Podcast appearances and mentions of mark time

Even China news suggesting that Chinese chips would be favored over others wasn't enough to shake this market. The major indexes continued to trade sideways but are making themselves comfortable above prior levels of resistance. It's still worth sticking with A-list stocks and today we'll take that literally with a look at Arm Holdings as it broke a recent downtrend on the China news. Also worth watching is Axon, formerly known as Taser, as it consolidates the gains from its last earnings move. Finally, it might be slow and boring but insurance companies like Allstate are filling the ranks of leadership and Allstate broke out of a short cup today.

Mark 1:1-13Pastor Peter Bogert

Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present Mark Time Show Time, a Showcase series celebrating scripts originally written for live performance by Great Northern Audio, in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the Mark Time and Ogle Awards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present Mark Time Show Time, a Showcase series celebrating scripts originally written for live performance by Great Northern Audio, in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the Mark Time and Ogle Awards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 132 features a conversation Josh and Greg recently had with Mark from Time X Heist.  Time X Heist are a fairly new straight edge band from Denver. We talk about the formation of the band, their release on Crimewave, as well their split with Without Love from the UK. We also talked about Mark's time in the Denver Hardcore scene, including everything going on there currently. Stick around after the credits for the Time X Heist track "Keep On Fighting." Follow Time X Heist on Instagram at @timexheist and order their split 12" at the LinkTr.ee link in their bio. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/enterprise-hardcore-podcast/support

