all very subject to these kinds of deceptions, and I think that's how he gets us.That's not to really excuse the bad readings because, you know, Gulliver does leave the land of the Houyhnhnms with a boat made out of human skin, which should—I think that moment should make you realize, if you haven't yet, that something is very seriously wrong with Gulliver. Gulliver has been kind of destroyed as a person by his travels, and especially by this last trip. But if you pass over that little detail, maybe you think, “Oh, wow, he found some very simple beings.”OLIVER: Well, there's also the great council where they debate the genocide of the Yahoos.HITZ: [laughs] Yes.OLIVER: And it directly contradicts several things Gulliver has come to believe about the Houyhnhnms, about the Yahoos, and about himself. And he's completely unaware of these contradictions and so in awe of the Houyhnhnms that he doesn't quite understand, I think, that he's accounting a genocide.HITZ: That's right. That's right.OLIVER: Even though he uses a phrase from Genesis that's very unmistakable. It's a sort of remarkable moment of—particularly to us, having had the 20th century. I think that's why Swift came back into favor in a way, because people used to say, Swift's unbearable view of human nature . . .This is a great bit in Boswell's Life of Johnson where, when they're traveling through Scotland, they're with a lady, and she says to Johnson, “Is any man naturally good?” And Johnson says, “No, no more than a wolf.” And Boswell says, “Well, sir, what about ladies?” And Johnson says, “God, no, absolutely not.” And this woman says, “Oh my God, this is worse than Swift,” utterly horrific view of human nature.But of course, we can actually say, did he go far enough? [laughter] I mean, Swift clearly understands something very real and deep. The council of genocide is horrifyingly familiar to us. And I think that's much to Swift's credit that he can see that, and to show that Gulliver would blind himself to it. And people still blind themselves to it, right?HITZ: That's right. And I wonder—you would know more about this than me because it is a bit of a historical question, but my understanding is that quite a lot of the savagery, the worst parts of rule over men that we see in Gulliver's Travels are pictures of Ireland in the 17th, 18th centuries. And I wonder if that took some time to reveal itself to the British, and in some ways it's still not really as known as it might be. We think of the colonial project as being something that was directed at India and Africa—OLIVER: Faraway countries.HITZ: —faraway countries where people looked really different. And we're not as familiar with the kinds of things that were done to the cuddly Irish with their nice music, and who we don't think of as being people that you would savagely oppress like that. So I think—OLIVER: So, I think partly the English are not interested in their own history in the way that they are expected to be. And partly the English interest in Irish history has become very focused on the more recent events. And it's very hard to get back past that. And it all becomes very complicated, and it's a sort of different country. So there's some of that, but I think generally we don't want to know what we did, yes.HITZ: Well, and I think in anglophone countries in general, there's going to be a history of something like that. To attribute it to the British is not to say that—I mean, Americans have chattel slavery and the genocide of the natives, and the Australians have their own situation. All of the anglophone countries have something like this on their conscience.I think that obscures the meaning of that final book. I think we don't recognize—and that's really to Swift's credit, to have a social critique that is so real and so deep that you may not even recognize yourself in the picture.Slavery in Gulliver's TravelsOLIVER: Yes. When I read it again—I read it as an undergraduate, but I really was actually more interested in the other parts of Swift's work. And I thought it was brilliant, and then I read it again. And it was more recently that—I didn't understand how I couldn't have seen it, but it's basically a book about slavery, as I come back to it.And in each of the books there is enslavement of a different sort. So, to begin with, Gulliver is the one being kept in a box or kept in a house, or he's chained up by the Lilliputians or Glumdalclitch.HITZ: Right. That's right.OLIVER: She's a very nice sort of master, as it were, [laughter] but he has that box that can be sealed, and the dwarf has him swiping at the wasps. And then the enslavement that the flying island has of the country below is like England and Ireland. And then in the final book, you know, the Houyhnhnms are whipping the Yahoos.HITZ: That's right.OLIVER: The slavery thing gets worse and worse as the book goes on. And one of the things that's clever is that it's funny when Gulliver is enslaved, right? When the wasps are let out and he has to—and Swift sort of does that clever thing where he undermines things by making it a joke at the end. By the book of the Houyhnhnms, there is really very little humor. And the twist at the end is always dark.Gulliver can't see that—he can see that he's a bit like the Yahoos. But he can't see that they've been enslaved in the way that he—the farmer wanted to take him around the kingdom and show him off, and he says, “I couldn't possibly have had children in that condition because I couldn't have it on my conscience that I had begotten a slave, someone born into slavery. I couldn't do that.”HITZ: Right.OLIVER: Then he's in the Houyhnhnms and he can't—it's quite remarkable.HITZ: [laughs] Yes. I don't think it's quite true that in the end there's no humor. I read it with some Catherine Project group a couple of years ago, and one of the readers pointed out that it's not obvious Gulliver isn't leaving his home and sitting out in the ocean and always landing on England every single time; just every time, he lands there.And there's something hilarious about an Englishman that discovers a place where there's all horses, [laughter] and his love of horses overwhelms him, and he becomes persuaded that they're the only rational beings that there are. I mean, that is funny.OLIVER: Yes, I agree. There's a lot of irony and stuff. But I think it's in Lilliput when he describes their manner of writing. And he says they don't write from left to right as we do in England, or from right to left, or up-down like the Chinese, but from one corner to the other, as the ladies do in England. This is very funny, dry humor, and that sort of thing is gone. And the things that surprise you at the end of a sentence or a paragraph are more like, “Oh, and of course I used Yahoo skin to cover the boat.” And you're like, oh my God, this is not a joke anymore.You know, in A Modest Proposal, he makes real humor out of those kind of horrors. And with the Houyhnhnms, I think he actually refuses the joke to make you feel the disgust, in a way.HITZ: Yes, that might be right. That might be right.Swift and PhilosophyOLIVER: What do you think about the idea that the Houyhnhnms are drawn from the Phaedrus and Socrates's idea of the soul with the two horses? And there's the good, rational horse and the vulgar, passionate horse, and the Yahoos are the other horse. You see what I mean?HITZ: Yes, yes.OLIVER: Is Swift showing us the two sides, and Gulliver's mistake is to prefer the one and not the—HITZ: Right, I think I have heard something like this before. I'm a bit skeptical. Swift doesn't strike me as someone who uses philosophy in quite that way. I think he's much more interested in Gulliver's—the Houyhnhnms' self-deception about the kinds of beings they are. They do not say “the thing which is not,” yet Gulliver's master hides from him this conversation about the genocide for quite some time. And maybe we don't know if he tells him quite the whole truth about it. So there's—OLIVER: And he also conceals the fact that the others don't like Gulliver because he's a partial—a reasonable Yahoo, as it were.HITZ: Right. So their self-deception, Gulliver's being taken in by their self-deception, the ways in which they—this is one of the ways that I think it's profound about the nature of slavery. And to cheer us all up, I'll make a Holocaust analogy, as you also did.When I was traveling in Germany some years ago, in one of their Holocaust museums, there was an image from a Nazi-era German newspaper of Jewish people living in complete squalor in the ghetto. And of course, they had forced them into squalor. But somehow they forced them into squalor, and then this reinforces the sense that they're these rat-like beings.And there's something very similar that the Houyhnhnms do to the Yahoos. They force them into this animal state, and then they say, “Oh God, look, these people are disgusting. They just don't know how to act.” That seems to me the kind of level at which Swift is working. He is interested in the nature of a human being, but not in the abstract Platonic sense, I don't think.He strikes me as someone who believes in common sense, common decency, basic freedom, and basic use of reason. And he finds in his time that there's distorting teachings, distorting ways of behavior that have gotten people far off track. To me, that's what it feels like it comes from. It doesn't feel like Plato is in the background to me.OLIVER: Is there an extent to which, though, it's a work of sort of anti-philosophy? As you say, Swift, he likes common sense. He likes ordinary reason, and he likes what he would call the revealed truth of Christianity. So he talks, in his sermons about people, it comes to you from God like a light. It's revealed to you. And he doesn't like this idea that the philosophers can work it all out.And in a way, that's the same sort of mistake that the scientists think they can discover all this stuff, and they go in these crazy ways. And the Houyhnhnms are a bit like that. If you had philosopher-kings, they would end up being perverted examples of rationality because they're ignoring the—so do you think it's anti-philosophy in a way? The book is saying, “No, no, I don't want philosophers”?Criticizing Elite Intellectual CultureHITZ: That's definitely a plausible reading. But it's hard to tell whether it's anti-philosophy or anti a particular style of thinking. It's worth pointing out, in that light, that Gulliver, when he arrives in the land of the Houyhnhnms, before he even meets a horse, he sees a Yahoo who, from what I can tell from the text, is trying to wave at him and say hello, who recognizes him. And he's horrified. He sees him instantly as a monster.So I think immediately upon landing, he sees the Yahoos as monstrous, and that tells me that he must already be off kilter. So he's not just corrupted by the Houyhnhnms; he's been somehow led off track, away from the capacity to recognize fellow human beings before that.And he's come from this—the third book is all about various kinds of inquiry, scientific endeavors, practical endeavors, talking to the greats of the past, necromancy, and various kinds of inquiry into wisdom or things like wisdom. And somehow that's the thing that seems to push him to the point where he can no longer tell what a human being is.OLIVER: One of my favorite parts is when he's with the wizards, and he asks to be shown Homer and Aristotle and all their commentators. And he says that there were vast rooms full of these commentators, endless numbers of them. But Homer and Aristotle didn't recognize any of them because they were all so ashamed of the terrible things they'd said about these great men's works that they kept themselves forever in a different part of the underworld. They couldn't bear the shame of being revealed to having told lies and said second-rate things.It's very, very funny. And I think that's another sort of angle on which the book says, “You're so tempted to make a comment and have an idea and be a philosopher, and you should just accept the revealed truth of what is known. Just stop it. Just stop it.” [laughter]HITZ: Well, I suppose maybe I would also put it this way, that Swift sees the condition of 18th-century Ireland, which is quite poor, very bad. And it's ruled in a savage way by the English, who have a quite flourishing intellectual culture, as it happens, at this time.So I think what he might be is not a critic of philosophy so much as a critic of intellectual culture. Because intellectual culture seems to not only not help with existential concerns like slavery and oppression and savage poverty, but even serves to mask and hide and create illusions behind it.So that's, I guess, how it strikes me, as a book that's hostile to what you'd now call elite intellectual culture. And I don't know how fundamental that critique is, in light of its inability to solve problems for real human beings or to obscure the causes of what's going on with real human beings.OLIVER: I think it's quite fundamental because outside of Gulliver's—I think this comes into Gulliver's Travels, but what he might have said more explicitly elsewhere is, there are people starving in the streets of Dublin. And we've got corrupt politicians and intellectuals saying all these things, but you know, here she is starving. You don't need to work that out. [laughter] There's no question—the reveal—just be a Christian and, like, for goodness' sake . . .HITZ: Yes.OLIVER: And when, for example, he talks to the king of Brobdingnag, and there's that wonderful satire of the English government and everything. And he says, “Those people understood mathematics and poetry and whatever, but I could never drive into their head any sense of the abstract or any of these speculative—they simply didn't know what that was. They didn't know what I was saying.” [laughter]And so in a way, his ideal government is anti-philosophical because it would just look at the human problem in front of it. It wouldn't do speculative science. It wouldn't think of itself as rational, all this Platonic stuff. It would just—she's in rags, she has bare feet, you know?HITZ: Yes, that's right.OLIVER: What do we need a philosopher-king? Like, what are you talking about?HITZ: Exactly.OLIVER: The priest understands this because he's there in the city doing it. And is there something of that in the book, that constant resistance of the cleverness of people who cannot see daily life?HITZ: I think that's absolutely true, and I think it's probably one of the things I love about the book, because I think this somehow gets to something in my own heart. Even though I'm a professional intellectual—I have been my whole life—the distance between the concerns of professional intellectuals and the concerns of living, real people in various parts of the world is very large.And it's even worse when, as it was when I was coming up in grad school, there's a ton of explicit concern and various operations underway to improve life for others, which have zero connection with anything that anyone actually does. So I think the Laputans, which is the beginning of the third book, when Gulliver—OLIVER: The flying island.HITZ: Yes, when Gulliver visits the people on the flying island, who have one eye towards the heavens and one eye pointed inward. And they study music and mathematics, and they live in a giant flying saucer, which has the—OLIVER: And the flappers.HITZ: That's right. [laughter] When someone needs to talk to them, someone flaps their ears so that they pay attention. And their wives all run off with working people because they can't bear to be treated the way they are by men like this. And the flying saucer is not just distant. It also has the power to crush the towns underneath it if it judges them to be rebellious.This image will stick with you for the rest of your life. I mean, it's absolutely perfect, and the perfect image of bad government of a kind when intellectual culture is prized. And it's hinted early on in the book in Lilliput, when the rulers in Lilliput have to do these elaborate dances with ropes.OLIVER: Oh, with the king and the chief minister hold the pole, funny angles, and if you get under it, you get a green ribbon or a red ribbon.HITZ: Exactly. [laughter] And they have these athletic contests of grace and various colored ribbons, and that determine how far you get in the halls of power.OLIVER: Yes. Are you a cabinet minister or a junior minister? Yes, yes.HITZ: Exactly. So there, it's all just a funny joke. But it develops, I think, into the Laputans, people who have kinds of expertise that are actually hostile to them doing any kind of humane governing. So yes, that seems right to me.Christianity in GulliverOLIVER: To what extent is it a Christian book?HITZ: That's an interesting question. I've never found a strong Christian element in it myself. There are satires of religious wars, both in Lilliput, where Lilliput's at war with its neighboring city. Oh, wait a second, there's two different disputes in Lilliput. One is about what side you cut your egg on.OLIVER: There are the Little-Endians and the Big-Endians,HITZ: Right. And then there's also one about heel size. So there's two different kinds of disputes.OLIVER: With the marvelous image that the king is a Short-Heeler. But they think that the heir to the throne might be favorable to the High-Heelers because he has one heel slightly higher than the other, and he walks with a wobbly gait.HITZ: [laughs] That's right. This, again, in Lilliput is just utterly hilarious, outrageous, very silly, obviously a parody of religious wars between different kinds of Christians. But it resurfaces towards the end. It's the Houyhnhnms, where he talks to the Master Horse—OLIVER: And the horse sort of pretends to this great rationality, simply can't understand that men would kill each other over the question of whether flesh is bread or bread is flesh.HITZ: That's right. That's right. That's right. So there's definitely disparaging remarks about religious wars. And as you're talking about it, where along with Swift's praise of common sense, there's a kind of basic Christian morality, which is that the poor and the suffering need attention. That all strikes me as Christian. Apart from that, I'm not sure. If you have a religious take, I'd be interested to hear it.OLIVER: I find it very interesting that Swift had quite strict beliefs. He was not in favor of Catholics. He thought Dissenters should be tolerated, but he wanted the Test Act. He was very particular about all these things. And in his other works, he's quite direct about that. But in this book, he achieves a kind of high ambivalence. And he's not a Little-Ender or a Big-Ender.HITZ: That's right.OLIVER: And he says the religious text on which this is based simply says that you must break the egg at the most convenient end.HITZ: [laughs] That's right.OLIVER: Now, of course, in reality, he's a Little-Ender, and he's very committed to the Reformation, and he thinks it's all terrible that they're not. And it's interesting that someone with such angry, insistent beliefs on the Anglican Church would take this ambivalent position.And he satirizes so much. But the anti-slavery stuff, the description of the Laputans bringing the island down, and then he says, “I've never seen so much want and misery, and there's a wild look in their eyes, and they're wearing rags.” I mean, this is Dublin, right? This is just, along with the slavery, this basic Christian concern for the oppressed, the poor, the suffering.HITZ: Yes, that's right.OLIVER: And so I don't quite know. It's almost like the book is saying, again with this anti-intellectual thing, all these doctrinal disputes and which church this and who believes that. And here we have slaves and poor people and beggars and starving people.HITZ: Right.OLIVER: Christianity should deal with that first. So is the implicit criticism of his fellow Christians, in a way, that they're more interested in these disputes than in the fact that there are enslaved people and suffering people and—you see what I mean?HITZ: Yes, that's right.OLIVER: And Gulliver—the Houyhnhnms are highly rational but not Christian, which is a significant omission. And by the end, are you supposed to wonder if