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E19 TRANSCRIPT:----more----   Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca, Mark: and I'm Mark. Yucca: and today we're gonna talk about wonder. So that's what we're about, right? We're about, this is the wonder. So we're gonna explore the idea of wonder, and then we're also gonna talk about a few things that inspire that in us as well. Mark: Things that make us go Wow. Yucca: Yep. Mark: Yeah. The. The reason that I suggested that the name of the podcast be The Wonder is that I think that that is at root, the spiritual motivation, right? That you know to, yes, there's the desire for meaning, there's the desire for a sense of place in the world and purpose in life and all those kinds of things. But fundamentally, I think. That sense of just being awestruck by the, the fact that we exist, the fact of the universe and the world existing. I just think that's really a core spiritual sentiment and or, or experience. And so a lot of what I focus. My rituals on and, you know, efforts at creating oth, you know, materials to support other people in creating their rituals is about fostering that sense of wonder and awe. Yucca: Yes. Yeah. And there's. There's so much of it really, it, it, whatever, wherever your interests lie, there's, there's just so much to explore and and it's one of those sensations that's very hard to describe, but it's really feeding in. Its to experience that. Mark: Yeah. I mean, the more I learn about the world, you know, in, you know, in microcosm or in macrocosm, the more often I wanna say, wow, that's amazing. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, I, I think about, I mean, there's, there's millions of examples, but talk so toxoplasmosis. Let's, let's start there. Okay. This is a virus that is communica that cats get, and it's also communicable to humans and to other mammals. Toxoplasmosis controls your brain when it goes into rodents. They get careless, they get bolder and braver and And more fool, hearty. And that works perfectly for cats, right? Yucca: Yes, it works out right. Mark: so now cats have toxoplasmosis, right? And cats that have toxoplasmosis are friendlier. They are more apt to be domesticated. So then they move in with the humans, and the humans by contact with the cat's. Feces can get toxoplasmosis, and one of the things that it makes them really want to do is to feed the cats. Yucca: Yes. Mark: So, I mean, literally all of this stuff is scientifically demonstrated. All of this is this little tiny virus, which is, you know, just a little string of genetic information. And all of this stuff is true and it, you look at this and just go, my God, how is this possible? Yucca: Mm-hmm. And it's, and it's all over. Right? I know that that's something that is regularly tested for. If you're, if you're pregnant, they test, they go, oh, do you have a cat? Okay, let's test you for that. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: yeah, and I don't know if there are, what health implications there are for that other than it does have some impact on personality, right. For people as well. That it makes them more like that they. Their relation to ship to risk is a little, just like with the mice, is a little bit different than it might be if you didn't have the infection. Mark: Yeah, and it makes them a little bit more agreeable as well, just a little bit more amenable to going along with whatever somebody else suggests which is just a hell of a thing. You know, we, we think we have free will. We think that we are piloting our ourselves through our lives, and here comes this little bug and it actually distorts our decision making process. Yucca: Well, it challenges the, the idea of who self is. There's a lot of things today that do that, that really have us look at what is me really, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Right. What, and especially when we start getting into the realm of, of the microbiome and where do we start drawing the line between my microbiome and my cells? Which ones are me, which ones aren't? Are we saying we distinguishing between d n a? What about mitochondria? All of that stuff starts to we're starting to find that the lines between all of that are a lot more blurry than we used to think. Mark: Right e each of us is a, a functioning interpenetrated ecosystem. One emergent property of which is this thing called consciousness. But that is that because it is an emergent property of a body, which is an interpenetrated ecosystem is heavily influenced by what's going on in that ecosystem. And some of that is human, d n a and some of it's not. In fact, more of it is not than is. Yucca: So let's, let's, before we can, there's a whole bunch of different things we can discuss, but let's come back to the idea of wonder a little bit before going into some of the specifics of things that that feel, that evoke that sense in us. One of the things that we were talking about when we were coming up with what topics we wanted to discuss was the idea that, that some people have that wonder has to also include ignorance that you can only have wonder if you are ignorant about it. And that's something that I wanna say that I don't agree with. Mark: Me Yucca: think that wonder often has a, has humility as part of it. That's certainly for me, is often a sense when I look at the night sky. There's this, I'm just overwhelmed with the awe and the wonder of all of it and the knowledge that I know very, very little about it, but I also know a lot about it. Right. That's my, that's my field. I know a lot about that little red dot right there that we call Mars. Right. For me only makes it more awe-inspiring because there's even more, the, the knowledge of all of that is part of that awe, but also the recognition that there is a lot that I don't know. But it doesn't have to be. Awe isn't just what I don't understand. There's awe at what I do understand as well. Mark: Right. Yeah. When we were talking about this, I was mentioning that a, apparently there's some academic who has written that naturalistic paganism is somehow. Either faulty or not real in some sense. Because the awe that happens when you don't, the awe that comes from mystery is somehow has a cache that the awe that comes from knowledge doesn't. And I really disagree as you do Yucca. When I'm standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I can be awestruck by what a gigantic big hole that is. But the fact that I know that it's billions of years of accumulated layers of sedimentary rock that I'm looking at, that just changes everything. Understanding that the slow uplift of the Kibab plateau allowed the Colorado River to carve that amazing, magnificent earth temple. Is that really blows my socks off. So, so, you know, in the same way that I'm, you know, filled with wonder by a, a beautiful rainbow, even though I understand how refraction works Yucca: And then you get to be awed by that Mark: yes, Yucca: and then thinking, and then it leads to, wait a second, our eyes perceive those particular colors. Why is that right? And tracing all of that back and we're back to, you know, jellyfish. We'll come back to jellyfish in a while. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. So, you know, what I find is that scientists who. Truly embrace the scientific mindset. And there are many scientists who don't. There are many scientists who are, they're either ego involved with their findings or they're just very, very narrowly focused and you know, are very invested in being emotionally dispassionate. But, but the scientists that I know that are truly filled with that, that humble curiosity. Just to, you know, I just want to find out how does this work? Einstein was one, Fineman was one. Hawking was one. Carl Sagan was one. You know, these are people that are, you know, elated at, at what they know about the universe. Filled to the brim with joy about. About what they know and about what they can observe. Because they're looking with informed eyes, not, not just looking at something and go, wow. Going, wow, that's very cool. And it's mysterious. I don't know what it is. Yucca: Yeah. You know, last episode you'd mentioned the pale blue dot. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: From Sagan. Right. And that's one that often comes up for me thinking about with the awe, just seeing, you know, just that one image you can think of, that particular image. Which by the way, the new Horizons. Which is the craft that went to Pluto and is currently exploring the, the Kuiper Belt is in its second extended mission. And one of the things that they are currently investigating whether they can do, is seeing if they can turn it around and look back because the camera that they have aboard new Horizons is first of all, far farther out. But it. Much more advanced camera being something that was launched in the two thousands rather than something launched back in the seventies. And so fingers crossed that we might have another image looking back from even farther at the moment. It's currently studying the ice giants from the other side, which we'd never done before. So, but, but coming back to the, to the original one that. Just looking at that image that it is something big that we're looking at. Right. But we had, we've used the examples already of thinking about awe in terms of the Grand Canyon or the night sky, but there's also awe in that tiny dot, right? It is huge because we're looking at an entire planet, but we're also just looking at a, what looks like just a moat of dust and that, and awe doesn't have a. A limit to size. Right. A is not only in the giant, in the huge A is also in the tiny and the quiet, and it just at any angle that you're looking or listening at, there's just that, I mean, I just don't even have the words to say it because it's such an experiential thing. Mark: Well in the, in the contemplation of scale itself. Right. Even just contemplating the nature of scale, you know, we know so much about the subatomic world now, right? We, we, we know quite a bit about, you know, the realities that are happening down at the quantum level, and here we are. I. You know where microorganisms are. Incomprehensibly small to us. Our own cells are incomprehensibly small to us. You know, we have dust mites living in our furniture and we have eyelash mites living in our eyelashes, Yucca: Those delight me. I love those so much. Mark: me too. I think they're so cool. So, you know, the tiny goes all the way down and the big goes all the way up. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And that in and of itself is awe inspiring, that the universe is so intricate, so, so amazingly finely, finely defined that it has all those different layers of scale and that it has since the Big Bang. You know, from the very beginning, from the Big Bang, we started out with little, tiny, tiny, tiny proto particles and. Things have been snapping together into increasingly complex emergent phenomena ever since. If we didn't know anything about physics, if we didn't know anything about evolution, if we didn't know anything about cosmology, we couldn't appreciate any of that, and it is awesome. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's just awesome. Yucca: One of my favorite things that I do with my students is I have a four minute video that is of the scale of the universe, and we start at a plunk length and we go all the way up to this, the observable universe. And it's just you're zooming out, right? And you're just going out, you know, each time it's 10 times larger. And yeah, I start by asking them, okay, everybody, I wanna get a vote. Do you think humans. Are, do you think humans are big or humans are small, right? Are we big? Are we huge or are we tiny? And I get a vote from everybody, right? And mark that down. And then we, we watch this video and it takes about two minutes to get to humans where you can see humans from going from the smallest theoretical size, and it still takes a while to get to the smallest confirmed size, but just watching their faces. As we're going out and them going, wait, what? What? And then we start getting up into the bigger scales and the bigger scales, and we're getting all the way up to galaxies and super clusters, and then we're up to the observable universe, which probably there's way more universe, but there's a limit to how much we can see. Right? Mark: Right. Yucca: And then asking them next. Okay. Does anyone wanna change their vote? And the quality of their voice is different after watching this video. Right? And you're just seeing them for the first time go, wow, wow. There's nothing like that. And of course, almost all of them change their vote at the end to both, right? Is yes, we are unbelievably huge. And then, but we are tiny. Mark: But we're minuscule. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's, that's a super great lesson for, for science students.  Yucca: I think for any, I mean, these are specifically for my science students, but I, you know, in any, I think that's a great one. In, in any field, right? Whether somebody's going into science or not. Just a perspective on the world. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And So, you know, one of the things that I've said about atheopagan is that it's the spirituality of the verifiably real. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: You know, there's, there's, it's possible, theoretically not consistent with any scientific theory, but con contextually it's possible that there are gods, right. We don't have any evidence that would lead one to conclude that, but you know, we can imagine that that might be true, right? Yucca: Sure. Mark: Irrelevant to me Yucca: Maybe me too. That's the thing I was gonna say, I don't really care if Mark: if there's so little evidence for it. There is so much here that I am just knocked out by, and it gives me so much of a sense of meaning and joy and, and appreciation that I don't need to extend to stuff that requires me to suspend my disbelief in order to, in order to embrace it. I just, I don't need to go there. Yucca: Right. Well, why don't we talk about a few of the things that that recently have given us. That sense of, of wow. And also I wanna put in a, an overlapping feeling as well as that delight, right? I think that delight and wonder aren't necessarily the same, but for me, they often come together, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: right? So a couple of the ones I wanna talk about are just ones that I just find delightful as well as awe-inspiring. But do you wanna start? Or, Mark: why don't you start while I'm figuring out what I'm gonna do Yucca: sure. Well, we, we've been on the space one for a while. So there's, I have some non-space stuff as well, but there's, I. A, a paper that I read recently, and actually it was by the PI of the mission. We just talked about New horizons. So Alan Stern and he's talking about I wows. So I Wows are internal water, ocean worlds. So these are planets like, Europa, like Pluto and Celis, it turns out that oceans are really, really common in our solar system and presumably beyond our solar system, right? And so what we are seeing is that we've probably got these worlds that have water, liquid water inside with thick crusts of rock or ice on top. And we've never been able to go down into any of these oceans. There's not yet. I mean, maybe one day. But. There's a lot of conditions in these places that we think would really be good for life. For instance, with Europa, we think that there's probably hydrothermal vents at the bottom of those oceans that there's, you know, that's probably saltwater organic compounds, all the things that we would need for Earthlike life. And so in this particular paper, which I think is gonna end up being one of those papers that people look back on like Dyson's paper about trying to find extra solar civilizations and things like that. But what he pointed out in this is that these eye wows are much better places for civilizations to evolve. Than worlds like our own, which are ews, external Water, ocean Worlds, because worlds like Earth we're subject to how cranky our star is being. Right? It depends on how close or how far away from we are from our star. Asteroid impacts, right? That's how to pretty big impact, so to say on the ecology over the years. So, Civilizations now and again, we don't know if anybody else is out there. We suspect there's, you know, trillions upon trillions of planets. That's a lot of opportunity for there to be civilizations, but that these worlds would be more likely than Ewos to develop civilizations. Now, if that was the case, this is the part that makes me just delighted to think about if there are civilizations, they would be very unlikely to know that stars existed. Because their world would be under 60 kilometers or hundreds of kilometers of ice. And eventually maybe, maybe they might drill through that and go up to the surface and find out that something's there. But they wouldn't necessarily have the same drive that we've had to go explore the stars because we see them, right? We see the stars right there. Now. It's harder to get off of our planet than we'd be to get off of one of those planets. Assuming that we're talking about eye wows that are. Smaller planets, right? Like, like Europa is the gravity's much, much lower there. Mark: but you have to get through those kilometers of ice or rock Yucca: oh yes. And bring all your water with you. I mean, we gotta bring our air with us too. But if you're from that, you're gonna have to bring your water. You're unlikely to be using the same sort of light. They probably wouldn't see what the part of the electromagnetic spectrum we do. Also, if they're there and they are using radio, which would be very odd for them to have figured out radio if they didn't have. Other type of using visible light, but that probably wouldn't leak through the ice, so we might not even know they're there. So it just delights me to think that the universe might be, we might be the weird, weird aliens that live on the surface of planets in the harsh light of a star where everybody else out there is, you know, swimming around and, you know, they're the occupy people, right. So that delights me. Mark: Very cool. We've talked about this before, but if you haven't, go see the movie Europa Report. Yucca: Yes. Mark: was, it was made on like a shoestring budget. It was made for like $8,000 or something. Some insanely low amount, and it is a fantastic science Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: really worth seeing.  Yucca: Also before we do, I just wanna make a comment real quick. Some of you might have noticed my usage of the term planet that is consistent in planetary science. We do not use the IAU definition that is never been used, actually used in any science. So referring to. Bodies like Europa, Pluto, ENCE, all of that as planets is consistent with the scientific usage of the term. So just if anyone caught that, that is that's how we use it in the field. So, yeah. Mark: Yeah. That it is, that's all inspiring. You know, the idea that these self-contained worlds could be, and of course what that, what that does is it begs the question well, okay, is our universe a bubble of something that's in a matrix of something larger? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: It's seen seems that that's the way that reality works. Could the Big Bang have been an extrusion of force space into, you know, further dimensions that have other stuff in them that, that's going on? Yucca: One of my. Personal favorites is Black Hole Cosmology, which of course is still outside of the actual realm of science because it's not something that's falsifiable at this point. But it's a very popular idea among cosmologists is that inside each black hole is a new universe. So the Big Bang is basically a white hole from the black hole of another universe. And inside of each of our black holes is another universe that just keeps. You know, creating more and more and more universes. That one makes me really happy. Mark: Yeah. And there, once again, you see the, the magic of fractals, right? That same repeating pattern happening over and over again with every iteration, slightly different. None of them, none of them identical, but repeating in patterns over and over and over again.  Yucca: Slight difference between each universe, that actually allows for natural selection. Mark: yes. Yucca: Because if you have universes which are more likely to make black holes, then they're more likely to pass on their slight differences. But again, we don't know. This is, we're just playing with ideas at this point. Right. This is, we don't have any evidence to support this, but it's, but they're fun ideas. Mark: and they're fun ideas that can inspire awe and wonder just through being somewhat scientifically informed. Right. That's all I wonder that you can't access if you're not somewhat scientifically informed because you don't, you don't understand the concepts. So once again, this idea that things need to be capital M mystery in order to be awe-inspiring is just, it's just not right. I don't understand where that person's coming from at all.  Yucca: Well they do them. We'll be over here talking about Wonder and new research and all that. Mark: and having joyous and happy lives and building community and making the world a better place. Yucca: Sounds pretty good. Count me in. Mark: sounds, sounds okay to me. I'm, you know, that, that's, that's worthy use of my time. So what was I had a couple of examples, but you know, I'm looking out the window right now and I'm just watching tree branches blowing in wind. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And understanding that there is a mathematical language that can describe that, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: one of those leaves has a friction coefficient. And it has a particular springiness of its stem and of the branch that it grows from, and the wind is turbulent and it shears through all those different surfaces and it causes very specific kinds of motions, none of which are ever exactly the same. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Time, but all of which can be somewhat predicted. You can, you can predict that it's gonna go back and forth in some kind of way. And I mean, in the, in the einsteinian sense. What that means is that chaos mathematics is the language of God, It's not in a, not in a literal deic being kind of sense, but that the, the, the universe has a mathematical language that will describe it, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and that I just find stunning. Just stunning Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and, and, and particularly the constants. Which are just weird. They're all irrational numbers, right? They're, they're strange, but they're there. They're, Yucca: those numbers. Yeah, Mark: yeah, they're demonstrably real, you know? So e and pi all, you know, all of those I, which of course is impossible. You know, and all of these can be used to describe actual stuff happening in the universe, and it's just glorious. Yucca: it is. And we come back to that tree. is gonna come in a slightly different direction, Mark: Oh, right, Yucca: that tree is doing some pretty amazing things that until recently we didn't really give credit to plants to be doing. So that tree has roots that goes down into the ground and what it's doing up above. Cuz it's photosynthesizing, right? It's taking air. And from the air it's taking co2, so carbon dioxide, and it's taking water up from its roots and then it's taking photons, it's taking light coming from our star, and it's making sugars out of that. And oxygen. Now it's not making the atom of oxygen, it's making the molecule, right? Stars make the atom right, but it's sticking them together and make that oxygen that we're breathing and it's gonna use the sugars in its cells. But one of the things that it does with those sugars that it makes is it makes what we call exudates, basically these sticky liquids that it sends down to its roots and it releases into the soil. And it can make different kinds of exudates depending on what its, let's call them nutritional needs are. So the, the plant is made outta the same stuff we are. So it's a carbon-based life forms. Of course, it's mostly carbon and oxygen and hydrogen, but it also needs things like calcium and it needs boron and it needs all of these other things. And they're in the ground. These, they're just pieces of the earth. So the rock, but the plant can't get it from the rock, but who can get it from the rock is microbes. So there are microbes that are really good at getting that, let's say calcium, getting that calcium out of the rock, and then through the food web, getting it into a form that the plant can then take up with its roots. So if the tree needs calcium, it will release the right exudates to actually breed. And grow the bacteria who can get the nutrients that it needs. So plants figured out farming hundreds of millions of years before we ever existed. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And one of the really cool things that just in the last few years we've been finding out about is something called Rizo. So, The roots of plants. And we're not just talking about some special plants, we're talking about the whole kingdom here. Not only will they grow the particular populations of bacteria that they want, but they will literally take them into their roots and eat them. They abs, they take them in and literally eat bacteria. They feed on the bacteria, and some of them they will actually. Like partially eat and then spit back out so that they grow again and they actually move them right because that, that root will continue to grow. And so they'll move them several centimeters or even farther before spitting them, half digested back out, they grow again. And so they're cultivating, they're ranching and farming bacteria. And so it's a just. That would look out your window at that tree. That's what your tree is doing right now. Not just your tree, but the grass, the flowers, the ivy growing up, your wall. They're all doing that and they're interacting on these on levels that we had no idea, and we are just barely beginning to learn about the incredible interactions with them. Mark: It's pretty awesome. Yucca: Yep. Mark: Pretty, pretty awe inspiring. It really is. And yeah, I mean, The kinds of things that we have discovered. Like when I first learned about complexity science, I read this book, I read, there's a book called Complexity by Mitchell Waldrop, and it's a popular science book. It's, it's really, it's about creation of the Santa Fe Institute, Yucca: Yeah, I actually read that book as a, so I'm from Santa Fe and in high school well the equivalent was high school. Yeah, I did a, I did a program at the institute and we, we literally read that book, Mark: Uhhuh. Yucca: so, yeah. Mark: Well, that was my introduction to complexity science, Yucca: Oh, Mark: and I literally would, you know, read four pages and then skip around the room Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you know this question about, you know, about emergence and about, you know, scale Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: is so central to the entire story of the universe. It's everywhere. It's in everything. And asking those fundamental questions about, well, why, you know, why, why, when you put these disparate elements together, why when you combine two gases, does it create a liquid? What's up with that? The, the, the property of emergence itself is one of those things that just makes me awe-inspired. You know, why? Why stars? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, why, why are there these accumulations that, that cause transformation where suddenly you've got this gathering that gravity has been pulling together of dust and gas, and then all of a sudden at this one transformational moment, Kapow, you've got a star. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: It's asking those kinds of cosmological questions that I just find just thrilling. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And again, in whatever direction Right. It, you know, we've been talking about our particular interests, but I mean, there's just, it's just any, anywhere you look, any direction, Mark: sure. Zombie ants that are colonized by particular molds. Right. Yucca: Yeah. The cor decept. Mark: yeah.  Yucca: And ants, speaking of emergence, that's where a lot of the research has been done is with ants and how the ant colonies work and how they end up with their behavior as super organisms where they're, it's made of lots of little individuals and yet they have personalities. A whole colony has its own personality that grows and changes over time, which studying helps us better understand. Humans on that way too, because we're each individuals. But if you look at communities and communities on different scales, but also communities on the scale of like countries where the, the countries will have their personalities that they're this made up from just these smaller parts and we're just following these, you know, simple rules that then translates into this emergent behavior and it's. I mean, it's fascinating and something, again, we're just barely, barely starting to even grasp that that's there, Mark: Right, right. Yucca: so, Mark: Yeah. So look around. You know, there's so much to be just wowed by and, and the, the next step in that process in my experience is gratitude. I am, so, I. Thrilled to be able to be taking this ride and appreciating all this incredible stuff that's happening, to be a part of this universe that's just amazing. Just amazing. At every level, at every scale, it's doing stuff that's just like, oh my God, how, how, how, how is that happening? Yucca: Right, and just for the briefest tiniest moment, we get to be a piece of the universe that gets to think about itself. That gets to see itself and experience itself as a conscious being, but it's just a moment. It's a blink of an eye, Mark: Yeah. What good fortune a Yucca: right? Mark: what? Incredible luck. You know, when you consider the odds. The, the astronomical odds against any one of us, you know, particularly having arisen through collision of genetics and, you know, the, the experiences that happen to us through our lives. There, there will, there will never be another one of you. There has never been one of you, and it's miraculous. Yucca: Yeah, and every single thing that happened before in every one of your ancestors, it had to happen exactly the way it did for you to even exist. And just, there isn't a word to describe how unlikely our existences. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Right. Astronomical is not a big enough word. Mark: no, it's not. Yucca: It's just, you know, in my house we've been talking a lot about grandma, grandmother Luca recently. Right. And how so Luca is the last universal common ancestor and about how life has never stopped between each of us and her. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Or it, or whoever they were, right? That we're going back at least 4 billion years of choices. Now there's been, it's split off, right? There's lots of things, places where it stops, right? But in order for you to exist, it hasn't stopped that whole time, Mark: Right. Your ancestors all the way back to microbes never died before they could reproduce. Yucca: Before. Yeah. Mark: They never did. All the way back. Billions of years, Yucca: life didn't stop between you and because you didn't, you didn't, you weren't magically just suddenly alive when you weren't before you rewind to the times all the cells that made you, you rewind to that back. They were a single cell inside of your mother. And rewind her cells back and you keep going. That cell, that life has just been there the whole time. Now it started at some point and think, trying to think about that. Wow. Mark: trying to figure out exactly how that is. Although there's behavior that we can see in long chain molecules and modeling that we can see through things like the Game of Life, which give us some tantalizing hints about how that all could have worked, Yucca: Right. Mark: but we haven't been able to replicate it, and maybe we never will. It's entirely possible. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Or maybe we will, and that will raise a whole bunch of new ethical questions for sure. Yucca: My goodness. Yes. I am hoping and also not hoping that we get to, speaking of Europa earlier. And just saying you're Oprah. Cause it's the closest of them. There's a whole bunch of other ones that we could go to too, but it's a lot easier to get to Jupiter than it is to get to Saturn or Neptune. Right. But, you know, I'm hoping, and also not hoping that we get to, in the next couple decades, go down and take a look and see somebody else down there. Mark: Boy, Yucca: we do, Mark: pretty amazing. Yucca: that's a, that's, that's Pandora's box right there. But, you know, eh, it'd be a incredible, Mark: Yeah. Well, we have kind of bombarded you with our enthusiastic WOWness about, about the universe.  Yucca: Which any of these topics could be their own podcast and themselves. Mark: Sure. They, they could be their own podcast series in and of themselves, you know, any of these topics because they're gigantic topics and we're only skipping over the, the, the top high points of them. But, you know, one of the, one of the worst things I think that. Our mainstream culture does is discount the value of appreciating these sorts of things. Oh, well that's just a sunset happens every day.  Yucca: There's a limited number of sunsets that will ever happen. Mark: that's right. And there's certainly a limited number of sunsets for us. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: We're only gonna get a certain number of them, so it might make more sense for us to go out and go, oh, how beautiful. Yucca: And you also don't know how many you get. Mark: Yeah. You don't. Yucca: Hopefully you get a lot more, hopefully you have thousands and thousands to come, but you might just have the one. Right. And that's another one of those just amazing things about, about being alive, about be about being Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: just existing at all. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. we could go on forever, Yucca: Well, we couldn't, Mark: I think but I, well, we could go on until we died, Yucca: Yes. Mark: but I think we should probably stop and maybe save some of that time and energy for other things. Yucca: Sounds good. Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. Mark: It was, it Yucca: you everyone for being here with us. So. Mark: We'll see you next week.    