Gulliver actually isn't very much of a Christian? Because he can see this suffering and not respond to it at all.HITZ: Right, when maybe the—is the best person in the book the King of Brobdingnag? Does that seem right? The person with the—at least who says the best things?OLIVER: He says the best things. I think the best person is Glumdalclitch. She shows real charity and real love towards him.HITZ: What about the Houyhnhnm, the one who likes him, who says, “Fare thee well, gentle Yahoo”? It's tear-jerking—OLIVER: Oh, the sorrel nag.HITZ: The sorrel nag. I can literally weep at that moment when she says, “Fare thee well, gentle Yahoo.”OLIVER: That's true. That's true. She and Glumdalclitch are maybe more similar characters. Yes, yes, yes.HITZ: They're similar characters. Okay.OLIVER: And they have that basic, you don't need to call it Christian. You don't need—it doesn't need theology.HITZ: Humane. I would call it humane. Yes.OLIVER: They have that basic love of their fellow. You know, Glumdalclitch doesn't say, “Oh, how amusing this little man is, or how entertaining, or I can make—” She says, “He must be cared for. He looks a bit like me. He must be cared for.”HITZ: Right.OLIVER: And the sorrel nag, again, has the love of the fellow creature.HITZ: That's right. That's right.OLIVER: So I think Swift might be bringing in this, what he thinks of as the revealed truth of Christianity. Like, you shouldn't need telling, you shouldn't need to argue. It's there.HITZ: Right. This is just me making things up, which is what I'm here for. We're podcasting. Yes.OLIVER: Yes, of course. Also, is that not what the philosophers would do? That's what Swift would say.HITZ: But if I was going to make something up, what I would say is something like this: that Swift to me, from the testimony of Gulliver's Travels, which is the book of his I really know the best. I don't know much about the rest of it. He has a level of self-awareness and sophistication. So, he knows that that religious difference is being used as a pretext. He knows that it is obscuring the suffering of these people. So, for the purposes of the book, he says, “Look, if you're a smart person, if you're a smart ruler, if you're an actually humane, intelligent, commonsensical ruler, you know that the fact that they have the wrong religious views is not a reason for them to be enslaved and oppressed and starved.” So that would be my suspicion.And that's why I think, to me, the religion is so light, because it's not really a religious problem. It's actually just a human problem and a political problem that is, how do you run your country so that these subject peoples are allowed to be free and develop themselves and be full human beings? That would be my made-up guess.Students' Views of GulliverOLIVER: What do undergraduates think? What is it that they find interesting in the book, and what do they like or dislike?HITZ: It's been a couple of years. I think they like this idea that—we all think travel is very broadening, a great way to think about the world. You know, you can learn so much about one's fellow human beings. And whatever else is going on in Gulliver's Travels, travel does not necessarily produce enlightenment.So I think they like the attention to the ways in which, even when we are trying to learn, we fail to learn. And the ways in which structures of learning, like traveling or studying science, might actually make you worse and not better, things like that. But it's not a book—I think it's fair to say it's not one of the favorite books of the undergraduates.OLIVER: Okay.HITZ: I think they find it a little bit distant, and I'm not sure why that is.OLIVER: Is it because it sort of looks like a novel, but it's not what we have come to expect a novel to be? And it sort of has that—HITZ: I think that's right.OLIVER: The pre–Jane Austen novel is kind of weird to us now.HITZ: Well, they love Don Quixote.OLIVER: Okay.HITZ: And that is a challenge of a similar kind. It's a novel which doesn't quite read like a novel, and the humor is kind of old. I mean, it's also true—undergraduates, in my experience, in general—I hope they'll forgive me for saying this on a podcast—they're not always good at comedy. They tend to think that serious things must be tragic.OLIVER: You can't get an A by making a joke.HITZ: Well, more that they have a sense that an intellectual life is something serious. It's serious.OLIVER: Oh, yes. Okay. And the syllabus slightly reinforces that, doesn't it?HITZ: Well, it's sort of self-reinforcing because we used to read more Aristophanes. We used to read Rabelais.OLIVER: If you do Shakespeare, it'll be the tragedies.HITZ: No, no, we do Shakespeare comedies.OLIVER: Oh, you do? Okay.HITZ: Yes. We have As You Like It and The Tempest. And do we have more tragedies? Maybe one more tragedy than comedy, but not a terrible imbalance.OLIVER: Well, that's good.HITZ: It's not Shakespeare-type comedy that's—maybe, correct me if I'm wrong, a Shakespeare comedy is something that ends in a marriage, more or less.OLIVER: More or less.HITZ: It's things that are funny—they don't necessarily think that humor is a way of thinking.OLIVER: Do they struggle with irony?HITZ: No, not usually. As long as it's serious irony, Anyway, I'm not sure why. I think I'm making things—I'm going too far out of the grounds for drawing conclusions.Favorite Parts of the BookOLIVER: Sure. Do you have a favorite passage?HITZ: One of my favorites is the part—is it Balnibarbi where they have people who try to speak with objects?OLIVER: Oh, yes, yes, yes.HITZ: And they have to carry around wagons full of things because they never know what you might want to talk about. [laughter] That's so weird. Because I think I spent a lot of time studying with philosophers, there's a bit of—something's on the nose about this.OLIVER: Yes.HITZ: You know, it's like, “No, you've got to say exactly—no, that's too imprecise. You have to say exactly what you mean.” Bernard Williams, the great philosopher, has something complaining about how contemporary philosophers are very controlling of their readers. They don't want anyone to make the slightest mistake about what they mean by a particular word. That's how the people who speak by objects strike me.OLIVER: Do you think that is a problem of contemporary philosophy?HITZ: Oh, sure. Yes, absolutely. Yes. The way Williams puts it is that when you write something, it should be like a cake mix, and the reader should be able to put their own egg and bake the cake themselves.OLIVER: Oh, I see. You mean like a box of mix, yes.HITZ: Yes, yes, exactly. It's like a box of cake mix. Whereas making the cake painstakingly and force-feeding it bite by bite to the reader is not actually an—OLIVER: Telling them how it tastes.HITZ: Telling them how it tastes is not an educational endeavor.OLIVER: When does this become too dominant in philosophy?HITZ: It's a feature of 20th-century analytic philosophy to be very careful with the meanings of words. And it's by no means universal; it's just a natural vice to the territory.Iris MurdochOLIVER: Is this a problem for someone like Iris Murdoch, or is it more the A. J. Ayer type?HITZ: No, it's the A. J. Ayer type, not Iris Murdoch. No, Iris Murdoch is heterodox outside of the—OLIVER: Do you like her philosophy?HITZ: I do, yes.OLIVER: What do you like about it? Platonic?HITZ: Now, see, I came here to talk about Swift. [laughter]OLIVER: I know, but you made such a good point about the satire of philosophers.HITZ: I like her writing for a more general educated audience, her not making assumptions about the philosophical training of her readers, and her use of Plato for sure, which is quite interesting and creative. She sort of ingests Plato and does something with it that I think is very interesting.OLIVER: Is she properly appreciated as a Platonist, or do you think there's more attention to be paid?HITZ: There's probably more attention to be paid, but she gets some attention. She gets some attention. I also don't think it was particularly helpful, these two books that came out a couple of years ago about Murdoch, Foot, Midgley, and Anscombe.OLIVER: Oh, yes, yes, yes. I only read one of those. It was quite good.HITZ: It might be quite good, but those four women are quite different from one another. So it's an example of where attention to identity could obscure as much as it—OLIVER: Well, one of the books was more about the ideas—they were both obviously about the ideas—and one of them was more about the fact that they were together in Oxford. And that they benefited from hanging out, talking, doing different sorts of work, sleeping with each other's husbands, et cetera.HITZ: Yes, all the good stuff.OLIVER: And from the more sociological point of view, it was very interesting to see that, actually, a lot of what Murdoch did was bound up with her friendships and relationships, in that the argument basically is, A. J. Ayer and the others get sent away because of the war. So these four women are actually—they've been banned from this seminar and told they're not allowed.Well, now they can sit around and do what they want to do. And it worked, and they all produced very interesting things. So from that point of view, I think it was—but I agree with you, Elizabeth Anscombe and Iris Murdoch are not the same. [laughter]HITZ: Not even particularly similar. I also feel like I've read enough of Murdoch's novels to have a sense of what the sociological situation was like.OLIVER: You like the novels?HITZ: I do like them, yes.OLIVER: Do you have favorites?HITZ: I can't remember the name of my favorite because I haven't read them for years. It's one of the things I read years ago, the one—I'd remember it if I saw the title. There's an LSD trip at the beginning of it.OLIVER: Oh, The Good Apprentice. I love that book.HITZ: The Good Apprentice, yes. I think that was my favorite. But I never fell in love with it. I just liked it, and I found it interesting, and I found the sociology interesting. Okay, this is what academics at this time period were doing.What to Pair with SwiftOLIVER: We got diverted.HITZ: “We” got diverted. [laughs]OLIVER: We did. If Swift is on a great books syllabus, what is it good to pair him with? If people are reading Swift, on or off a syllabus, do you think there are other—Hooker, you said, which I think would be interesting.HITZ: No, Hooke. It's Hooke.OLIVER: Hooke. Hooke. That's a very good point.HITZ: The guy who wrote Micrographia, who has the enormous picture of the flea.OLIVER: Yes, yes, yes. So that would be good. But any other? Is it worth reading Plato alongside him?HITZ: Well, I like to—he's on the list for something we called Life of the Mind Seminar at Catherine Project, which is our introduction to the life of the mind.OLIVER: And just to tell people, the Catherine Project—this is not a university. Anyone can join a seminar.HITZ: That's right. It's an open online readers community. Consists of small, high-quality conversations, mostly on Zoom, some in person.OLIVER: You could be some kid, an accountant, a dentist, whatever, and you come and do a—you've got a PhD running a seminar, and you get that experience.HITZ: Right. Some of them are peer led, so they're not necessarily PhDs running them. The reading groups are not necessarily run by PhDs. But the core program in which the Life of the Mind Seminar is—either a PhD or an ABD [all but degree] or someone with some academic experience is usually leading that. We have it there, and we have it there with a set of books that are meant to disorient rather than to orient.So one of the difficulties with reading great books with more or less random selections of adults is that people feel uncertain, out of place. And they bring expertise, real or fake, to the table, which makes it very difficult to have a conversation. It's usually fake expertise, for what it's worth.OLIVER: Give us an example of what you mean by fake expertise.HITZ: Well, so someone will have—we'll be, say, reading Hamlet. Someone will have taken a class on Shakespeare in college, and they'll say, “Actually, we're asking this question. But what I learned, my professor told me, is that Hamlet actually symbolizes—he has an Oedipus complex and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then this is what this means, and this is what that means.” And then your conversation's over, because you need to focus just on the text that's shared between the—OLIVER: It's not a crossword puzzle.HITZ: Exactly. It's not a crossword puzzle, and it's not something where—or the other—people often, again, they feel a bit on their back feet. So they'll google a bunch of stuff about the author, and they'll start tossing out random facts about the book or about the author, about the context. And again, you don't get really into the meat of the book that way.So, Gulliver's Travels is there to help us think about ways in which we might not be expert in things we're expert. Ways in which we might think we understand something and not understand it. And ways in which people who, with every appearance of seriousness and scientific principle, can just say unbelievably stupid things.So it's a very, very good book for that, where in that sense, it's I think very good for any liberal education program. It's liberating that way. One of the things we need to be liberated from is false expertise.OLIVER: You're talking really about these secondhand opinions that you haven't interrogated and come to understand yourself.HITZ: Exactly. Exactly, exactly, exactly.OLIVER: This is what Mill says. Everything is new to someone, and the real genius is that you find it out.HITZ: Exactly.OLIVER: You don't get taught it. Yes, yes.HITZ: Exactly, exactly. So real learning is things you find for yourself. Anyway, that's what I like it with. As for pairing it, yes, I think it would just depend on what you were—I don't have a clear thought about that. I think it'd be good to pair it with Galileo's Starry Messenger and preface to Hooke's Micrographia.But you could also pair it with Emma. Be quite good, actually, because Emma is also about someone who really doesn't know what they're doing and has no idea. Thinks they know what's going on; they really have no idea what's going on.OLIVER: Yes. Hamlet as well, in fact.HITZ: I guess so. Does he not know what's going on?OLIVER: Who's diverting now? [laughter] Well, there's an interesting question, isn't there, about whether Hamlet has legitimate doubts. So he says, “This ghost could be a demon. I should be careful. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to pretend to be mad. I'm going to find out.” Or whether he just doesn't want to see the truth in front of him, and he quote-unquote “delays” because of that. I don't know if you have a view.HITZ: I don't think he's deluded. I think the problem is something different, but I haven't thought enough about it recently to know what his volitional obstacle is. But I don't think he's deluded. I think he sees what's going on, but there's something about acting that doesn't work for him.OLIVER: An internal—HITZ: Something internal. Something internal. In a way, I find the play very hard. I don't know what, for instance, what does that obstacle have to do with Ophelia? What's going on with that? Anyway, he's very mysterious, but I don't—yes, that'd be my sense, is that he's not—OLIVER: Do you buy this idea that he's a nihilist?HITZ: No, although he's definitely faced with something like nihilism. He has to look at it. And of course, the play does end with everyone dead, [laughs] so it's not obvious that he's wrong.Sympathy for GulliverOLIVER: This question hangs over Gulliver as well. Is the problem by the end that he's basically become a nihilist? His response to the Yahoos is to deny meaning, deny the possibility of meaning, to shut himself away.HITZ: He is a true misanthrope. He hates human beings and refuses to interact with them and in that sense, in some way, removes himself from any further mistakes. In another way, the mistake that he's in is so massive that that hardly seems like a consolation. But yes, he's definitely stuck, and he's stuck in a place where who he is—because he's a human being. We have to remember that.So he's in a place of total self-hatred and the hatred of his neighbor, what you'd call from the Christian perspective a total loss of charity. Is that nihilist? I don't know, but it's definitely bad. It's not a good state to be in. Maybe I don't know what you mean by nihilism exactly.OLIVER: Are we supposed to disapprove of him at the end or sympathize with him?HITZ: Disapprove, I think.OLIVER: Yes? You don't feel sorry for him?HITZ: I do a bit.OLIVER: But not much.HITZ: Well, should I?OLIVER: I have come to believe—yes, this is what I've come to feel in subsequent readings, is that Gulliver, as you say, is very mistaken. He thinks he understands things that he does not understand. He has the sort of pretense of rationality, but he lacks any sort of meta rationality to see what his limits are.And he becomes, therefore—he doesn't advocate genocide, and he doesn't take any pleasure in using Yahoo skin, but he's just completely null to it. There's a sort of void there where human feeling ought to be. And it's tragic for him. It's a tragic ending that he is so isolated. And we can't sympathize with him, as it were, but we can feel sort of awful that he's shriveled into this state rather than judging or blame.I think one of the persistent themes of the book is, as I say, this kind of basic love of fellow creature, the Glumdalclitch or the sorrel. And if you take that from the book, you will wish you could bring Gulliver back.HITZ: Right. What you're saying reminds me that there is an interesting parallel in Plato's dialogues that I hadn't thought of before, Plato's Parmenides, which is perhaps the most difficult Plato's dialogue. So it's a conversation between young Socrates and the philosopher Parmenides. The first third of it is relatively clear, some arguments against what people think of as Plato's theory of forms.Then there's an extensive, insane dialectical process where various theses about the connection between being and oneness are both argued for and then refuted, and argued for and then refuted, pages and pages and pages and pages of it. So this seems to be—it's Parmenides and Zeno who are running Socrates through this ringer.And the person at the very beginning of the dialogue who they have to go find, to tell him the story of how Socrates met Parmenides, used to study philosophy. But now he just trains horses. [laughs] One of my teachers pointed this out to me, and I've never been able to get over it, that he spent this time doing philosophy, and he's like, “You know what? I'm going to work with horses for the rest of my life. If I never hear another human voice, that's fine with me.”So I think that is an interesting parallel. And I think it is not really that uncommon to see people who are totally disillusioned with relating to humans, who then relate to animals instead, like they devote themselves to animals.OLIVER: But on that reading, it might be a disillusionment with philosophical humanity. It might be philosophy that's killed Gulliver's human feeling.HITZ: That's right. Well, I think that's one possibility, one very strong possibility. That's why I think the Houyhnhnms come after the Laputans. Going to the furthest reaches of his intellectual interests just destroys his humanity.But it doesn't seem like exhaustion in the same way that whoever, I can't remember his name, the character who relates the Parmenides, where you just think he must be exhausted from having heard more than one conversation like this. [laughter] And just in the stable with the horses eating oats, I mean, it's just delightful. It's just so peaceful, you know?OLIVER: Bucolic, pastoral, yes.HITZ: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Maybe you're right that we should be more sympathetic to someone in that situation.OLIVER: Well, next time you read it, you can tell me if you change your mind.HITZ: All right. I will tell you if I change my mind.OLIVER: Very good. Zena Hitz, thank you very much.HITZ: Thank you very much, Henry Oliver. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

On this edition of Reelin'... The Featured Five Theme is Playing "Favorites": Songs that mention the word "favorite" in the title... Also, Paul McCartney talks about partnering with John Lennon to write "A Day In The Life"... Paul Simon on finding love on the set of Saturday Night Live... What band gets their name from a passage in the Spanish novel, Don Quixote?... New music from Marcus King, The Lone Bellow, and more!... Deep tracks from Blues Traveler, Mudcrutch, Mike Doughty, Split Enz, Gregg Allman, Mavis Staples, and much more! For more info on the show, visit reelinwithryan.com

Wayne Johnston is a master storyteller. He's been writing books for forty years, with the history, politics and people of Newfoundland figuring large in his works. His new novel is The Novice of Holloway Hall. He joins the show to talk about the books that have shaped him and his career. Plus, acclaimed English author Jeanette Winterson answers the Proust Questionnaire. Books discussed on this week's show include:Don Quixote by Miguel de CervantesSalome by Oscar WildeCollected Poems of Emily DickinsonAs You Like It by William ShakespeareOne Aladdin Two Lamps by Jeanette WintersonCheck us out on Instagram @cbcbooks and TikTok @cbcbooks

Recording of Off the Shelf Radio Show from WDLR with co-hosts Nicole Fowles and Molly Meyers LaBadie. Guests include Brian Doone, Community Relations Coordinator for SourcePoint.  This week we chat about upcoming events with SourcePoint like the Health Expo and the Car Show. And, of course, what we're reading!  Recommendations include Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes and some of Nicole's favorite nonfiction titles.  Listen live every Friday morning at 9 AM. https://my967.net/  This episode originally aired on May 8, 2026.

After completing a classics reading project, today's guest really wants to keep her reading momentum while also bringing more non-classics back into her reading life. Today we're trying something new and inviting a team member alongside Anne to help tackle one reader-specific reading dilemma. As you'll hear today, Anne couldn't help but notice that guest Cheryl Drury's tastes and recent reading project shares a lot in common with team member Ginger Horton's reading life. Ginger is our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club community manager, and she has recently been immersed in the classics due to her current enrollment in a Great Books graduate study program. That's why Ginger seems like exactly the right reader to bring along for this conversation with Cheryl. Cheryl hails from Charleston, South Carolina. While she's always been a reader, she'd never really dabbled much in classics or Great Books until 18 months ago, when she embarked on a challenge to read through a year-long list of more than 100 influential books. The project energized Cheryl's reading life, but now she's not quite sure where to go next. Anne, Ginger, and Cheryl talk about how Cheryl may retain some of the structure from her classics project as well as where she can have more flexibility to follow where her reading whimsy takes her. Plus, they'll offer title ideas that may feel like just the right bridge between what Cheryl's been reading lately and what she'd love more of in the months ahead. Find the list of titles discussed today and share your ideas for Cheryl on our show notes page, at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/523. This year marks our 10th anniversary of Book Club. It has been so much fun along the way, and we've got great events queued up to celebrate this year. Plus, this is a wonderful time to join because it's Summer Reading Guide season. For more from Ginger and more Book Club fun, join us at modernmrsdarcy.com/club. Chapters: 07:43 Meet Cheryl 12:10 Cheryl's decision to read the classics 21:08 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 23:38 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 26:15 A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles 30:05 Dead Wake by Erik Larson 46:34 1000 Books to Read Before You Die by James Mustich 51:42 Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff 54:15 Hagseed by Margaret Atwood 55:52 What will Cheryl read next? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ONE EYE ON THE WORLD — Monocle, the brainchild of the expat Canadian magazine maker, Tyler Brûlé, was born in early 2007, a relatively awful year for the magazine business, not to mention the entire world. In that year alone, more than 100 print magazines folded—or, as Wikipedia terms it, were “dis-established”—among them: Life (yet again), Premiere, Red Herring, House & Garden, Jane, Child, and Business 2.0. Months later, the global economy was hit by the Great Recession. But Brûlé was coming out from under a rather lengthy non-compete agreement with Time Inc., after selling his previous startup, Wallpaper*, to the American media giant, and he was desperate to get back to the newsroom. Given the times, and the stream of fading print publications, one could judge Brûlé's resolve as “madness,” as Don Quixote cried in the opening clip. Digital was all the rage, the iPad was knocking on the door, and the radiation of the frenzied dotcom meltdown was still slowly killing legacy media. “Madness”? Not if you know Tyler Brûlé.  In his world, “life as it should be” is rich—a morning espresso in a bustling cafe with a crisp newspaper written and edited in the romance language of your choice, sorting out weekends skiing the Alps or lounging on the Med while riding the night train to Vienna. And then there's the print—not only the magazine itself, printed on “upwards of nine different paper stocks, crammed with extremely niche articles about carbon-neutral airlines in Costa Rica and sleek Afghan restaurants in Dubai,” but also special edition newspapers, coffee table books, and Monocle-approved travel guides.  (Someone forgot to tell Brûlé and his brilliant team of collaborators that print is dead). In a media culture traditionally obsessed with scale at any cost, Monocle's modest 100,000 circulation belies a thriving multi-media juggernaut that confidently ignores the lure of social media. “We're in a very fortunate position that we're an independent publisher,” says Brûlé, “and we don't have the commercial pressures of a big parent. And those commercial pressures can be two-fold: One is cost savings, but the other pressures are to go and chase after every new trend.” In fact, Brûlé thinks of Monocle as a family business. “We don't set out to be pioneers, but also we're a family company, and we can choose to do things quickly if we want to.” That same culture has manufactured the pressure to establish one's entrepreneurial cred. You're not the editor, you're the founding editor, the founding creative director, the founding director. But when asked about how he thinks of and refers to himself, Brûlé answers simply: “If I think about ‘What do I do?' I'm a journalist. I'm out to be a witness. I'm out to absorb, I'm out to interpret, and I'm out to communicate.  A print-centric media phenomenon, created as a family business, led by a journalist. Surprising? Not for someone who's been building a life—as it should be. — This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press. A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

A lot of people move to Spain thinking they'll find happiness abroad. In reality, though, expat life is complicated, and happiness is far from guaranteed. Here are my thoughts on a "feeling of home", on getting away from it all, on Americans' love for moving, and much more. Support the podcast at https://expatmadrid.com/donate/I appreciate it! And I'll give you a shoutout on a future episode if you send some support.Also, you can sign up for walking tours of amazing locations in Spain and Europe with Walks Tours: https://expatmadrid.com/walks/Food tours in Spain and elsewhere with Devour Tours: https://expatmadrid.com/devour/And cycling tours such as the Route of Don Quixote with Bike Tour in Spain: https://biketourinspain.com/If you're interested in Spanish real estate, check out the list of Spanish real estate vocabulary over on my blog: https://expatmadrid.com/real-estate-vocab-spanish/

Antonio Martínez Asensio celebra el Día del Libro incorporando un nuevo libro a la sala de 'La Biblioteca' de 'Hoy por Hoy'. Y no un libro cualquiera, sino el libro más conocido a nivel mundial junto a La Biblia y el clásico español por excelencia: 'El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha', o simplemente 'El Quijote', de Miguel de Cervantes. ¿Será capaz de resumirlo en apenas tres minutos?