This week, Frank meets with the great Chris Gore to chat about his new film chronicling the rise and fall of G4TV, Attack Of The Doc.  They also talk about growing up nerdy, the changing times , and the capitol of Nebraska is Lincoln!  https://filmthreat.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Indexes didn't move much, continuing to trade tightly, near 2023 highs. Mobileye and Lockheed Martin flashed buy signals, while Las Vegas Sands is near a breakout with earnings on tap.

On this episode of And I Quote: Ryan talks with writer, podcaster and co-founder of Farpoint Convention, Steven H. Wilson. We'll also be taking your questions!STEVEN HOWELL WILSON created the Mark Time and Parsec Award-winning podcast series The Arbiter Chronicles, as well as authoring Taken Liberty and several other novels and novellas in the Arbiters universe. His other works include the novel Peace Lord of the Red Planet, short stories for Firebringer Press's In The Middle of Eternity series, and contributions to Sequart Press's Star Wars essay collections. He has also written for DC Comics, Starlog, and Crazy 8 Press. Most recently, Steve has branched out into historical fiction, appearing in Hobnail and Other Frontier Stories from Five Star Press and authoring the upcoming anthology V is for Victory for Lock ‘n Load Publishing. He was the founding Director of Farpoint when it was established in 1993, and still serves as Deputy Chair alongside his wife, Renee. Steve currently works as an IT contractor, having retired from Howard County Fire & Rescue after 33 years of service. Steve and Renee live in a historic home in Elkridge, Maryland, have two adult sons, Ethan and Christian, and a grandson, Matthew. Follow Steven H. Wilson on Social Media:Website: https://www.stevenhwilson.com/Farpoint Convention: https://www.farpointcon.com/Follow Ryan on Social Media: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/ryanandiquoteMake Sure to LIKE, COMMENT, & SUBSCRIBE! Nerd Culture MERCH!!! www.nerdculture.threadless.comHWWS NC Merch - https://hwwswebtv.threadless.com/designDONATE to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnerdcultureFollow:Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/itsnerdculture/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsnerdcultureTwitter :https://twitter.com/itsNerdCultureFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsnerdculture.

This week we cover a whole chapter in the book of Mark as Pastor Brandon breaks down the concept of time and how it's really not what we think it is.