While we are on a break, enjoy this episode from Season 2!This week we pair two early-modern comedies that show how laughter can reveal truth. But first, we do a quick review of European history, looking at France, Spain, Italy and England, trying to place the things we're reading inside history. (I knew next to nothing about Spain at this time so it was really helpful for me!)This is a replay of one of my favourite episodes, episode 32. New episodes out May 19th!Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605) introduces a middle-aged dreamer who decides to become a knight-errant, setting out with his baffled squire Sancho Panza to defend honor and right wrongs. The famous windmill scene is only the start of his misadventures. Quixote is absurd yet strangely noble—so devoted to his ideals that he reshapes reality around them. His neighbors burn his books, a shepherdess defends her independence, and somehow, amid the chaos, it's all deeply human.Molière's Tartuffe (1664) offers lighter, sharper satire. The pious fraud Tartuffe charms his way into Orgon's household, scheming for both wife and wealth while the women—wife, daughter, and maid—quietly outsmart him. The play's snappy dialogue and quick pacing make it pure joy, right up until its too-neat royal ending.Both works explore self-delusion and sincerity, showing how belief, hypocrisy, and humor can coexist. This week's music—Spanish piano by Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados—was the perfect accompaniment: bright, bold, and unexpected.We'll be back next week with a look at The Prince (Machiavelli) and The Social Contract (Rousseau). See you then!LINKTed Gioia/The Honest Broker's 12-Month Immersive Humanities Course (paywalled!)My Amazon Book List (NOT an affiliate link)CONNECTThe complete list of Crack the Book Episodes: https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2rTo read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com.Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/LISTENSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bdApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm

“There are parts of the business and finance world that are invested in making these things seem intimidating and scary. We really enjoy making things more approachable.” — Alex MayyasiWhat's the last taboo? The thing that we are totally embarrassed to discuss? No, not sex. It's money. At least according to Alex Mayyasi — frequent contributor to NPR's Planet Money — who has just published Planet Money: How to Live Richer, Spend Smarter, and Afford the Life You Want, a field guide to the big economic forces that shape our working, saving, loving and leisure lives.Mayyasi argues that money is the last taboo. We talk openly (perhaps too openly) about our sex lives now. But we still don't talk about our money lives — not with spouses, not with parents, not with our children. Companies that have tried full salary transparency report uncomfortable conversations about race and gender. Thus the need for Mayyasi's new book. It's not exactly porn, but Planet Money is designed to liberate us from our last taboo. Five Takeaways•       The Economy Was Invented During the Great Depression: If you asked someone a hundred years ago how the economy was doing, you'd get a strange look back. The concept didn't exist. It was the Depression that forced the question — because Roosevelt and his advisers had no way of knowing whether the New Deal was working. An economist was tasked with the Don Quixote-like job of counting every transaction in America to produce a single number: GDP. We have lived inside that number ever since.•       Money Is More Embarrassing Than Sex: We talk freely about sex now. We still don't talk about money — not with spouses, not with parents, not with children. Mayyasi advocates for salary transparency, even though companies that have tried it report uncomfortable conversations about race and gender pay gaps. The discomfort is the point. Maybe we need a Freud of finance to liberate us from the last taboo.•       Financial Time Travel: Markets give us the ability to move money through time — into the future through saving, or from the future to the present through borrowing. Student loans are the most relatable form: young people pulling their future income backwards to fund the human capital they need to earn it. Consumption smoothing across the life cycle is a perfectly valid use of debt, as long as you don't assume the future will be richer than it actually turns out to be.•       Productive Risk Versus Nihilistic Gambling: The GameStop ride looks quaint compared to today's parlay bets on whether a certain word will appear in the State of the Union. Higher risk, higher reward is a continuum, and savvy careers are built on calculated risks. But there is a difference between productive risk — the kind that builds businesses and careers — and the nihilistic flip of a coin. Knowing the difference is half of financial literacy.•       Bobby Bonilla and the Magic of Compound Interest: Bonilla agreed to defer his $6 million Mets salary for decades. Every year, the Mets still send him a cheque for over $1 million, which drives Mets fans insane. It looks bone-headed, but it is exactly how every successful retirement plan works: give up consumption now, let compound interest do its work, enjoy something like $30 million in the future. Bonilla was savvier than his critics. We can all learn from him. About the GuestAlex Mayyasi is a writer and frequent contributor to NPR's Planet Money. His new book, Planet Money: How to Live Richer, Spend Smarter, and Afford the Life You Want, was published this week.References:•       Planet Money: How to Live Richer, Spend Smarter, and Afford the Life You Want by Alex Mayyasi.•       Episode 2863: An Anticapitalist Mutiny — Noam Scheiber on the rise and revolt of the college-educated working class. The other side of Planet Money.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: things aren't quite right on Planet Money (03:18) - The Great Moderation: a fantastic run that we forgot to celebrate (05:49) - The economy was invented during the Great Depression (07:52) - Aristotle's oikonomia: economics has always been personal (09:20) - The Planet Money DNA: storytelling and the bank teller who met the ATM (13:23) - Why money makes everybody nervous (16:02) - Crypto out, AI in: the great pivot of the writing process (17:49) - Economists and AI: the longer perspective (20:03) - Financial time travel: student loans as moving income through time (22:40) - Productive risk versus nihilistic gambling (24:41) - Does money make you happy? Beyond the $60,000 plateau (27:25) - GDP versus the planet: externalities and corporate DNA (30:15) - More embarrassing than sex: why we can't talk about money (33:19) - Salary transparency: the case of Sweden (41:47) - Bobby Bonilla, the Mets, and the magic of compound interest (45:48) - Insurance as peace of mind  

APR. 7, 2026The life-giving Word."The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." Jn 6:63 NKJVJesus was called "Rabbi" eleven times in the Gospels. But He wasn't like any other rabbi. Rabbis quoted others, but Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you..." In the gospel of John, He said it twice: "Truly, truly, I say to you..." The reason Jesus wasn't like any other rabbi was because He was God manifested in the flesh. And Paul says, "Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2:2-3 NKJV). The early church fathers had a favorite saying: "The Gospels are a river in which a gnat can swim, and an elephant can drown." The Gospels-the record of Christ's life and teaching-have impacted the world so much that they have been translated into 2,527 languages. The second-most-translated book, Don Quixote, has been translated into about 60languages. To this day, the Bible remains the bestselling book of all time. In the academic world, scholars keep score of how often any articles they write are cited by other scholars. By this year's secular score, Jesus' intellectual impact is unprecedented. Why is this? Because when everything else fails, God's Word works. Jesus explained it this way: "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." If you are a teacher, you know that the number one question in any class is: "Will this be on the final?" If you want to pass your finals and hear, "Well done!" from the teacher, get into God's Word each day and get God's Word into you.The life-giving Word The bestselling book of all timeShare This DevotionalSend us Fan MailSupport the showChanging Lives | Building Strong Family | Impacting Our Community For Jesus Christ!

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Adam Sandler (again). Patrick and Joe take a trip down memory lane and discover they don't like what they find. In an attempt to white wash history, the WTHHTT team decides to clean up their old podcasting mishaps. Will they be successful? Find out on this week's remixed episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in November 2024. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly.   'Jack and Jill' available on DVD and unnecessarily on Blu-ray: https://www.amazon.com/Jack-Jill-UltraViolet-Digital-Blu-ray/dp/B006LL3WAM/   Clips from 'Jack and Jill' Music from "I, Don Quixote" from the musical 'Lord of La Mancha': book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion, music by Mitch Leigh Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, sandler, syzygy, jack and jill, pacino, dunkin, donuts, twins, quixote, bird, dunkaccino, heat, scent of a woman, dog day afternoon, godfather, krisha

Don Quixote, Candide by Voltaire, Schopenhauer, William T Vollmann, Motherdying by Michael Lentz, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by Jose Saramago. https://www.patreon.com/c/1storypod

In the most stunning return since MacArthur landed at Inchon, former Book and Film Globe editor Neal Pollack has come back with a new episode of the beloved Book and Film Globe podcast. Pollack welcomes back the Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote, chief film critic Stephen Garrett, so they can preview this weekend's Oscars together.In surgical fashion, they whittle the list of 10 Best Picture nominees down to five that really matter: One Battle After Another, Sinners, Bugonia, Hamnet, and Marty Supreme, analyze the good and bad of each, and, as they're wont to do, solve all the world's problems in a mere 25 minutes. No one loves movies more than Stephen and Neal do, which is why we love them.They did not, however, love The Bride!, Maggie Gyllenhaal's bizarre reinterpretation of the Frankenstein mythos. Jessie Buckley may win the Oscar this year. But she's going to win a Razzie next year. The Bride! is an all-time turkey. BFG likes to be on the right side of history.Enjoy the show! Hopefully there will be more.[ED'S NOTE: The Holocaust story from Marty Supreme is actually based in fact]

RNIB Connect Radio's Toby Davey is joined again by Vidar Hjardeng MBE, Inclusion and Diversity Consultant for ITV News across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the channel Islands for another audio described theatre review.This time we have Birmingham Royal Ballet's revival of Director Carlos Acosta's 2022 production of ‘Don Quixote' at the Birmingham Hippodrome described by Professional Audio Describers Julia Grundy and Jonathan Nash.About ‘Don Quixote'In this first revival of his 2022 production Director Carlos Acosta delivers entertainment for all ages. Don Quixote introduces us to Cervantes' famous knight himself, lovers Kitri and Basilio, and a host of supporting characters. As the Don sets out on a quest to track down his true love, with his loyal friend and servant Sancho Panza at his side, he finds himself embroiled in an unlikely adventure of love and dreams.If you like Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, you shouldn't miss this stunning 19th-century masterpiece, full of thrilling pas de deux, delightful music played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, and much, much more!https://www.brb.org.uk/shows/don-quixote-202

The German sociologist Max Weber uses the word disenchantment to describe the character of a highly modernized, secular and bureaucratic society. Couldn't we all do with some re-enchantment! ... Check out my new book! It's called: The Last Human: How Technology is Changing What it Means to be Humanhttps://www.amazon.com/Last-Human-Technology-Changing-Means/dp/1069510831/ 

Jack Myers has been sharing observations and insights about media longer than some platforms have even existed. I used to study his “Jack Myers Report,” when I started in cable and it was actually the first faxed newsletter. Then fast forward a decade or two and I became the first Managing Editor of Jack’s next successful communications platform: Media Village! Its thousands of articles, interviews, and executive insights now serve as a living history of the business. That was where I created my first podcast…and fast forward another decade and Jack has his own podcast now, too… and has authored some seven books! But DON’T fast forward through this half hour of gems from Jack that will inform and inspire you about how we may not really BE in a “technology-first era.” Jack acknowledges he can relate to Don Quixote as some might think he’s “tilting at windmills” in fighting the perception that humanity will prevail in our tech-focused world. Why? Because Jack has seen and understands the through line of it across generational changes…and as a strategy. In this episode — and in fact in his own show with Tim Spengler, called Lead Human — we talk about what it means to be “human first” in a technology-accelerated era. We topline what empathetic leadership, performance culture, and how organizations are recalibrating as they navigate AI. He and Tim go deep on those topics, so check it out. In what Jack calls a human-recalibrated era, he's seeing a shift from “people first” as a cultural slogan to “people first” as a performance strategy — embedded into compensation, collaboration models, and operating systems. “It's not about how much content we produce, but how thoughtfully we decide what deserves to exist and be amplified.” But now that we’re both in podcasting how does this Media Ecologist see it as a business model? He explains the tension between programmatic advertising and authenticity, and why speed — in content, in media, in AI — may be the most overrated metric in the room.   Early podcasting days at MediaVillage And yes, we cover his latest reinvention: a historical fiction novel, a forthcoming science fiction trilogy, and what writing fiction reveals about understanding the human condition. At the end, I ask Jack what he hopes the media industry embraces more of — and less of — in the years ahead. His answer is less sentimental than you might expect, and more structural than most pundits are willing to articulate. This conversation spans decades of media evolution — from fax machines to AI voice replication — but it ultimately comes down to one idea: Speed without judgment is just noise. Key Highlights: 01:34 – What “human first” really means in media. 02:17 – Just the fax… the start of tracking generational shifts. 05:18 – Media Village: The house that Jack built  – on relationships and thought leadership 09:44 – How good listening led to a podcast — first for E.B., now for Jack 12:02 – Launching a leadership podcast in the AI era and how empathy is a performance strategy  19:32 – Technology-first or a time for human recalibration. 23:50 – The future of podcast monetization 28:32 – His pivot to fiction (or is it?!) in The Kissinger Conspiracy 32:17 – Media's inflection point. More responsibility. Less addiction to speed. Think ecosystem — not silos. Connect with Jack Myers: Jack Myers The Jack Myers Report  Connect with E.B. Moss and Insider Interviews: With Media & Marketing Experts            LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mossappeal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insiderinterviews Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InsiderInterviewsPodcast/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@insiderinterviews Substack: Moss Hysteria Please follow Insider Interviews, share with another smart business leader, and leave a comment on @Apple or @Spotify… or a tip in my jar!: https://buymeacoffee.com/mossappeal!  THANK YOU for listening!

Today we talk about current events.Also… last chance to order SIGNED Copies of Strange Company and the Wasteland Saga. Thank you.Strange Company Series and The Wasteland Saga Series are ready for ordering SIGNED copies. I do this at specific times because I need to order them in advance, as they are not always available. I'd jump on this if you want SIGNED copies for yourself, or, a gift for a special friend during the holidays or birthdays.These will be SIGNED Copies.I'll be SIGNING the Strange Company Books BUNDLE for $99.99 You get all 3 Books SIGNED for that price.TRIVA: These are beautiful books. The art on the covers is done by three of the most in-demand artists working in SciFi art today. Pascal Blanche (Dune Concept Artist) did Strange Company. Trent Kaniuga (Twilight Monk, Blizzard Diablo 3 Artist) did Voodoo Warfare. And Marc Lee (Coffee and Perspectives) did Hearts of Darkness. I think these are collectors' editions and I hope you take advantage of this offer. I wanted the best artists for the Strange Company, and I think the art adds to the story in an exceptionally satisfying way.I'll also be ordering copies of The Wasteland Saga.I'll be SIGNING The Wasteland Saga Series for $69.99. You get all 3 Books SIGNED for that price.TRIVIA: Artist M.S. Corley conceived and executed a very specific vision of the covers I wanted for The Wasteland Saga books. These were the third edition of the covers. The first, way back in 2011, was a cover I bought from an artist that was expensive for me at the time but didn't necessarily evoke what I wanted. Those were the early days of Indie pub and it was all I had the money for. It was kind of a take it or leave it deal. Then I sold the series to Harper Collins and they basically did a photoshop hack job for the covers. When I finally recovered the rights in 2019 I wanted to do something that evoked the Post-Apocalyptic Hemmingway nature of the books. I have a favorite sketch from Picasso. Don Quixote. I gave an image of the sketch to M.S. Corely and together we came up with covers that finally captured the series. Honestly… they are beautiful pieces of art and I love them even without the books. But that vintage feel they give to the covers of these books is very special to me and makes it feel like it was all worth it, and I am very pleased to offer them to you, SIGNED. These are keepers and I hope you cherish them as much as I do. -Nick This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nickcole.substack.com/subscribe

To celebrate the centennial Left Page we go to the start, the originator of the modern novel: Don Quixote de la Mancha!We go over the fantasies of Don Quixote, the way the two books deal with reality, fantasy, and primarily books and reading! All the while not forgetting the deep materiality involved in the depictions, and how there is still more than we think to it.Come celebrate our 100th episode with one of the greatest of all time!Enjoy!Check out all the free stuff on Patreon and support us if you can there!https://www.patreon.com/leftpage And do join our Discord for more chats about games, books, and plenty more!https://discord.gg/J2wgG3yrPNIntro Music: Ultralounge · Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Outro Music: Don't Leave! · El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe. From the Album: Zareef ℗ 2006 El-Funoun Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our journey begins in Madrid's Plaza de España, standing before the weathered bronze figures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as Miguel de Cervantes watches from above. We explore why this "Impossible Dreamer" became a profound symbol for the Jewish experience, from the 19th-century Yiddish schlemiel to the "Prince of Dreams" in modern Israeli pop. From the shadow of the Expulsion to the stages of Broadway, we trace the knight's journey and the "messianic yearning" that makes this 400-year-old character feel like a member of the Tribe. Links for Additional ReadingThe Secret Jewish History of Don Quixote by Benjamin Ivry (The Forward, 17 February 2014)Why You Should Read ‘Don Quixote'? by Ilan Stevens (Ted Ed, 18 October 2018)Don Quixote: An Honorary Wandering Jews – A Spotify PlaylistFollow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn!Find more at j2adventures.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Comedy and radio legend Phil Proctor talks about the origin of the Firesign Theater, his love of radio, his many careers as an actor, reporter, writer, comedian, author, and how he made the New York, San Francisco, and LA scenes when there were scenes to make!  He also talks about his biography “Where's My Fortune Cookie” and how he almost died three times.  Let's see if he survives our podcast. Bio: Proctor is a founding member of the thrice-Grammy-nominated Firesign Theatre, one of Rolling Stone's “Thirty Greatest Acts of All Time” and whose archives were purchased by the Library of Congress. He's appeared on-and-off Broadway, toured the USSR with the Yale Russian Chorus and the US and Canada with Proctor & Bergman and the L.A. Guitar Quartet in Don Quixote. He has appeared in scores of commercials, audiobooks, video games, films and TV shows, receiving Theatre World, LA Weekly, LA Free Press and Drama Critics' awards, and the Norman Corwin Excellence in Audio trophy as well as a recent Emmy for the PBS-aired documentary Feast Your Ears: The Story of WHFS Radio. His voice credits include memorable characters in Academy Award-winning films for Pixar and Disney from A Bug's Life to Inside Out, the Drunken French Monkey in Dr. Dolittle, Dr. Vidic in Assassin's Creed, Simon Stagg in Batman: Arkham Knight, and Howard in the multi-Emmy-winning Rugrats, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has also added scores of voices to the Golden Age of Pulp Fiction series and appeared on Irish radio and live on stage with his late wife, Melinda Peterson, at the 77th Science Fiction Convention in Dublin. He was the announcer for 3 seasons of Big Brother and has a recurring role as Detective Polehaus on the long-running Adventures in Odyssey and can be seen in many old--time radio recreations at the Online Radio Theatre on YouTube. He is a 15-year member of the Antaeus Theater and to accompany his autobiography and audiobook, Where's My Fortune Cookie? co-authored by Brad Schreiber, he co-wrote What to Say to Your Crazy Right-Wing Uncle, with Samuel Joseph and God Help Us! a political comedy which toured the U.S. and Canada starring the late Ed Asner. He currently co-hosts Phil & Ted's Sexy Boomer Show, every Tuesday afternoon on KPFK with Ted Bonnitt, featuring conversations with friends like John Goodman, Penn Jillette, Weird Al,  Laraine Newman and Harry Shearer among others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mario Bros. is the biggest franchise of all time. Bigger than Star Wars, Marvel… bigger than Harry Potter. Nintendo is an empire. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is… Well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those. [Travis Crawford Ad] Dave Young: Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with you, and Stephen Semple’s alongside, with another empire-building story for us that- Stephen Semple: An exciting story. Dave Young: It’ll take you back to childhood, but it doesn’t take me back to childhood because I’m too goddamned old. Stephen Semple: Well, it depends how you look at this, this might be- Dave Young: No, I suppose. I suppose the company [inaudible 00:01:55]. Stephen Semple: It might be older than your childhood, but depends what we decide to talk about. Dave Young: Yeah, it’s just like when the big games came out, the… So we’re talking about Nintendo today. Stephen Semple: Correct. Correct. Dave Young: And I had Atari and things like that. And my kids all had the Nintendo. I actually have a Nintendo Switch, but I didn’t get that until I was… Stephen Semple: It also originally started as an arcade game, if we go back, because we are going to go back far enough. Dave Young: Well, that’s true. That’s true. Stephen Semple: Yes, yes. But if we actually went back to the company, Nintendo, we would be going back to 1889. Dave Young: Okay. So not so much my childhood. There you go. Stephen Semple: 1889. Yeah. And we’re really not going to talk so much about the origin and Nintendo as a company, but really, the origin of the video game business, and more specifically Donkey Kong, and went on later to become the Mario Brothers franchise. That’s really what we’re going to talk about. Dave Young: Now, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Now, I don’t know everything, but I’m pretty sure video wasn’t around in 1889. Stephen Semple: It was not. Dave Young: There was no video games. Stephen Semple: No, there was not. So that’s why we’re really going to be talking about more of the recent history of Nintendo. Dave Young: A real Donkey Kong, climbing ladders and throwing barrels. Stephen Semple: Okay. That’s it. That’s it. Dave Young: Or a monkey, a gorilla. Yeah. Stephen Semple: And here’s the thing, the Mario Brothers franchise is huge. It’s one of the biggest franchises in history. There’s been 800 million video games sold worldwide, making it the bestselling video game of all time. It’s bigger than Pokemon in game sales alone. The estimated lifetime sales across all revenues for the Mario Brothers franchise is $60 billion. Bigger than Star Wars, bigger than Harry Potter, bigger than Marvel. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: The movies alone sold over a billion dollars. There’s theme park now. It’s huge. It’s absolutely massive. And the Nintendo company is very old. It was founded back in Kyoto, Japan in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi. That’s it, Yamauchi. Dave Young: Oh. Stephen Semple: Boy, I’m going to struggle with these names. Dave Young: What were they doing back then? What was the company doing? Stephen Semple: The first product they did was a playing card called Hanafuda, and it was very, very successful. So they actually started- Dave Young: As a gaming company. Stephen Semple: … in game business doing playing cards. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: Now, during the 1950s, during Japan’s economic recovery, because if you remember, the economy was decimated in World War II, and through the Marshall Plan and whatnot, there was this rebuild going on. And during that time, they had a new leader, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who decided to explore all sorts of new businesses. He was doing all sorts of stuff. They had taxis, they had love hotels. Yes, you heard it right, love hotels. Dave Young: Love hotels. Stephen Semple: Instant rice, and of course, toys. And most of the things they did failed, except toys held a promise, so they continued to lean into toys. So it’s April 1978, so this is basically really where our story starts, and Taito, a competitor, releases a game called Space Invaders. Dave Young: Oh, right. I remember Space Invaders. Sure. Stephen Semple: Remember Space Invaders? And of course, this is back in the day of arcades, and you’re putting money into the games. This is so big in Japan, there’s 100 yen shortage. It would be like being in the U.S., and we run out of quarters. Dave Young: Right. Stephen Semple: It’s so big. So Nintendo, because it’s having some success in the game space, decides to make a knockoff of Space Invaders. So it’s October 1980, they create this knockoff called Radar Scope, and they decide also to ship it to the U.S., because they’ve started up a U.S. division. And it takes four months for the game to travel from Japan to the United States, and once it arrives, the trend has changed, it’s no longer Space Invaders, it’s now Pac-Man is the big game. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So they’re left with these 2,000 unsold cabinets sitting in the United States. Enter Shigeru Miyamoto, who’s a graphic designer with Nintendo, and he has an idea, and he says to them, “Look, let’s reuse the cabinets, and let’s just create a new game. Let’s do that.” And it’s like, “What the heck? Let’s give this a try.” So Shigeru grew up in rural Japan, and this deeply influenced how he looked at games, because he grew up in a place where there was no television, none of these things, and he would go and he would play in like a cave that was nearby, and he would create all of these stories and characters. And this is the ’80s where the games do not have characters or a story. Dave Young: Okay. Yeah. Stephen Semple: They didn’t have that. Dave Young: Space Invader, you’re just knocking down… Stephen Semple: Right. Pac-Man, the same thing, there was no story. Pong, all that stuff, no stories. He takes a look around and he realizes that Nintendo has the rights to use Popeye, so Shigeru makes a suggestion to create a game using Popeye, where they already have the rights, and he moves ahead and does that. And so he also decides to make a game where characters move up rather than scrolling left to right, and there’d be different levels, which was also a relatively new idea. And he created this whole thing where they could jump, and using just a joystick in the buttons that already existed. So they started to create this game, but they hit a snag. Just before the release, they discovered Nintendo only had the rights to use Popeye for playing cards. Dave Young: For playing cards. Darn it. Stephen Semple: Now, turns out this was a gift from heaven, and the best thing that could ever happen in Nintendo. Dave Young: So it would’ve been Bluto up at the top, and Popeye trying to get up there, climbing the ladders and- Stephen Semple: And saving- Dave Young: So sort of a nautical theme? Stephen Semple: And saving olive oil. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Because remember, he would always capture olive oil. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And Popeye was this love triangle, right? Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: So what does Shigeru do? Replaces- Dave Young: Bluto becomes- Stephen Semple: … with- Dave Young: … the gorilla. Stephen Semple: Right. Popeye becomes Mario. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: And olive oil is Princess Peach. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: It’s the same story. Dave Young: Yeah. Beautiful. Stephen Semple: It’s exactly the same story. And if you think about it, even the whole idea of this gorilla capturing the princess kind of sounds like King Kong, doesn’t it? Dave Young: A little bit. Sure. Stephen Semple: A little bit. And of course, they can’t use the name King Kong, so it’s Donkey Kong. And the reason why Donkey Kong is, he went looking through English dictionaries, and there’s all this stubbornness, and all this other things that go along with it. So we went, “You know what? This monkey, this Kong is kind of stubborn.” So Donkey Kong is the name of the game. Dave Young: Did they run into any issues with the King Kong folks? Stephen Semple: Nope. Dave Young: No? Stephen Semple: No, because you think about it, it’s a completely different name, Donkey Kong, right? Dave Young: Yeah, but it’s still a big gorilla with the word Kong in it. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Nope, no. It was different enough. Dave Young: [inaudible 00:09:14] just because it’s stubborn, and it sort of went with the word Kong? Stephen Semple: Yep. So it was different enough. It was all great. And the original character was not Mario. Dave Young: Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this. [Using Stories To Sell Ad] Let’s pick up our story where we left off, and trust me, you haven’t missed a thing. Stephen Semple: And the original character was not Mario. The original character was Jumpman. Jumpman. Dave Young: I kind of remember that. Stephen Semple: Jumpman. And the game allowed them to reuse the cabinets, and just do it. And think about it, the objective of this, because he was also just a very junior graphic designer, and the objective on this was, “Hey, if we can sell these 2,000 unsold cabinets sitting in the U.S., that’ll take the financial strain off of our U.S. operations, and it will be great, it will keep them afloat.” And here’s what happened, they sold in 1981 alone 60,000 cabinets. Dave Young: I tell you, I poured a lot of money into one of those cabinets when I was in college. Stephen Semple: So Shigeru goes from this low-level designer to the creator of one of the best performing games up to that point. And one of the things that also ends up happening, he starts making modifications to the game. And one of the modifications is, he’s walking one day, and he sees these pipes, and he realizes character should be a plumber, and the landlord for one of the Nintendo properties’ name was Mario. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So that’s where the whole idea of Mario came from, and eventually evolved to being brothers, Mario and Luigi. And of course, there was continuing success, and other formats and differing games. And Mario Brothers grew beyond Donkey Kong, it went from Donkey Kong to really the franchise being the Mario Brothers, with all sorts of new characters being added, and all sorts of new themes, like there’s go-kart racing and all sorts of different things. But the birth of the idea happened when they had this problem of, “We’ve got to have these cabinets…” And Shigeru saying- Dave Young: “And we either have to make a whole bunch of Popeye playing cards, or we have to find something to put in these cabinets.” Stephen Semple: “We have to find something to put in these cabinets.” And Shigeru saying, “It needs to be a story.” Dave Young: Yeah. No, that’s brilliant. And I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out to our listeners here in the U.S. that Steve is Canadian, and he pronounces it Mario, and everybody I’ve ever met says Mario. Stephen Semple: Mario. Dave Young: Mario. It’s Mario Brothers. Stephen Semple: Mario. Dave Young: It’s sort of like you say Mazda, we say Mazda. Stephen Semple: Right. Yes. Yes. Dave Young: So- Stephen Semple: Yeah, that’s true. Dave Young: Here’s a weird tangential thought. Do you have a minute for one of my weird tangential thoughts? Stephen Semple: Isn’t that why we’re here? Just for your weird tangential… Isn’t what we tune in for? Dave Young: That’s the way I look at it. I wonder if the guy that shot the UnitedHealthcare… Luigi, I wonder if there was a little bump in Nintendo stock. Stephen Semple: Oh, I wonder. Dave Young: And I wonder too, what was the discussion inside Nintendo about that? At first it was probably, “Oh my God, a guy named Luigi just shot someone.” And that was probably, “Oh my God, a guy named Luigi just shot someone that… Okay.” It’s not cut and dry. Stephen Semple: Well, it isn’t, because sometimes these negative events actually have positive impacts on sales. The one that I always remember that always comes to mind, I always find bizarre, is the white two-door Ford Bronco was due to be discontinued until O.J. Simpson went and did a joyride on LA freeways, and it actually extended the sales of that vehicle several years. And to this day, the white two-door Ford Bronco is a premium price from that year. Dave Young: Yeah- Stephen Semple: It’s nuts. Sometimes these crazy things happen. Dave Young: I don’t know if it was a joyride, but yeah. But we remember it, for sure. Stephen Semple: But we remember it. But- Dave Young: And those things have these impacts that you couldn’t buy that. There’s nothing Ford Motor Company could do that would’ve done that, that would’ve saved the Bronco. Stephen Semple: So here’s the interesting thing, coming back to Nintendo, that I find… So one of the influences it had was it was the first game that came along and basically said, “We should have a story.” And if we take a look at video games today, they’re all very heavy story based. And in fact, the stories are unbelievably rich, like Zelda, and all these other ones are these very complex universes that have been created. And he was kind of the first to come along, and his influence from that came from the fact that he didn’t grow up with these things. Dave Young: Yeah, he grew up with stories. Stephen Semple: So again, it’s this whole outside… We had this graphic designer that didn’t grow up with these things saying to a game, “Here’s what it should do. It should have this story, and there should be this imagination.” And all these things. And when you think about it, there was a couple of accidents, a couple of lucky happenstances that led to the birth of this. First of all, the console. Because if you think about it, if it was the creating of a brand new game, you wouldn’t take some junior graphic artist and put on it. The objective was, “All we need to do is move these 2,000 consoles.” So it was like, “Okay, so we’ll give it to the junior guy to do.” And then it blows out of the water. The other lucky happenstance is, think about how Nintendo’s fortunes would be completely different if they actually had the rights to use Popeye. Dave Young: Yeah, it would have been, like, Mario Brothers, that whole universe would never have come about, and- Stephen Semple: Well, the whole universe would be Popeye Universe, even if it worked. Dave Young: And I can’t see that happening. Stephen Semple: Right. But even if it worked, it would not have been theirs, it would have been- Dave Young: Oh, true. Stephen Semple: The people who would have made all the money were the owners of the Popeye license, would have been a licensee. Dave Young: Yeah, that’s true. Stephen Semple: So they had a couple of really lucky, fortunate things that happened that totally changed the trajectory of Nintendo. But here’s the other interesting lesson, and look, we talk about this all the time in storytelling, is there’s a couple of things you can do in storytelling. One is, you can take an existing story and just change the characters. We just took Popeye, changed as Donkey Kong. And what you know is, we knew that story worked, so it’ll work over here with different characters. Or what you can do is, you can take existing characters, and you can change the setting. In magical worlds, you’re always talking about how Sherlock Holmes, and- Dave Young: House M.D. Stephen Semple: … House M.D. is the same story. Dave Young: Sure. Stephen Semple: It’s just one is a detective during Elizabethan times, and the other one is an emergency room doctor in modern times. Same character, different setting, changes the story. Dave Young: Right. Stephen Semple: So when you’re looking to use stories, find ones that work, and do that. Dave Young: Find the popular stories and just take the framework. And I’ll give you another example- Stephen Semple: Right. Either change the characters, make it same story with different characters, or take the characters and put them in a different setting. Dave Young: … there’s a book called the Bible that had this story about this Jesus fella. Stephen Semple: I think it’s rather a relatively popular book. Dave Young: And then in 1605, a guy named Miguel Cervantes wrote a book called Don Quixote, and he took a lot of the storylines and metaphors from this story in the Bible and created a book that became the second bestselling book of all time right after the Bible. Then a guy named John Steinbeck took a lot of the stories from Don Quixote, and renamed characters, and put them in different situations, but took the structures of the stories, and… So this works. Just do this. Stephen Semple: Oh, yeah. Dave Young: Just find a story you like- Stephen Semple: Absolutely. Dave Young: … and take the [inaudible 00:17:59]. Stephen Semple: Reimagine it. Reimagine it. Reimagine it. Either change it, keep the same story and change characters, or take the characters and put them in a new setting. Dave Young: I mean, the cool thing is, you can’t copyright a story arc, right? Stephen Semple: No, no. Dave Young: Something bad happens to someone and they overcome it. “Okay, no, that’s mine.” Stephen Semple: I’m still waiting for the overcome part. Dave Young: Yeah. Right? Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: That’s still the part of the story. Oh, I love it. Stephen Semple: I just found these things that came together for the creating of the Mario Brothers to be really interesting. And it’s also interesting when you consider who was expected to be the star of the show was the donkey, and it ended up becoming the Mario Brothers. Dave Young: Yeah. Great story. And I see it. Thank you for switching to English. American English. I’m sorry. Stephen Semple: American. Dave Young: [inaudible 00:18:54]. Stephen Semple: All right. Thanks, David. Dave Young: Where can we go play some Donkey Kong next time? Stephen Semple: Well- Dave Young: Anybody got an old Donkey Kong console? Stephen Semple: Yeah. You know what? My kids have got some old play stuff, I’ll bring it down. Dave Young: No, I want the console. I want the big- Stephen Semple: Oh, you want that… Well, I think we may have to look hard for that. Dave Young: Yeah, that’s good. Well, keep your eyes out. Stephen Semple: I will. Dave Young: Thanks for the story of Nintendo, Stephen. Stephen Semple: All right. Thanks, David. Dave Young: Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a big, fat, juicy five-star rating and review at Apple Podcasts. And if you’d like to schedule your own 90-minute empire-building session, you can do it at empirebuildingprogram.com.