Suntree Retreat: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2022/   Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S3E14 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the wonders. Science-based paganism. I'm mark. And I'm one of your hosts. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to talk about pleasure and sensuality and how we relate to that psychologically and what we can do for ourselves in order to more deeply. Enjoy our lives in essential sense. It's spring time and it's getting warmer out and people are wearing less clothing and it's just kind of feeling like everything's getting going again and we're coming up on Mayday or bell pain. So we thought this would be a good time to do this episode.  Yucca: Exactly. Yeah. It's definitely something for any time of the year, but particularly right now it feels, it feels like a good moment for it. And yeah. And we'll come back next week. We'll be talking more about Mayday or belting and some of the themes that can go along with that, which will, we're getting into a little bit today. We're going to focus more on that physical pleasure side today. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. Next week we can talk about rituals and observances and all that good kind of stuff for the holiday. But thematically, this is something that's kind of a bigger human issue so where should we start?  Yucca: Why don't we start with the idea of pleasure, because this is something that in. Paganism. We tend to have a different take on then much of the over culture does. And a lot of the other religions Mark: Yeah, that's certainly been my experience. I mean, one of the earliest things that I heard when I entered the pagan community was that one of the things that defines us as different from the predominant over culture is that we, our pleasure pauses. And that is it's principle 10 of the atheopagan principles. It's something that I have not only observed broadly in the community, but also have taken into myself as something to embrace. Not without struggle. I should say. And we're going to talk about that a lot.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But fundamentally from a values standpoint, we don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying. Quite the contrary,  Yucca: Consensual, right. Few episodes back. We talked about. About consent and all of that. And we're, this is all assuming that this is consensual, you know, this is, or we're talking about in yourself, but in no way, are we saying that, you know, it's okay for you to just do something that hurts somebody else? Cause you like it. That's not what we're  talking about. We're saying that it's, it's okay for you to feel good. In fact, it's probably really, really good for you and good for everybody around you and the rest of the world, because. Miserable people are not good company and aren't very effective that change. Mark: No, no. And having spent many years in the activist community, I can testify to the. You know, the sort of bitter angry zealots that that are interspersed amongst the activist community, who they just, they don't have a positive word to say about anyone or anything. And you can just tell that they're miserable and you know, really what they need is a lot of kindness. And. A lot of pleasure to just kind of transform the idea that they have of the world is a horrible place.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And it's, you know, we're not saying, we're not saying that there aren't horrors in the world because there are so, you know, we're not implying, oh, you know, feel good, have a great time. By itself. You know, this is within the context of understanding that there are terrible things in the world that we need to change and we need to work to change. But while we're doing that, we're living our one precious life.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: precious life is to be enjoyed. It's it's, you know, we have all of these nerve receptors all over ourselves, not just to Not just to tell us when something is injured or hurts, but also to bring us pleasure. Right. Otherwise, a massage wouldn't feel good. Sex wouldn't feel good. A delicious pastry wouldn't taste good,  Yucca: Long bath or,  Mark: Or.  Yucca: a nap in the sun. Yeah. Mark: all those wonderful things. We have pleasure centers for a reason and it is perfectly okay for us to stimulate them. And there's no, there's no downside to that. So long as everybody who's involved is consented, which kind of brings us to. The the over culture. I mean, we just talked about the pagan culture and we can talk more in examples about that, but. The over culture has a radically different way of looking at this. That's rooted in Christianity and Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, since the Protestant reformation is deeply suspicious of pleasure. And in many cases shaming about it.  Yucca: Right. Mark: It, there are lots of arbitrary rules about where, when you are allowed to feel pleasure. And when you're not  Yucca: And what specific times? Right? Mark: there are arbitrary times of year when you're supposed to deny yourself things that you enjoy, just because reasons,  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And all of this conspires to inculcate within us, this feeling of discomfort at the least, but in many cases, real shame around enjoying ourselves in a sensual sense. And that is crippling to people. It's very, very hard to be a happy person. If that's the context that you, you live.  Yucca: Yeah. And I think one of the sources of this is control, right? It's a way of controlling people. Shame is a way. Making sure that that system, that structure is maintained. And when you have people feeling bad and shameful about the things that they could be doing that might, that might make them realize that they don't need to be doing what you're saying, or don't need to be following this, or it's, you know, that, that, that whole system starts to crumble when people just. Don't feel bad about these things that they're supposed to. And, and you mentioned this coming from a lot from the Protestant and I agree, but I think that it, it comes from that a lot, but it influences all of us today, whether we're from those particular religions or not, that has a huge influence on everybody. And especially if, if you went through the school site, Right. There's a few, a few folks out who might have that this point been unschooled, but pretty much everybody else went through the school system, which was designed to control you based on, on a lot of different things. But one way denying you from, from enjoying things and punishing you for enjoying those things and making you do these other things. Mark: Right. And teaching you about obedience to authority and denying yourself in the name of somebody else's rules.  Yucca: Right. Don't question, right. That's not, you know, it's not whatever, it's not respectful. It's not proper. It's not don't you want to learn what are all these, these things. And so I think that, that it happens that has happened to all of us to some degree. Yeah. That we are making the conscious choice as pleasure, positive Higgins. That's a nice one. That's a piece in there that, that we don't want to agree with that, but it's something that we have to think about not necessarily every day, but think about because it's, we're surrounded by it. We're steeping in it, it slips back in without us even thinking, without realizing, being conscious of it. Mark: right. Yeah. I mean, even after 35 years of being a pagan I, I confront this on a daily basis, right. Because the window of my room faces onto the parking area of the complex that I live in. Now, people aren't generally walking around, it's unusual for somebody to actually pass in front of my window, but I have to get dressed. And I don't sleep with clothing on. So, which is pleasurable by the way, at least it is for me, which is why I do it. Just  Yucca: know about you, but the nice sheets, this like  Mark: Oh yeah,  Yucca: And you get underneath the sheets and you can like rub your legs together. And it's just wonderful.  Mark: yeah.  Yucca: That's one of my favorite things.  Mark: Huh. yeah. so, Okay. Agreed. But then I have to get out of the bed and suddenly I am on display to the neighborhood and. I work very hard not to have that impact, you know, so that I'm not rushing. I'm not, you know, running to the closet to get myself a pair of pants. I'm not doing any of that. I'm taking my time and doing the things that I want to do in the morning. And by God is somebody outside gets offended. Then I'm going to deal with that when it comes along. But yes. Yucca: Okay. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. So, and you know, thus far, no one has seen me and we've been here for almost a year. Because you know yeah.  Yucca: depend that long. Wow. Mark: well, yeah, we moved in in oh, no. We, we got noticed that we had to move in. May we moved in July,  Yucca: Okay.  Mark: so it's 10 months.  Yucca: No, it's practically a year. Wow. Okay. Mark: Time flying. So, you know, here's, here's a perfect example. It's like at this time of year I mean, we just had a little rain here, so it's a little chillier now, but we've been having days that are like 75 degree days In the best of all possible worlds. Other than maybe a hat and some sunblock, I wouldn't wear anything. I would just go outside and walk around. Cause it's nice and the sun feels good on your skin, but we live in a culture where you can't do that. And it's actually enshrined in law that you can't do that for no reason. Other than that, the V over culture, which is driven by Christian ideas. Encourages this idea of shame of the body and shame of central pleasure. And it's just, it's a shame. But when you think about it, it's a pretty clever con  Yucca: Hm. Mark: because, okay, we're going to make you ashamed of. These natural things that you gravitate towards and we're going to call them sins. And then the only way you can get the sins taken off is through our institution.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Right? It's like, it's rather like having a car where the parts are only made by. The particular company that manufacturers your car. And so you will keep going back to them for parts over and over and over again. So we were talking about this before we started the recording and there is a word for this. There's a term for this, which is purity culture. And you had said some really interesting things about that Yaka.  Yucca: We were talking. Places where we see this. And one of the places that I see this is in is around diet culture, whatever the particular diet is. You know, people talk about, you know, clean eating and you know, clean lifestyles and all of these things. And I think that that framing is a, is a really destructive and harmful framing. Mark: Because what is, what is dirt? Right? What is dirt? Dirt is soil the most miraculous stuff on earth.  Yucca: it's earth. Right.  Mark: the stuff that gives us life.  Yucca: Yeah. And, and also stuff that gets used, like cheat meals and things like that. I'm like cheating. Like what you, what are you implying by all of this? Mark: Right. Yeah, When, when you say cheat, you're automatically asserting a moral framework, right? There is a virtuous behavior and there is an unvirtuous behavior. And the virtuous behavior inevitably has to do with some sort of shame-based thing You can see it on the labels of food products. You know, it'll say natural or low fat, or, you know, low sugar or, you know, all these things. Yucca: the thing is. Mark: Whenever the thing is that are, that is. directly keyed to a shame response that you have within yourself because you learned it because you learned it from parents, from authority figures, from the society at large, from advertising. And for one thing, there's no such thing as purity. There just isn't, it doesn't exist. It's  Yucca: Yeah, it's made up. It's not. Mark: an arbitrary and destructive idea, just like virginity, it's an argument. It's a, a destructive idea that doesn't help anything. It just doesn't help anything. For another. It, when it's pursued to its logical extremes, it has very destructive impulse impacts. I'm sorry. I mean, certainly you see it in ever angelical Christianity where teens are being bombarded with these messages about their bodies, about sexuality, about relationships, about all this stuff. And it is so. Harmful. And there aren't countervailing voices in many cases to provide an alternative perspective.  Yucca: it's not even just starting with the teens, it started way, way younger than that.  Mark: You're right,  Yucca: Yeah. It's you know, that we will start to hear about it from the teams because sometimes there's the team because of the teams will start to talk about. Right. But the younger, the kids, they don't know that they don't have platforms to talk about it yet, but but yeah, there's just some, there's some stuff out there that's like, wow. Like, oh, that, that hurts just to think about, you know, just the, the you know, just being. Ashamed of your body, of yourself, of your gender, your sex, whatever you are, you know, on top of just all of the other things about how, you know, we're with the advertising about, that's always there to try and convince us that. Not good. We're not perfect. And here's the thing to make us perfect. And, and even once you get the thing, it doesn't work because you never, that never was the problem in the first place. And there's just all of this about just trying to tear the person down. And we just internalize that even when we're aware that it's happening, it's a conscious effort and fight to not internalize it. Right. Mark: Yeah. I mean, we, in this culture, we encourage people not to like themselves too much.  Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Right. Because that's pride, right. Heaven. Forfend that? You should be proud of who you are.  Yucca: Especially if you're a woman,  Mark: Well, particularly if you're a woman Yeah.  Yucca: I mean, it happens to everybody,  Mark: Or gay or non-binary or trans yeah. It's. I D I, I get worked up when I think about this, it it's so destructive and it's so completely unnecessary. All that it is, is a set of tools that were used to perform social control, starting thousands of years ago, certainly centuries ago in its latest incarnations. And we are still stuck with it. And one of the things that is really outraging the Christian right wing in the United States right now, is that the younger generation ain't having it. They're just not, they're not, they're not viewing these authorities as authorities. They're not following their moral codes. Pursuing new relationship structures. They're experimenting sexually there. They're just not doing it.  Yucca: Yeah. And those older powers are freaking out.  Mark: They are.  Yucca: Yeah. That's where a lot of these ridiculous, you know, don't say gay and bills and things like that are coming from. Mark: right. Yeah. I mean, Presuming that we're still around in 50 years. I think we will see that this time will be seen as kind of the last gasp of the evangelical. Right. Because they. They're trying to nail down everything they possibly can for their agenda now, because they know that their voting power is dwindling rapidly. It'll only be a few more election cycles when they, you know, when their generation has dwindled away enough that they're no longer able to call the shots. That's my theory anyway, and I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic that that's what will actually happen. So, pleasure it.  Yucca: circle back around with think it's good. Mark: we think it's good. We, we think your body was built for pleasure and you should be having some. And what that means to you individually can vary widely You know, for some people it's like, you know, elaborate sexual escapades for some people it's having their head scratched. You know, for some people it's a foot rub for some people it's, I'm sitting in a hot tub, for example, or I'm having a massage or eating something delicious without feeling guilty about it or. Taking some kind of recreational drug, which as a sovereign individual, even though it may not be your, your legal right, is your right as a person, you, you have the right to make choices for yourself about what happens with your body. And that's one of them. You have a Right. to make. Yucca: Right.  Mark: You just have to be careful in relation to law enforcement. If it's not one of the sanctioned drugs in our society  Yucca: walks, right. Just getting that, it's getting some fresh air and breathing that in, or you know, Sandra between your toes or I was joking before getting, but there's a serious, if you've never tried, it is one to give bag of rice and put your bare feet into a bag of rice and just wiggle your toes around. That's one that is just delightful.  Some  Mark: have to try that out.  Yucca: Yeah. I mean, some people don't like that kind of sensation, but it's, you know, a bag of rice or a bag of beans. Some people really like that. There's just something about it. Or But just something that, that feels good and that you experienced, you know, in your body, right? Those that there's mind pleasures too, but there's also something about just being really present with your body, enjoying whatever this feeling is. Mark: Right. Right. And, and that doesn't have, you know, as, as the examples that we've been talking about make clear, doesn't have to be a sexual thing. If you're an asexual person or any romantic person, it can still be, you know, those, there can still be these central pleasures that, you know, that, that fill your body with those good feeling chemicals. The The Mary Oliver poem, very famous Mary Oliver poem. Wild geese says you do not have to be good. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And that's that's truth. That is really true. You do not have to be good by the lights of this culture. I mean, don't get yourself in trouble because then you won't be getting pleasure.  Yucca: Sure. Mark: You know, being punished arbitrarily for things that shouldn't be punishable. But just let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And, you know, for some of us it's work, you know, we have parents that drilled into us that, you know, various things were shameful. Don't, don't let that slow you down. No in your heart that you deserve the pleasure that you have, and that it's okay for you to do something just for that purpose. It doesn't have to be productive. It doesn't have to be it doesn't have to, you know, be economically contributing. It doesn't have to make anybody else happy. You, you know, if you're doing it with anybody else to know it's presumed that you have consent, but it is enough just to make yourself feel pleasure.  Yucca: Yeah. And to let go of that deserve not deserve stuff. That's just a way of, of just trying to maintain control over you. You deserve it, but  Mark: It's that inner critic again, right? That inner critic will tell you that you don't deserve something or that You should, feel shame about something. And as we talked about before, the critic is not on your side, it's the voice of, of culture, of authority, of parental messages. It's not on your side. And you do, you deserve to come out from underneath. The oppression of what that voice wants you to believe. You can be more than that and you, and you should be I'm I'm I'm I getting my I'm wagging my finger at you and saying you should be because you are more and that's, that's the important point is that you are more than that. And and your life is more than that. And so live it live it. So, do we have more to say on this topic or shall we save it for next week? Yucca: I think this is a good place to pause and come back next week. So we'll, we'll return to this a little bit next week, but we'll also talk about the other side of. What it, what belting or may day or all the many different names, again, whatever this, this may holiday is. There's a lot to say about that. So  Mark: Yeah, absolutely. One more thing yeah, which is the century retreat, which the last day of is a month from the day today that we're recording. So it's in four weeks, but if you're thinking of going, you really need to get your registration in. The deadline for registration is April 25th because we have to tell the retreat center How many meals we're ordering. And so we have to have a count by April 25th. So, go to the atheopagan society website, which AP society.org and go to the events page. And there's a link there that will take you to everything that you need to know about the event. But and we hope that you'll join us there both Yucca and I will be there. And I talked with some other folks this morning at the Saturday zoom mixer who are going to be there and we're all getting really excited.  Yucca: Yep. Just around the, really around the corner  Mark: It really is. Yeah. So thank you, Yucca. Thanks for a great conversation.  Yucca: likewise.  

Today I want to share with you Mark's story. Mark went from a failed business, $180,000 in tax debt, divorce, making $2k/m in a job that he was overqualified for to creating a business that he's passionate about which blew past his previous goal of 25k/m to generating him 50k a month! This interview highlights an in depth analysis of where Mark's life was, why he kept attracting situations that didn't serve him & how he was able to break out of it. Here's what we discuss: - The "fighter" archetype: how he went from taking massive action with no results to taking effortless action with massive results - Extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation: how Mark went from wanting things to loving his work - Focused on the negative & overcoming overwhelm - Putting things on the pedestal and what happens when you learn to take them off - How Mark erased 175k of his debt into thin air - What happened to Mark once he stopped overthinking and started having more faith - Going from a 6 figure job to divorce & the verge of bankruptcy: how Mark recovered & made a huge shift - The 1 thing that changed the game for Mark - Time blocking & journaling: preparing yourself for the world - The power of awareness - The biggest difference Reality Mastery made for Mark that other self help material failed to achieve - Getting out of scarcity & the victim mindset: stop closing yourself off to life's opportunities Want results like Mark? Apply here: https://go.realitycreator.com/ist-sur... Here are Mark's socials: His youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-lP... Instagram: @bymarkporter

Esta semana en "Islas de Robinson" recibimos una nueva visita ilustre. Borja Gorostiza, "eminencia gris" desde hace años en Discos Monterrey y "exótico cazador" de tesoros a 45 revoluciones en Mo'jama Records, nos prescribe un puñado de canciones entre 1966 y 1971 para pasar la semana. A buen seguro no las escucharéis en ningún otro lugar. Suenan: The Oxfords - "Sung At Harvest Time" (1969) / The Travelers - "Brimstone and Fire" (1966) / The Immigrants - "Every Time" (1966) / The Hounds - "Summertown"/ Jigsaw - "Seven Fishes" (1970) / Ellen Margulies - "Meditation" (1968) / Mocedades - "Esta noche ha llovido" (1971) / Eclection - "Mark Time" (1968) / Curved Air - "Back "Street" (1971) / The Gremlins - "We've Found Love" (1969) / The Collectors - "Fisherwoman" (1967) / Oracle - "Don't Say No" (1967) / The Congregation - "Counter Clockwise" (1968) / Escuchar audio

In this episode, Tony and Mark time trip over the 50 plus years of Doctor Who. They cover everything from doctors, companions, writers, and episodes. They share personal stories and really get into it as this is the show that started their friendship to begin with. So sit back and enjoy. 