Cheryl Drury, a lifelong reader, is on a misssion to read a long list of classic books which she found on Ted Gioia's Substack page. She now has her own Substack page that features her podcast "Crack the Book" about classic books. We talk about The Great Gatsby, The Red Badge of Courage, Romeo and Juliet and other works of Shakespeare, The Odyssey, David Foster Wallace, James Joyce's Ulysses, Swann's Way, Les Miserables, Louise May Alcott's Little Women, Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice, reading on a Kindle vs hardcopies, things we learn about life and human nature from reading classic books, Great Expectations and Charles Dickens, Gentleman in Moscow, Dead Souls, Fathers and Sons, The Brothers Karamazov, The Death of Ivan Ilyitch, characters, taking notes while reading, Dante, what makes a book a classic, Bleak House, Blood Meridian, The Road and Cormac McCarthy, Canticles for Liebowitz, Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, reading aloud, poetry, Pablo Neruda, writing every day, why we love to read, Breakfast at Tiffany's, In Cold Blood, Brave New World, Blood Child, This is How you Lose the Time War, Isaac Asimov, classic science fiction, Don Quixote, The Golden Ass, and more.  Links are on the podcast shownotes page Support the show through Patreon

Let's talk about Don Quixote and Don Trump losing their battles against windmills....

Das wurde auch Zeit! Star-Cellist Steven Isserlis konzertiert erstmals mit dem BRSO, als Solist in Richard Strauss' "Don Quixote". Im Interview spricht Isserlis über Humor bei Strauss, Nervosität vor Auftritten und starken Kaffee.