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com   S2E02 TRANSCRIPT:   ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. And today we are going to be talking about holidays. What they are, how they fit into our human experience here in the world. A little bit about the Wheel of the Year as celebrated by pagan folk, many pagan folk, and then some tips on inventing your own holidays and some fun holidays that have already been invented that we want to make sure you're aware of. Yucca: So that's one of yours coming up. Mark: Yes. Yes. Slogg is coming up in January and we'll tell you all about it. So holidays much. That this is an important topic for pagans, because for many pagans much, if not all of their celebration of their religion is focused on those eight days around the course of the year. You know, some people like me and you have daily practices and other things that we do on a more frequent basis, but for an awful lot of pagans, I know it's really those eight holidays, the four solstices and equinoxes, and then the points in between the solstices and equinoxes to create eight equidistant spokes to a wheel around the course of the year Yucca: and some- it doesn't seem to be quite as common, have a, a lunar observance as well. Mark: Oh, you're right about that. I completely overlooked it. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Yucca: But it, at least from what I have been exposed to, it seems like the, the solar wheel of the year is more, it seems to be more universal. Mark: And that's of course there are, you know, there are folks following Norse traditions and Greek traditions and Roman traditions and so forth, which are not in any way oriented that way. The wheel of the year was originally created as a Wiccan idea synthesizing folk traditions from throughout Europe and kind of pulling them all together into this system. But it works very well for nature-based pagans because it's rooted in reality and the reality of where the Sun is in relation to the Earth and what the axis of the earth is relative to the sun. And so over the course of the year, we go through these seasonal observations that have direct correlation in what's happening in the physical world, outside us. Yucca: Yeah. Well, let's, let's pause on the Wheel of the Year and talk about holidays first. Just holidays in general. Mark: We've just got a whole bunch of them Yucca: we have, right. And we're not talking about the holidays as is in the cluster of a bunch of things that often happen in December, but. Holidays as in moments set aside throughout the year that have special meaning and that have special behaviors around them. Mark: Yes. This is one of those things that is ubiquitous, so it must have some inherent human need. In every culture throughout the world, there are special days where you don't just do your routine of food gathering and processing and, you know, making shelter and doing all those various kinds of things. Instead, you suspend all that stuff and you do things that are often cultural, religious, freighted with symbolic meaning, right? And so so holidays become one of those interesting topics like laughter and music and dancing, where you have to ask yourself how and religion. Of course these things are universal. So what does it say about the human organism that we have these things and that we value them? Yeah. So what is a holiday then? Well, we've just described it as a day that you take when you do something cultural or religious, instead of doing instead of doing your ordinary routine, and that can even be true of holidays that are highly secular. I mean, 4th of July is it doesn't really have much in the way of a kind of deep metaphorical content to it, but there is the tradition of fireworks and there is the tradition of barbecues and there's tradition of football, all these things that people associate with that day and find very important. Right? Yeah. Yucca: And then there are points throughout the year, which ties back to the Wheel of the Year that many cultures have. Some celebration around and sometimes they have other meanings also added on with the birth of gods or particular saints that are being celebrated. But there are certain points where it seems like people are recognizing that there is something going on within our environment that is again, shared throughout well, the whole planet. Mark: And in some cases, some holidays are, are extremely specific only to certain people, for example, with a particular name. So you've got in, in the Roman Catholic church calendar, for example, they've got more saints than there are days in the year. So in some cultures you are, you have a sort of birthday like celebration on your saints day. That you were after. And until very recently in countries like Spain you were only allowed to name your children names that were on the list. Right? So everybody had a saints day as well as a birthday, and that was a time to celebrate. Right. So all of these are pieces of. Incorporating culture into the flow of daily life. Right. I mean, I can see particularly how effective it would be to do the St state thing, because. Somebody will be having a saints day every day. And it will continually remind you that you're Catholic and that you need to do the Catholic rituals and, you know, follow the dogma and all that kind of stuff. So that's very effective. Other holidays are much more universal, right. And. One of the things that I find very strange about American culture is that we have holidays that have virtually nothing associated with them other than not going to work. President's day, for example, I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't have deep and abiding rituals for president's day. Yucca: No, and frankly, I work on that day too. Mark: usually haven't because it's, the banks might not be the banks aren't open and Pantheon was usually over president's day weekend, but that's not happening anymore. So So anyway these holidays are a way for us to, sew our cultural and religious experience into our living. And that is something that is really worth looking at for people who are pagans and who are seeking to make sure that they've got everything represented in the calendar of the year that they want to see represented. And if they don't see it in one of those eight kind of guidepost holidays, well then maybe it's time to make up another day to celebrate and observe whatever it is that you think is important enough to deserve that. Yucca: That's right. Yeah, because we, we are choosing to curate our own experience and that's one of the things that we we get to do is say, this is, this is what I want and how do I make this work? How do I make this be part of my experience? Mark: Right. And as we've talked about before, don't worry if it's made up. Cause it's all just made up all of it. Yep. All of it. Every last bit of human culture is made up by somebody at some point, it's made up so you can make stuff up as well as anybody else. And it's just as valuable as what anybody else made up. So Yucca: go on. I was going to say, why don't we talk about the Wheel of the Year as the sort of standard. It's hard to say that there's a standard, but this sort of standard modern Neo pagan temperate approach. Okay. That's a pretty long list of descriptors Mark: A lot of adjectives. Yeah. I thought you were going to say template, but then you said temperate Yucca: template, temperate template. Mark: So yeah for one thing, the, the conventional descriptions of the Wheel of the Year holidays are rooted in the climate of great Britain. Because they were originally described by Gerald Gardner in his publications of the 1940s into the 1950s. And so the climate of that time and that place were kind of what set the standard for what any given holiday would stand for. But. I'm in the Americas. I know you are too Yucca and it's very silly for us, like where I am, for example, you know, the idea of the holiday at the beginning of February, being about the little shoots coming up through the snow and casting seed out on the snow for the birds that are beginning to return. And you know, the earliest, earliest, earliest, beginning of spring makes no sense to us at all because in terms of shoots coming up, that just happened when it started raining two weeks ago, all the green stuff is coming back up again. I've got a nice green grassy yard behind my house now. That was all just Brown and dead before, but. This is the time when the growth happens, because it's when the water comes Yucca: Well. And for us, it's the most cold bitter time of the, it is the true dead of winter for us. There's there's not a lot of new growth happening. It's. It's cold. Mark: Right? Right. Yeah. And then of course there are people that are, you know, truly in the tropics people in Hawaii, for example, I mean, it does actually snow on the big Island. Of course that has to do with elevation 13,000 feet, obviously. But it, but it's true that they still, they do get temperatures cold enough to actually have snow on the ground up at those high elevations. But you would not, you would not describe the beginning of February in, in Hilo as being the, the frozen winter. It just, it isn't. So yes, we, we have this overall model that comes out of Western Europe. And some people are just really firm about that. You know, these, these are the metaphors that were taught to us for all of these different holidays, and that's what we're going to follow. And, you know, it's very, you know, sort of rigorous and traditional. My approach is much more of a what they call an eclectic pig and approach, which is that I am using pagan, symbols and structures as adapted to fit my personal circumstances so that they actually make sense as a way of understanding my world and celebrating my life. And that means that for me, that holiday at the beginning of February is River Rain, which is the festival of water because it's pouring down rain. It has been for weeks and it will be for additional weeks. And that's the only time of year that that happens, but everything is green and lush and the creeks are full and the waterfalls in the state parks are all running and all that good kind of stuff. And so we celebrate water and all the wonderful things that water means to us. Yucca: And of course just well, quite a few hundred miles away, for me it's Second Winter. It's a very different holiday and we're going to come back in just a few weeks and really talk about what this holiday is for each of us. As we, as we go through the Wheel of the Year on the podcast, we, each time we come into a holiday, we talk about it. One of the Wheel of the Year holidays. Right. But I also very much have the same approach that the holidays, my understanding of them is based upon where I live, what's going on here in my ecosystems, in my climate, and also incorporating in some ideas, some themes that are universal themes. Decomposition. Everybody's got that. Yes. Wherever you are on earth, you've got decomposition going on, got points of new life and, you know, different biomes, things like that. Mark: Sure, sure. Yep. Another thing that I do that I know you don't do so much, Yucca is I map the, the cycle of a human life onto that calendar. So for example, when the, when the year begins that you will, I consider that to be the birth, the birth of the new sun, the birth of the new cycle, the new year. And then the beginning of February holiday is sort of an infancy kind of holiday as well as being a celebration of water. And then kind of elementary school level at the height of spring, and it's all very fun and we color eggs and do all those childlike things. And then young adulthood at May Day, full adulthood at Summer Solstice. Middle-age in the, at the beginning of August, elderhood at autumn Equinox, the harvest, and then finally death at Hallows. And decomposition and recomposition between Samhain and, and Yule again. So it's a way for me to reflect on the different stations of my time here on earth and other people's time, and to celebrate people that happened to be in that particular age bracket at the time that they're, that the holidays being celebrated. So it's a way for everybody to get their, their sort of cheering on, you know, we love you as a community. You're good. People go forth and be you. Cause you're cool. And so I've found that very meaningful as well. I know that you have a really interesting wheel that is more focused on the different kinds of creatures different kinds of organisms that you associate around the course of the Wheel of the Year. Yucca: That's right. Yeah. And so, and we'll, we'll get back into that more, but it's the different types of beings that we are in partnership with as humans and the biomes that we have major terrestrial biomes. There isn't as much recognition of the aquatic world for me, but that's because I'm many hundreds of miles inland in a high desert. And although I appreciate it on a, on an intellectual level, have very little daily relationship with the ocean. Sure. But other folks at let alone water in general, we have a lot of that here. You know, sometimes I feel like we're on Arrakis. But why don't we touch for just a moment? I know this is probably very familiar to people, but a lot of our language when we talk about the sun and we talk about holidays, is leftover language from before we really had a good grasp on what was actually going on. We talk about the sun rising and setting, and we talk about the sun's position in around earth and things like that, where that's not what's going on the sun doesn't set and rise. We turn towards it and turn away from it. Our planet is tilted. We've got about right now a 23 and a half degree tilt as the earth goes around the sun. And it's too bad. This is only an audio format because it really helps to have a little bit of a visual, but a common misconception is that the earth is actually wobbling back and forth as it goes around the sun and that's not what's happening. The tilt that's staying the same. It's actually moving slightly. We're talking about several inches a year, but for our lifetime, essentially, it's staying the same. But depending on our position around the sun, what your place on the globe is going to receive more or less light. The proximity to the sun, how close we are to the sun, or how far away has very, very little influence on our seasons. It really is that tilt. And so people who are in the mid and higher latitudes, whether that's North or South, we experience more extremes in terms of the amount of light that we're getting, which is what's causing our seasons, but there's still a shift in that, in the tropics as well. So the tropics are not the area around the equator is always going to get a lot of light, but not as extreme difference in temperatures. So someone in the tropics, the Wheel of the Year set up with our eight holidays that celebrate snow on one hand and long, long days and summer on the other, that just doesn't for that location, doesn't make sense. Somebody might choose to celebrate it for other reasons, but it doesn't match with what's happening in the climate. And if on more extreme levels as well, if you're near the poles, the also don't have the same. Wheel of the year. It's even more extreme in terms of you've got night and day, right. Or summer and winter. And instead of having that be nine and 14 hours or whatever, or a 15 it's six months and six months or whatever you have. Yes. So since I don't live in the tropics. I don't know what a wheel of the year would necessarily look like, but for folks who do or live in, say the subtropics where you've got a rainy season and dry season, aren't two rainy seasons and two dry seasons. There's an opportunity for a lot of creativity in, in designing and creating your own wheel. Mark: Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, I think of the tradition in Canada of celebrating the first snow and, And I could very well see something similar, you know, a wheel of the year that isn't set up on dates so much, but set up on when the first rain comes to start, you know, a first monsoon season. And then when the rain stops for the dry season and then when the second rain comes and once again, for those places that have two cycles but to be honest There are so few changes in the course of that cycle that I don't know that a wheel of the year is necessarily even the best kind of model to use Yucca: the waves of the year. Or there may be some type of tree or some sort of. Symbol that would, that would better fit depending on what that climate is. I mean, there's still, but we're still dealing with the same cycle of the rain. The rainy season and dry season are still being caused by the same, It's the same mechanism that's causing the seasons and the temperate environments. It's still the apparent movement of the sun and the sky, which of course is not the movement of the sun. Sun's moving, but. That's not really relevant to what we're talking about. Mark: Ocean is relative, but let's go down that rabbit hole. Well, yeah, Yucca: I would, another interesting one is we could do a wheel of the sun cycles with the sun going into our 11 or 22 year cycles, but then it really doesn't obey years. It kind of does 11 years. 22, 11ish. So we could Anyways, that's just kind of a fun thinking about on maybe a society level of what would a unified Neo pagan wheel be for an interplanetary society Mark: probably end up looking like the Mayan calendar with wheels within wheels, within wheels of all these different cycles that all interact with one another. Yucca: Well, one of y'all should write that book and let us know. Mark: Yes, please. Please do. I would love to read it. I wouldn't want to do all the calculations necessary in order to write it, but I would love to read it. That'd be the fun part. Okay. Yucca: It's different strokes, but, so, so it might be really an actually it might, if we find someone who does have a tropical wheel of the year or wave of the year. It might be really fun to get them on. As a guest, I would love to talk about what that, that experience is because it's so different than my experience. And it sounds so different than yours. Mark: Yes. I mean, I've been to the tropics for a total of about a month out of my life.So it's not really enough time. Yucca: Yeah. I lived in Costa Rica for a period when I was a child, but I don't remember a tremendous amount. So you know, the, the temperate zones are really are my, my main experience. And nobody ever explained that there were different seasons in different parts of the world. when I was a kid that was not a, you know, everybody taught about the the standard, and even in the, in the desert that we would always have these pictures of maple trees with their, you know, red, the orange leaves and. We've got like little shrubby junipers and pinions. We don't have any of those fall never looked the way that it, that it does in the picture books. And I suppose that's also a good thing to think about in terms of the different hemispheres that some, some folks will follow the Wheel of the Year, based on the Northern hemisphere while in the Southern hemisphere. And some folks in the Southern hemisphere will base the holidays based on what's happening in their climate, two different approaches. Mark: Right. Right. So why don't we talk about some. Do it yourself holidays. What do you do when there's something important for you to celebrate or there's, some milestone that you really feel needs to be marked on a regular basis? Not, not like a one-time Rite of passage, but something that you want to Mark every year, because it's important to you, but it's not enough. Yucca: Yeah. It doesn't match up nice and pretty with your particular date. Mark: And now we can talk about the example that that I have come up with, which is Slogg. S L O G G slog is the, the Demi Sabbath of, of miserable winter. It's the third Saturday in January and Slogg is the point at which it's been long enough since all of the holiday parties and Sweets and cakes and cookies and presents and drinking and all that festivity. It's now been more than a month since then. And it's, it's been pouring incessantly ever since then. And you just really, really, really need a holiday. So I invented this Deming Sabbath called Slogg. And in it you drink mold, whined Swedish globe made with port wine and spices and stuff like that. And play board games and generally grumble about the rain or the snow, either one. And it's just an excuse to get together with a bunch of friends and have kind of a mini Christmas with that isn't with presence or anything. It's just about huddling together as community and enjoying one another in the cozy safety of shelter. Yucca: That's great. I love it Mark: Sounds like you need it more than I do Yucca: Well for us though. It's we, it. We're almost at Second Winter. So it's our, it's two for me that time of year has already transitioned in to that, but I'm getting real ready for, for spring. At that point. Spring, you could be here already. That would be just great, but it is one of the only times of year. that's a very, also restful time for us. Mark: Yeah, we, we have a similar sort of situation that I haven't come up with a holiday for. Cause I don't think a holiday is really the solution in September. It's blazing hot, the fog cycle that works during the height of summer, that pulls coastal fog in over the land and cools down the temperatures by this point, the sun is now the, the axis has turned far enough away that the sun doesn't have enough power to drive that cycle very well anymore. And so we might get a fog blanket every three days or four days, but it doesn't happen daily as it used to. And so the days are just 105 hundred and 115 this past year. Yucca: Well into the forties. Mark: yeah. Yes. For those outside of the U S it's yes, hot, very hot. And so we need something, some kind of holiday that would allow us to sometime around the 10th of September. I think, you know, little, little while before before the harvest celebration, just something. The swimming holiday or a mass Exodus to the beach or something. I don't know. Yucca: Right. Digging burrows and hiding in them. Mark: Time for your annual replenishment of your sunglasses. Yeah. Yucca: So the idea is that you can just make one up. Mark: Yes. You can make it up. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, Wolfenoot. I haven't heard of wolfenoot it was made up by a seven year old and it's a time to celebrate wolves and dogs. All that I know about it is that you're supposed to have cake that's shaped like a moon, and you're supposed to give meat to your dogs as presence because that's what they like. And the motto is no hate only snoot boops. Yucca: And we don't have any dogs. So we bring treats to our neighbor dogs or our, you know, family members who do have dogs. So, and we were joking that cats needed a holiday too, but then realized that that's every day. Mark: a cat. It's a holiday domesticated cat. Yes. Is living the life of Riley. Yucca: So. But we also have others. One that we enjoy is your East night. So we'll celebrate Yuri's Night. And that is basically a celebration of all of the space technology and exploration and all of that innovation, Mark: To, to clarify that that is the anniversary of the first human entry into space. When Yuri Gagarin was launched into an orbit around the earth, Yucca: If you can be near any of the NASA centers on a non pandemic year. Then there's a lot of great parties to be at. Mark: Yeah. And they're similarly at observatories and air and space museums. There are often events that happened on Yuri's night. And I just think it's a great, very optimistic aspirational kind of go science go. Yucca: Yeah, just that celebration of curiosity and achievement and just how cool all that stuff is. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's April 12th. Mark: Yes. April 12th. Before that, the month before that is PI day, which is 3.14. So it's the 14th of March. It is also Einstein's birthday. So it is often observed by atheist particularly is kind of a special day. Another one of these, you know, yay science kind of celebrations. But as far as I'm concerned, it's just an excuse to eat pie, Yucca: eat pie, big pie. Maybe do some competitions on how many digits you have memorized. Mark: I think I have only got 10 or so, Yucca: where you're way ahead of me. I'm woefully few. Like I could make it to five maybe. I can write it symbol though. Okay. Very impressive. Right. Some folks do then the little bit later, May the Fourth. Mark: nerdy ones. Yeah. The star Wars holiday may the fourth be, would, would be with you. Yucca: And in those that same sort of delightfully nerdy veins later on in the year talk like a pirate day. Mark: Yes, 19, 19. Okay. September 19th, international talk like a pirate day and yes, we've observed it for many, many years. We, we think it's a really great thing. Yucca: I think we did on the show last year, Mark: too. We did, we recorded on September 19th and I talked a little bit like a pirate. Which is, you know, the only one, the reason that we think that pirates talk that way is because the actor who played a long John silver in a 1940s production of treasure Island had this broad West country accent from England. And he happened to talk that way. And now, now everybody thinks that pirates talk. That way. Our entire concept of pirates is not very historically accurate, Yucca: It is not, we have been as a parent struggling with how to handle that one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Mark: I mean, both in positives and negatives, I mean, you know, they were horrible and bloodthirsty and did terrible things. On the other hand, they had more of a direct form of representational democracy than representative democracy than pretty much anywhere else in the world at that time. So. I mean, there, there was something about Liberty in it. They were just rotten people. Yucca: Yeah. I'm just not so down with the raping and pillaging part, you know? And the issues with modern pirates Mark: modern piracy is horrific. Yucca: Yeah. So, yeah. But tangent let's come back to, so those are kind of some fun ones that are, that are all about. Are there any others? I mean, those are some of the ones that you might find on a calendar like your mother's day and grandparent's day and all of those. Mark: Well, and then there are culturally significant holidays, like Cinco de Mayo, for example Bastille Day You know, holidays that are, that are of meaning to people in other countries or other cultures that have been brought over here. And, and Yucca: we'll celebrate St Patrick's and St. David's day. We're not Catholic clearly, but those are days that are, that are kind of heritage appreciation days. So for our Irish and our Welsh respectively. Mark: The one that I'm always surprised didn't get translated over to the United States is guy Fawkes day. I always would have thought that we would have taken on guy Fawkes day because we were colonized by the English. But I guess not. Of course we were colonized by the English before the gunpowder plot. I don't know, it just seems odd to me, any excuse to blow things up seems to be really kind of American in nature. So, well, we did Yucca: We do that twice a year and that's true. Yeah. Well, and it also kind of depends on, so yes, the, the, the origins of the country, but it's really a big place and where I, where I live, we're in New Mexico. We don't think of that part of American history. I think that the kids probably have to take it once in middle school or something and learn about that, you know, Boston tea party and, you know, 13 original colonies and a few things like that, but it's not really, you know Not a big part of the cultural awareness here on the cultural identity. Our cultural identity is much more about Spain and Mexico and the Pueblos and, and all of that. Mark: Well, that completely makes sense. What doesn't make sense to me is that here in California, I had a real minimum of education about anything having to do with Mexico, even though this was all Mexico. Either about Mexico or the Spanish colonization of the Americas or or of course about California Indians. Who of course were here before, before anybody came colonizing. So yeah, hard to, hard to identify a rationale for that, but there it is. So, I guess the point of all this is holidays are good. They're a human thing that we all kind of need and do. And if you are finding yourself in need of one create it. Okay. You'll find in some cases that many others will have the same need and we'll jump right on it. Or it'll just be too adorable, like Wolfenoot, and nobody will be able to leave it alone. Yucca: Right. How can you, how can you not, that's just too cute. It Mark: really is. I mean, it's holiday invented by a seven year old about dogs and wolves. It's just Yucca: there. Their mom just shared it and it just, you know, it's one of those things that went viral. Mark: just took off. So we welcome comments or questions@thewonderpodcastqueuesatgmail.com. W do you, are there any special holidays, unique holidays that you celebrate? And what are your, what are your cultural practices for those where we'd be really interested to hear Yucca: And if any of you had more information on the tropical wheels or waves of the year, we'd love to be pointed in that direction as well. Mark: Very much so. Yeah. Yes. So thanks Yucca. This has been a great conversation. Yucca: It has. Thank you. And I look forward to very soon getting back together to talk about this holiday that's coming up. Mark: Yes. Yeah, well, in the meantime, have a good Slogg. Yucca: Ahh, likewise! All right. Thank you, Mark. Mark: Thank you. Bye-bye.  

Time passes by each day. We mark it in different ways. It’s important to look back and then forward to stay the course.

Tune in every morning for conversational truth bombs, major learnings and adoptable advice designed for small business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and knowledge junkies. To anyone who has questioned themselves in the past and are unsure about whether they have what it takes to grow their business, I want to put those fears to rest. You can do this! People who are excellent at business weren’t born with the skills to be excellent at business. They learned these skills at some point in time throughout their lives. Business success is not a question of ability. It is simply a matter of mastering certain specific skills that almost anyone can learn. Let's connect! Money Culture Podcast: https://anchor.fm/money-culture Masticating Books Podcast: https://anchor.fm/masticating-books Learn more about Mark: http://www.markfrentz.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frentzmark/ Mark’s Courses: https://markfrentz.com/products/ Rate, Review, Subscribe, and Share If you have questions about working with Mark or a burning podcast request email: inspiration@markfrentz.com

A reflection on Jesus curing the paralytic man from Mark 2.1-5:

Reflection on what Jesus' curing of the leper can tell us about reacting to decisive moments.   Featured image attribution; Les Hotels Paris Rive Gauche - AlainB - Flickr: Cartier-Bresson's first Leica

Podcast looking at the baptism and temptation of Jesus.

A new series of reflections on the Gospel of Mark. Today we are thinking of Mark 1.1-8 (The Proclamation of John the Baptist).  