Support the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USOne on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meeting# Episode 1: “You Are Living in Flatland (And You Don't Even Know It)”-----**Welcome to the dimensional war. You just don't know you're fighting it yet.**In 1884, Edwin Abbott wrote *Flatland* - a mathematical romance about a two-dimensional world where beings live as shapes on a plane, unable to perceive the third dimension of depth. He thought he was writing social satire.**He was actually writing a transmission about 2026.**About YOU.Living in a reality you think is solid, complete, “realistic” - while being completely blind to dimensions you can't perceive.**Your worth measured in 2D metrics:** Credentials. Salary. Followers. Job titles.**Your identity flattened to geometry:** How many “sides” you've accumulated in the game of status.**Your future planned on a horizontal plane:** Assuming linear time, guaranteed tomorrows, safe predictability.**You are A Square. And you don't even know you're trapped.**-----## What if I told you there's a vertical dimension hiding in plain sight?**Not “up” in some abstract spiritual sense.**But **UP** as in: *What becomes visible when death shatters your 2D certainty?*When you're fired after 26 years and your identity evaporates.When someone you love faces mortality and all your careful plans dissolve.When you turn fifty and realize you don't fit in the traditional game anymore.**These aren't tragedies. These are dimensional initiations.**Moments when the **Sphere** - a being from a higher dimension - enters your flat world and shows you: *Everything you thought was solid is just a cross-section.*-----## This episode activates your Reticular Activating System.That part of your brain that filters reality - deciding what you notice and what you ignore.**After this episode, your RAS will be tuned to see Flatland everywhere:**- In conversations where people brag about credentials- In systems designed to keep you flat and measurable- In your own thoughts when you catch yourself playing the 2D game- **In the moments when death whispers: “None of this is real”****Once activated, you can't deactivate it.**You'll start seeing the prison bars. The dimensional limitations. The game beneath the game.**And you won't be able to unsee it.**-----## This isn't a book review. This is an initiation.I've been lifted out of Flatland three times:- **Fired after 26 years** (identity death - the 2D game of job = worth revealed as illusion)- **Wife fighting cancer** (mortality confrontation - the future I was planning for might not exist)- **Turning fifty** (threshold moment - realizing I don't fit in the traditional workforce anymore)**These were my Sphere moments.** When death entered my flat world and showed me dimensions I couldn't perceive before.Now I'm back in Flatland. But I'm… changed.I can't play the game anymore. Can't pretend credentials matter. Can't believe in “realistic” thinking.**Because I've seen the vertical dimension.**And once you've been there - once you've been initiated by death, loss, shattering - **you can never fully believe in Flatland again.**-----## What you'll discover in this episode:**The architecture of Flatland** - How 2D thinking imprisons you without you realizing it**Death as the third dimension** - The vertical axis that breaks the flat plane of “normal life”**Your initiations** - Recognizing the moments when the Sphere appeared in YOUR life (and you might have missed it)**The RAS activation** - How this episode will permanently change what you perceive in your reality**The elder's burden** - What to do when you've been lifted out but dropped back into a world that thinks you're crazy-----## WARNING: This is not safe content.This episode is designed to make you **dangerously curious** and **a little uncomfortable.**Not reassured. Not inspired in the Instagram quote way.**Initiated.**By the end, you'll question:- Whether your job defines you (it doesn't - that's Flatland)- Whether your plans are guaranteed (they're not - that's 2D thinking)- Whether “being realistic” is wisdom (it's not - it's prison maintenance)- **Whether consensus reality is actually real (it's not - it's Flatland)**You'll start seeing patterns you can't unsee.Noticing dimensional breaks you used to ignore.Recognizing when death is trying to teach you something.**And there's no going back.**-----## This is Part 1 of a 6-episode series exploring:**Episode 1:** You Are Living in Flatland (And You Don't Even Know It) ← *You are here***Episode 2:** The Sphere Has Already Appeared. You Just Don't Remember Yet.**Episode 3:** Being Lifted Out - What You See From the Vertical Dimension**Episode 4:** Dropped Back In - When You Can't Fit in Flatland Anymore**Episode 5:** The Prison of Consensus Reality - Why They'll Call You Crazy**Episode 6:** Living Between Dimensions - The Work of the Initiated-----## Required reading (but read it AFTER this episode):***Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions*** by Edwin Abbott Abbott (1884)- Free online, any edition- ~100 pages- **Warning:** After this podcast series, you won't read it as fiction-----## The quote that changes everything:*“You are not crazy for seeing dimensions others can't perceive. You've just been initiated by death. And prisoners who see the bars become insurgents.”*-----**Your RAS is now activated.****You can't unknow this.****Welcome to the vertical dimension.****Welcome to the resistance.**-----*Initiated by death. Returned to Flatland. Speaking from the vertical dimension.**This is the Flatland series. This is the dimensional war.**And you just enlisted.*-----**[CONTENT WARNING: Discusses death, mortality, job loss, cancer, identity dissolution, dimensional initiation, reality destabilization, and the systematic dismantling of consensus thinking. Not recommended for those committed to remaining comfortably two-dimensional.]**-----## About this series:Following the 5-episode *Don Quixote* initiation series (where we explored tilting at windmills, vision vs delusion, defeat at fifty, and coming home), the *Flatland* series takes you deeper into dimensional knowing.**This is live philosophy.** Real-time transformation documented through literature.Not memoir. Not self-help.**Transmission from someone who's been lifted out and dropped back.**Consider this your field manual for the dimensional war.-----*Listen with headphones. Take notes. Your future self will thank you.* One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US

Tilting at Windmills. In 1605, the first edition of Don Quixote hit the shelves, or whatever humans were using to keep their books off the floor then. In it, the aforementioned knight saddles up and hits the dirt road in an attempt to bring back some measure of civic values and romance to his daily […]

Support the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USOne on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingThe Knight of the White Moon: Coming HomeAt 50—the same age Don Quixote was when he lost his mind to become a knight and the same age he was when he was finally defeated—I found myself knocked off my own horse.After 26 years as a UPS driver, I was fired. My wife is fighting cancer. The future we planned may never arrive.In the book, the Knight of the White Moon (his friend in disguise) forces Don Quixote to give up the quest, take off the armor, and go home. Everyone thinks he's finally “cured.” But what if it wasn't defeat? What if it was the doorway?This episode is about the moment life forces you to shed the identity you've worn for decades—the job, the role, the armor—and asks: Who are you when it's all gone?I call it the second adolescence. The initiation into elderhood. The hard, beautiful rite of passage our culture forgot to give us.We explore:•  The terror and gift of being stripped of what defined you•  Why “coming home” to yourself might be the real point of the quest•  How defeat can be the beginning of something quieter, wiser, more real•  The power of elders: not what you do, but what you know after surviving it allIf you're 50, 60, 70… if you've been fired, retired, divorced, gotten sick, or simply feel the armor cracking… you're not alone.This isn't the end. It's the beginning of becoming who you actually are.Listen now. Walk through the doorway with me.(From the heart of a former UPS driver who's still figuring it out.)#SecondAdolescence #Elderhood #ComingHome #DonQuixote #LifeAfter50 One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US“Follow me, and I'll make you governor of an island.”In Don Quixote, a poor farmer named Sancho Panza leaves his wife, his kids, and everything he knows to follow a lunatic into the wilderness. Why? Because he was promised an island.Sound familiar?“Work hard and you'll make partner.”“Grind now, equity later.”“We're a family here - your loyalty will be rewarded.”“Be your own boss - unlimited earning potential.”We're all Sancho Panza now. Following someone else's quest, enduring the chaos, waiting for an island that might never come - or worse, comes in a form we never actually wanted.This episode explores what happens when the everyman follows the madman's promise. What Cervantes understood about gig economy exploitation 400 years before Uber existed. And why Sancho's choice at the end might be the most radical thing you hear all year.Part 2 of “The Wisdom of Don Quixote” series. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USIs Your Vision Real or Are You Delusional?Don Quixote descended into a cave.He was down there for one hour.When they pulled him back up, he was pale, shaking, transformed. And he told them an impossible story:“I was in an enchanted palace. For three days. I met legendary knights. I saw magical maidens. I witnessed wonders I can barely describe.”Sancho looked at him. “Master, you were down there for an hour. Maybe less.”Don Quixote's voice wavered. For the first time in the entire novel, he seemed… uncertain.“I know what I saw,” he said. Then, quieter: “God knows the truth.”This is the Cave of Montesinos. The most mysterious, psychologically complex scene in all of Don Quixote.And it asks the question every visionary, creator, entrepreneur, and dreamer faces:How do you know if what you saw in the dark was real… or if you just made it all up?I've had 860 conversations on this podcast. And I keep coming back with the same vision: I see genius in people that the world doesn't validate. I see systems rigged against passion. I see the fight itself as what keeps us alive.But what if I'm just Don Quixote in the cave? What if I descended into the darkness with my own expectations and came back up with a beautiful story that isn't real?What if your calling is just a dream you had in the dark?What if the business idea that won't leave you alone is delusion dressed as vision?What if the injustice you see so clearly is just confirmation bias?You'll never know for sure.And that's the point.This episode is about what Don Quixote learned in that cave: Certainty is madness. Doubt is wisdom. And acting on your vision despite the doubt—that's the only courage that matters.“Time will tell,” Don Quixote said when asked if his vision was real.That's all any of us can say. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US

We are jumping straight into a flashback and finally learning what makes Law who he is. The duality of the Donquixote brothers is explored between Doflamingo and Rosinante. Cora goes out of his way to find a cure for Law and in the process, sacrifices himself so Law doesnt fall back into the clutches of Doflamingo.Next Week: Episodes 707-712https://linktr.ee/goingmerrypodMake sure you are checking out The Variant Vendetta Podcast! They will be returning from their break in just a few weeks!https://linktr.ee/VariantVendetta

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USIn a world besieged by the relentless march of AI, where algorithms whisper promises of utopia or apocalypse, one timeless tale rises from the dust of centuries to mirror our chaotic present: Don Quixote. Join host [Your Name] in the premiere episode of [Podcast Name], “The Knight of the Sorrowful Algorithm,” as we embark on a quixotic quest through Cervantes' masterpiece—a story of a man whose brain “dried up” from devouring too many fantastical romances, only to armor up and charge into a reality that mocked his dreams.But this isn't just dusty literature. It's us. Right now. Scrolling through endless feeds of AI doomsayers and saviors: “Your job is obsolete!” “Embrace the disruption!” “AGI will save—or end—humanity!” We're all Don Quixote, lost in a whirlwind of narratives that blur truth and fiction, leaving us paralyzed by questions: Is adaptation surrender? Is optimism naivety? And who are the true mad knights of our age—the artists defying generative machines, the workers reclaiming their humanity, or those daring to pursue passion in a profit-obsessed empire?Delve into the heart of the madness: Why Don Quixote chose delusion over despair, and why “sanity”—accepting a world ruled by efficiency, oligarchs, and obsolescence—might be the deadliest illusion of all. In a finale that shatters illusions, discover how renouncing the quest led to his demise… and what that means for us tilting at digital windmills.Epic, introspective, and urgently relevant, this episode challenges you to ask: In the AI era, is going a little mad the only way to stay truly alive? Tune in, saddle up your Rocinante, and ride into the fray. Next up: “Sancho Panza and the Gig Economy”—the everyman's gamble on a madman's promise. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US

Sarah and Carrie are joined by Cameron Burns and DeVaughn Taylor to talk 2019's The Platform - it's bleak but we manage some laughs! We talk panna cotta, Indonesian names, sociopolitical architypes, dog death, cannibalism, snails, Don Quixote, and more! 

Chuck Heinz and Jamie Lent talk about NCAA Basketball point shaving, Don Quixote, comments from Grant McCasland, Red Raider Football running backs next year and NFL playoffs this weekend.

"Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey and special guests, Skylar Brandt and Vladimir RumyanstevIn this episode of "Dance Talk” ® , host Joanne Carey engages with Skylar Brandt, a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, and her fiancé, pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev. They discuss their artistic journeys, the cultural differences in music and dance education, and how they met through their shared passion for the arts. The conversation delves into the emotional experience of performing, the creative process behind choreography, and the significance of art in serving humanity. They also explore their future aspirations, including the idea of incorporating their artistry into their wedding celebration.Skylar Brandt began her training at the age of six at Scarsdale Ballet Studio. She attended the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre from 2005-2009. Brandt was a silver medalist at Youth America Grand Prix in 2004 and 2008. Brandt joined ABT II in 2009, became an apprentice with ABT in 2010, and joined the corps de ballet in 2011. She was promoted to Soloist in 2015 and to Principal in 2020. Among her leading roles with the Company are Giselle in Giselle, Medora in Le Corsaire, Kitri in Don Quixote, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Gamzatti in La Bayadere, Olga in Onegin, Clara, the Princess in The Nutcracker, Young Jane in Jane Eyre, Columbine in Harlequinade, Princess Praline in Whipped Cream, the Lead Maiden in Firebird, the Golden Cockerel in The Golden Cockerel, and roles in The Green Table, Pillar of Fire, The Sleeping Beauty, Raymonda Divertissements, Sinfonietta, Symphonic Variations, and AFTERITE to name a few. Brandt was awarded a 2013 Princess Grace Foundation-USA Dance Fellowship. That same year, she was featured in the movie “Ballet's Greatest Hits”. In 2018, Brandt was the recipient of an unprecedented Special Jury Award for her performances on the Russian television show “Big Ballet”. In 2022, Brandt was named to the renowned "Forbes 30 Under 30" list of most influential leaders and entrepreneurs.https://www.skylarbrandt.com/ Vladimir Rumyantsev  is an internationally acclaimed pianist. At just seven years old, he made his debut at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory where he won Moscow's Glinka competition.Rumyantsev received his foundational training at the Gnessin Moscow Special School for Music under Mikhail Khokhlov and later studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Sergey Dorensky, Alexander Bakhchiev, Elena Sorokina, Pavel Nersessian and Nikolai Lugansky. He earned advanced degrees at the Mannes School of Music in New York under Pavlina Dokovska and is currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree at The Hartt School under the mentorship of Jose Ramos Santana.Rumyantsev has performed worldwide at such prestigious venues as the Moscow Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Covent Garden, the Mariinsky Theatre, New York City Center, The Kennedy Center, to name a few. His performances led to collaborations with the Mariinsky Ballet. The New York Times describes his playing of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations as “excellent,” and The Wall Street Journal noting his “potent” interpretation.In 2024 he recorded "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Sean Hickey for solo piano. Most recently, Rumyantsev toured the world as a solo artist with Twyla Tharp Dance for her Diamond Jubilee and is producing his own concerts of piano and dance alongside Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre, Skylar Brandt. https://vladimirrumyantsev.com/“Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey wherever you listen to your podcasts. ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dancetalkwithjoannecarey.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Joanne on Instagram @DanceTalkwithJoanneCarey Tune in. Follow. Like us. And Share. Please leave us review about our podcast! “Dance Talk” ® with Joanne Carey"Where the Dance World Connects, the Conversations Inspire, and Where We Are Keeping Them Real."

In The Man Behind the Curtain, a bonus Close Readings series for 2026, Tom McCarthy and Thomas Jones examine great novels in terms of the systems and infrastructures at work in them. For their first episode, they turn to the book that invented the modern novel. Don Quixote, the ingenious man from La Mancha, is thought to be mad by everyone he meets because he believes he's living in a book. But from a certain point of view that makes the hero of Cervantes' novel the only character who has any idea what's really going on. Tom and Tom discuss the machinery – narrative, theoretical, economic, psychological and literal (those windmills) – which underpins Cervantes' masterpiece. This is a bonus episode from the Close Readings series. To listen to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Karl Miller on ‘Don Quixote': ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n03/karl-miller/andante-capriccioso⁠ Michael Wood: Crazy Don ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n15/michael-wood/crazy-don⁠ Gabriel Josipovici on Cervantes' life: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v01/n05/gabriel-josipovici/the-hard-life-and-poor-best-of-cervantes⁠ Robin Chapman: Cervantics ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n16/robin-chapman/cervantics⁠

In The Man Behind the Curtain, a bonus Close Readings series for 2026, Tom McCarthy and Thomas Jones examine great novels in terms of the systems and infrastructures at work in them. For their first episode, they turn to the book that invented the modern novel. Don Quixote, the ingenious man from La Mancha, is thought to be mad by everyone he meets because he believes he's living in a book. But from a certain point of view that makes the hero of Cervantes' novel the only character who has any idea what's really going on. Tom and Tom discuss the machinery – narrative, theoretical, economic, psychological and literal (those windmills) – which underpins Cervantes' masterpiece. This is a bonus episode from the Close Readings series. To listen to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/applecrna⁠⁠⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsna⁠⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Karl Miller on ‘Don Quixote': ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n03/karl-miller/andante-capriccioso⁠ Michael Wood: Crazy Don ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n15/michael-wood/crazy-don⁠ Gabriel Josipovici on Cervantes' life: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v01/n05/gabriel-josipovici/the-hard-life-and-poor-best-of-cervantes⁠ Robin Chapman: Cervantics ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n16/robin-chapman/cervantics⁠

Reposted from Still Slaying: A Buffy-verse podcast which you can find at Still Slaying: a Buffy-verse podcast | Podcastica. Fun, in-depth talk about great TV. CW: Discussion of sexual topics and rape. “Because it's wrong.” Penny and Sam and Dina welcome Dina to Still Slaying and the trio get nostalgic about the TV landscape at the turn of the millennium. The wide-ranging discussion touches on The X-files, future robot selves, trauma, stevedores, porn stereotypes, queer subtext (and text), whether we would have sex with a clone of ourself, masturbation as healthcare, Stranger Things, heteronormativity, Heated Rivalry and the progress in queer representation on screen, Don Quixote, rape, Outlander, Nielson families and Sweeps Week, Repo Man, spoilers, hopes for the reboot and the nature of evil.  Next time we'll be talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4, Episode 17, “Superstar” and Episode 18, “Where the Wild Things Are.” Keep Slaying! News Links/Referenced Links Original Episode Promo https://youtu.be/Aoykd5iVt9g —---------------------------------------- Viewing Order Buffy 4x16 - Who Are You? (2/2) Buffy 4x17 - Superstar & 4x18 - Where the Wild Things Are Angel 1x16 - The Ring & 1x17 - Eternity Buffy 4x19 - New Moon Rising Angel 1x18 - Five by Five (1/2) Angel 1x19 - Sanctuary (2/2) Buffy 4x20 - The Yoko Factor (1/2) Buffy 4x21 - Primeval (2/2) Buffy 4x22 - Restless Angel 1x20 - War Zone Angel 1x21 - Blind Date Angel 1x22 - To Shanshu in LA Join the conversation! You can email or send a voice message to stillslayingfeedback@gmail.com, or join us at facebook.com/groups/podcastica and Still Slaying A Buffy-verse Podcast where we put up comment posts for each episode we cover.  Follow us on Instagram Still Slaying: a Buffyverse Podcast from Podcastica Network (@stillslayingcast) • Instagram photos and videos Join the Zedhead community - https://www.patreon.com/jasoncabassi Theme Music:℗ CC-BY 2020 Quesbe | Lucie G. MorillonGoopsy | Drum and Bass | Free CC-BY Music By Quesbe is licensed under a Creative Commons License. #smashthepatriarchy #slaythepatriarchy #feminism #patriarchy #sarahmichellegellar #marcblucas #buffy #buffyverse #buffyrewatch #alisonhannigan #amberbenson #anthonystewarthead #sunnydale #hellmouth #buffthevampireslayer #buffyseason4 #spike #spuffy #jamesmarsters #elizadushku #faith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The boys are in a festive and historically in-depth mood, combining laughs, facts, and a taste of nonsense, diving into stuffing or dressing, Don Quixote, cool small towns, 19th century politics, counterculture, and even more. A hearty mix that cries out "Salut"!

Join us in this episode of JKL Media Reviews as we delve intoWindmills'. Our hosts discuss the strong character arcs and rich symbolism present throughout the episode, drawing parallels with Don Quixote. Highlights include Chrisjen's poignant visit to Holden's mother on the farm, Joe's search for Julie Mao, and the intense dynamics aboard the Rocinante. We analyze key scenes, character interactions, and speculate on future plot developments, all while celebrating the layered storytelling. Tune in for an engaging discussion that promises to deepen your appreciation of the series. 00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview 00:46 First Impressions from the Co-Hosts 01:56 Deep Dive into Chrisjen and Holden's Mom 16:25 Joe's Journey and Symbolism 29:36 Holden's Leadership and Crew Dynamics 32:52 Planning the Next Move 33:14 Character Dynamics and Theories 34:54 Holden's Leadership and Amos' Growth 37:44 The Spy's Role and Tensions 38:30 Password Struggles and Tech Talk 39:39 Character Analysis and Movie References 41:12 Kenzo's Motives and Crew Dynamics 46:38 Canadian Talent and Show Appreciation 47:38 Series Wrap-Up and Future Speculations 52:38 Contact Information and Sign-Off

On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Megan are discussing: Bookish Moments: finally reading a big book and nerdy bookends Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately Deep Dive: how the podcast has changed Megan P. Evan's life in all ways. The Fountain: we visit our perfect fountain to make wishes about our reading lives Show notes are time-stamped below for your convenience. Read the transcript of the episode (this link only works on the main site). .  .  .  2:01 - Our Bookish Moments of the Week 2:26 - From the Front Porch podcast 2:28 - Bookshelf Thomasville 2:33 - Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and John Rutherford (translator) 2:39 - Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry  3:39 - The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor 4:33 - Wicked Lego Bookends 6:36 - Our Current Reads 7:04 - The Book of I by David Greig (Megan) 10:07 - Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivy (Kaytee) 10:15 - Booktenders 10:31 - The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivy 15:46 - The Deep End by Julie Mulhern (Megan) 21:11 - House Love by Patric Richardson (Kaytee) 21:43 - Laundry Love by Patric Richardson 23:25 - Safe and Sound by Mercury Stardust 23:26 - Right at Home by Bobby Berk 25:19 - Above the Fire by Michael O'Donnell (Megan) 27:05 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy 27:44 - Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice 27:51 - Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice 27:52 - These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant 29:20 - Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell (Kaytee) 35:03 - Megan's Reading Life 49:54 - Meet Us At The Fountain 50:12 - I wish you would consider reading more short books. (Megan) 51:05 - I wish for a book parade like the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. (Kaytee)   Support Us: Become a Bookish Friend | Grab Some Merch Shop Bookshop dot org | Shop Amazon Bookish Friends Receive: The Indie Press List with a curated list of five books hand sold by the indie of the month. December's IPL is a recap of the year with Kaytee and Meredith. Love and Chili Peppers with Kaytee and Rebekah - romance lovers get their due with this special episode focused entirely on the best selling genre fiction in the business.  All Things Murderful with Meredith and Elizabeth - special content for the scary-lovers, brought to you with the behind-the-scenes insights of an independent bookseller From the Editor's Desk with Kaytee and Bunmi Ishola - a quarterly peek behind the curtain at the publishing industry The Bookish Friends Facebook Group - where you can build community with bookish friends from around the globe as well as our hosts Connect With Us: The Show: Instagram | Website | Email | Threads The Hosts and Regulars: Meredith | Kaytee | Mary | Roxanna Production and Editing: Megan Phouthavong Evans Affiliate Disclosure: All affiliate links go to Bookshop unless otherwise noted. Shopping here helps keep the lights on and benefits indie bookstores. Thanks for your support!

'Gismonti 70' es el título del disco de la pianista Bianca Gismonti en el que toca obras de su padre, Egberto Gismonti, como 'Sete anéis', 'Palhaço', 'Sanfona', 'Agua e vinho' o 'Don Quixote'/'Auto retrato'. Canciones de Djavan ('Océano', 'Azul'', 'Capim', 'Beiral') y de Guinga ('Saci') en el disco 'Ventoèla' de la cantante Tatiana Valle y el guitarrista Alberto Capelli. Cierran Gaia Wilmer y Jaques Morelenbaum con 'Queixa' de Caetano Veloso. Escuchar audio

In the podcast this week, Suzy & Nicola talk fragrances they've been obsessed with wearing lately (& some are quite unexpected…) Plus, there's an absolutely BRILLIANT #listenerprescription from ballet costume designer Isabelle, who asked for recommendations to scent her way through working on costumes for a 2026 tour of Don Quixote - dreaming of Spanish sunshine in the depths of a chilly English winter!Fragrances we can't stop wearing…Nicola:@nosuparfum Been Trying to Meet You - wistful, hay & meadow-infused memories@nosuparfum Sain No More - Smoked herbaceous rituals welcome a fresh start@merit Retrospect - Nostalgia meets newness via juicy sparkles & second-skin@floraiku Sand & Skin - Amber-glazed skin, vanilla horizons & gilded dreams@bamford Geranium Candle – Instantly-uplifting botanical blissSuzy:@angelaflanders Rose Sauvage – Dew-bright, berried wild rose bursts with sheer joy@headspaceparfum Rose - A rose frozen in glass, awoken by a silver bullet@bdkparfumsparis 312 Saint-Honoré - Couture chalky floral drifts chic clouds of comfort@memoizeperfume Imber - Succulent cherry, cassis & rhubarb spiced to a musky trail@juliettehasagun Powder Love - Marshmallow, sugared almond & a gentle hug#listenerprescription for Isabelle / Don Quixote ballet:Principal Lady@monegalperfumes Flamenco extrait – Raspberries, roses & sizzling saffron woodiness. Passion personified@lartisanparfumeur Histoire d'Oranger – Orange trees, dappled sunlight & tendrils of incense@parfumsmicallef Ylang in Gold – A solar shimmer of ylang-ylang, orange, fluffy vanilla & coconut for a glimmering finaléThe Rascals@jusboxperfumes Studio 54 – Cocktails, cardamom-studded vanilla & naughty patchouli – for hedonists: flamboyant & ready for anything@rndl.ltd Together – Bergamot & mandarin, irresistible vanilla praline & a spicy trail of suede – the scent of friendship & assurance for scene-stealersThe scent of Spain@lamontagnacandles Winter Oranges – The scent of a Valencian orange harvest, warmly spiced, evoking citrus-soaked sunsets & festive cheer@alvarez_gomez_perfumes Agua de Colonia Concentrada – Mediterranean lemons & aromatic herbs, bottled Spanish sunshine with historic soul

Hey lady! This week Dr. Dom and Terri are thrilled to welcome a legend who needs no introduction. Misty Copeland is known around the world as not only as a trailblazer and groundbreaking ballet dancer, most notably as the first African American female Principal Dancer with the prestigious American Ballet Theater, but also philanthropist, author, and mother. She joins Terri and Dr. Dom to discuss her upcoming final bow with the theater after a storied career and her plans for her exciting next chapter.Copeland's introducing the latest installment of her Bunheads, Act 2: the Dance of Courage, a picture book series offering a realistic and fun view of dance life. The series' characters embark on wonderous tales of adventure and this latest addition to the series follows them as they learn about the glorious tale of Don Quixote. By the end of the episode you'll want to grab a copy for the young dancers in your life.And, lady, Misty gives us a peek into her life that you can only catch on Patreon. Girl, are you on Patreon yet? It's our special area where we dive deeper and give behind the scenes of how we create this podcast and other cool things you won't want to miss. Join us! Quote of the Day:"I'll always be committed to opening doors, creating space, and making ballet a place where everyone belongs." – Misty Copeland  Goal Map Like a Pro WorkbookCultivating H.E.R. Space Sanctuary  Where to find Misty Copeland:Website: Misty CopelandBook: Bunheads, Act 2: The Dance of CourageTwitter: @mistyonpointeInstagram: @mistyonpointeFacebook: Misty CopelandYouTube: @MistyCopelandLifeInMotion  Resources:Dr. Dom's Therapy PracticeBranding with TerriMelanin and Mental HealthTherapy for Black Girls Psychology Today  Therapy for QPOC  Where to find us:Twitter: @HERspacepodcastInstagram: @herspacepodcastFacebook: @herspacepodcastWebsite: cultivatingherspace.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/cultivating-h-e-r-space-uplifting-conversations-for-the-black-woman--5470036/support.