No, I'm not interviewing myself! As it turns out, there are two Boudreau's in the world of audio named Matt (Me) and Matthew (my guest).  Matthew Boudreau is a field recordist, podcast producer, consultant and editor, and sound designer living in Buffalo, NY.  Matthew has been working in podcasting since 2008 and has over 20 years experience as an audio professional, working in computer multimedia, theatre sound, studio recording, film, and sound effects field recording. He is the founder of the 11th Hour Audio Challenge, an annual podcast event that challenges audio drama producers to collaborate in creating works of horror in the month of October. Matthew’s audio post-production company, Uberduo, sells immersive sound effect bundles dedicated to the exploration and reproduction of locations and props for film and audio fiction. His sound effect bundles can be found on http://www.asoundeffect.com and individual sound effects can be found at soundsnap.com. Matthew was the dialogue editor for the Audible productions, Locke and Key and X-Files: Cold Cases. He has spoken at CONvergence in Bloomington, Minnesota and SXSW in Austin Texas on topics including voice acting, sound design, and making the jump from film to podcast fiction. His audio fiction pieces 1918, Intensive Care and A Prophets Guide have won Mark Time and Ogle awards. In addition to the annual 11th Hour Challenge, his current podcast projects include sound design for The Once and Future Nerd and editing for The Activist Files for the Center for Constitutional Rights.  In this episode, we discuss: The Language of Audio Spiderman vs Draco The Dragon Joining the military Soul-Sucking Jobs Audio Drama Field Recording Podcasts Stealth Recording The Buffalo Border Patrol Links and Show Notes: Matthew's Company: https://www.uberduo.com/ Matthew's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-boudreau-a60a4b7/ Podcast Host: https://www.thepodcasthost.com/ Field Recording by Paul: Virostek: https://amzn.to/2WVMuCO Rick Viers Location Sound: https://amzn.to/3bA82J8 Rick Viers Sound Effects Bible: https://amzn.to/39uRCR1 Get work!: https://www.mandy.com/ Support WCA - Go Ad-Free! https://glow.fm/workingclassaudio/ Connect with Matt on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattboudreau/ Current sponsors & promos: https://bit.ly/2WmKbFw Working Class Audio Journal: https://amzn.to/2GN67TP Credits: Guest: Matthew Boudreau Host: Matt Boudreau  WCA Theme Music: Cliff Truesdell  Announcer: Chuck Smith Editing: Anne-Marie Pleau & Matt Boudreau Additional Music: The License Lab

Mark ‘Ski’ Struczewski (“Mister Productivity”) helps entrepreneurs & executives get the right stuff done in a distracted world. In addition to being a productivity expert, Mark is a speaker, host of The Mark Struczewski Podcast and an online trainer. His strategies have guided CEO’s/Executive Directors, business owners, business corporate specialists and entrepreneurs to get back control of their time.   Episode overview: This episode is for all those that are looking for productivity tips/hacks and secrets. I chat with Mark Stuczewski, MISTER PRODUCTIVITY – he’s obsessed to help the world become a more productive place – one person at a time. We chat about: How getting fired, was the best thing that happened to Mark Time to practice ‘Adulting’ The notification cleanse The power of ODAE – Outsource/Delegate/Automate and Eliminate Concept of the NOT TO List How complexity is the gateway to procrastination! And, I got challenged to take the 7-day productivity challenge. GAME ON! Hopefully, some of you will do it with me.   Connect with Mark:  Website: MisterProductivity.com  Podcast: The Mark Struczewski Podcast  The 7 Day Productivity Challenge Social media: LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Tune in every morning for conversational truth bombs, major learnings and adoptable advice designed for small business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and knowledge junkies. To anyone who has questioned themselves in the past and are unsure about whether they have what it takes to grow their business, I want to put those fears to rest. You can do this! People who are excellent at business weren’t born with the skills to be excellent at business. They learned these skills at some point in time throughout their lives. Business success is not a question of ability. It is simply a matter of mastering certain specific skills that almost anyone can learn. Let's connect! Money Culture Podcast: https://anchor.fm/money-culture Masticating Books Podcast: https://anchor.fm/masticating-books Learn more about Mark: http://www.markfrentz.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frentzmark/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkNFrentz/ Mark’s Courses: https://markfrentz.com/products/ Rate, Review, Subscribe, and Share If you have questions about working with Mark or a burning podcast request email: inspiration@markfrentz.com

Tune in every morning for conversational truth bombs, major learnings and adoptable advice designed for small business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and knowledge junkies. To anyone who has questioned themselves in the past and are unsure about whether they have what it takes to grow their business, I want to put those fears to rest. You can do this! People who are excellent at business weren’t born with the skills to be excellent at business. They learned these skills at some point in time throughout their lives. Business success is not a question of ability. It is simply a matter of mastering certain specific skills that almost anyone can learn. Let's connect! Money Culture Podcast: https://anchor.fm/money-culture Masticating Books Podcast: https://anchor.fm/masticating-books Learn more about Mark: http://www.markfrentz.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frentzmark/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkNFrentz/ Mark’s Courses: https://markfrentz.com/products/ Rate, Review, Subscribe, and Share If you have questions about working with Mark or a burning podcast request email: inspiration@markfrentz.com

Tune in every morning for conversational truth bombs, major learnings and adoptable advice designed for small business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and knowledge junkies. To anyone who has questioned themselves in the past and are unsure about whether they have what it takes to grow their business, I want to put those fears to rest. You can do this! People who are excellent at business weren’t born with the skills to be excellent at business. They learned these skills at some point in time throughout their lives. Business success is not a question of ability. It is simply a matter of mastering certain specific skills that almost anyone can learn. Let's connect! Money Culture Podcast: https://anchor.fm/money-culture Masticating Books Podcast: https://anchor.fm/masticating-books Learn more about Mark: http://www.markfrentz.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frentzmark/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkNFrentz/ Mark’s Courses: https://markfrentz.com/products/ Rate, Review, Subscribe, and Share If you have questions about working with Mark or a burning podcast request email: inspiration@markfrentz.com

Grain markets opened the week trading mostly sideways, as traders await release of important USDA numbers next week.  With government operations resuming, USDA will release several key reports on February 8th, included quarterly stocks and winter wheat plantings.   Sign up for daily emails or check out our website commoditycorner.net for the full report!

Video interview with artist Sarah Sze

While Giants Mark Time Pt 4/13 http://oldtimeradiodvd.com

Eek!  Gasp!  The final Mark Time Radio Show by Great Northern Audio Theater! Well, at least they go out with a bang.  David Ossman of the Firesign Theatre returns one last time to the live raucous stage to play Cyber Bob, in Cyber Bob and the Digital Nymph.  Bob leaves his position as cart-wrangler at […] The post Mark Time Radio Show – ‘Cyber Bob and the Digital Nymph' appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

Eek! Gasp! The final Mark Time Radio Show by Great Northern Audio Theater!Well, at least they go out with a bang. David Ossman of the Firesign Theatre returns one last time to the live raucous stage to play Cyber Bob, in Cyber Bob and the Digital Nymph. Bob leaves his position as cart-wrangler at the Mart to lead a digital expedition into the digital glade in search of the beautiful yet elusive Digital Nymph. There's a history between the two, and they are not playing...well, they are playing games...and when the Nymph asks, "Do you want to take the leap?" There's only one answer for an old campaigner like Cyber Bob.Live Sound Effects by Tony Brewer and Brian WestleyMusic by Eleanor PriceSound by Jerry Stearns and Kris MarkmanDirected by Brian PriceWritten by Brian Price and Jerry StearnsDownload Radio Drama Revival - Episode 408The post Episode 408 – A Tryst with the Digital Nymph appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present Mark Time Show Time, a Showcase series celebrating scripts originally written for live performance by Great Northern Audio, in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the Mark Time and Ogle Awards.   This Week: The Learning Curve or the Rise of Francis What does it take to jump-start an economy? Why, consumers! So what do politicians do to jump-start an economy? They create millions of new consumers by emancipating creatures and monsters, real and fictional. But is the public ready to accept creature-made entertainment features? They're politicians, what do they care? 

  Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present Mark Time Show Time, a Showcase series celebrating scripts originally written for live performance by Great Northern Audio, in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the Mark Time and Ogle Awards.   This Week: Dialogue With Martian Trombone   The Ramon Raquello Orchestra was supposed to get their big break that night in 1938, on Orson Welles' Mercury Theater show, but they kept getting cut off. The rest of that program became famous. Still is. But what happened to the band? We join them many years later, at a reunion of the band, and it seems that they can't seem to escape the influence of the Martians.  

  Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present Mark Time Show Time, a Showcase series celebrating scripts originally written for live performance by Great Northern Audio, in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the Mark Time and Ogle Awards.   This Week: Jewels of the 11th Generation   Treasure hunters board a 300-year-old generation starship - The Professor Irwin Corey - in search of legendary jewels. As usual, they find pirates, adventures, adorable children and plenty of squeaky toys.  

Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present Mark Time Show Time, a Showcase series celebrating scripts originally written for live performance by Great Northern Audio, in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the Mark Time and Ogle Awards. This Week:  The Saving of the World The rogue comet, Skippy, is headed right for Big City. The mayor is looking for a Super Hero to save the city. Most of them seem to be busy, or indisposed at the moment. Super Pal is discussed, but doesn't seem to be their first choice. We learn more about Big City’s Mightiest Champion in this superhero mockumentary.

Hey everybody! I received the official announcement today that Space Casey has won the GOLD Mark Time Award for Best Science Fiction Audio production of the year! How cool is that? In addition, I will be attending CONvergence in Minneapolis over the 4th of July Weekend, so if you’ll be there too, come up and say hi!

Following up with our interview with creator Josh Finney and actress Denise Poirier, we have this week the first half of Titanium Rain, the searing Audie-nominated, Mark Time-winning war story by the Audiocomics Company (created by Josh Finney and Kat Rocha). AudioComics and Finney are teaming up again as they seek to produce Utopiates (Support […] The post Episode 374 – Seeking Utopiates and Drinking Titanium Rain appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present Mark Time Show Time, a Showcase series celebrating scripts originally written for live performance by Great Northern Audio, in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the Mark Time and Ogle Awards. This Week: The Velveteen Submission The classic boy-meets-girl-meets-her Space Pirate father-meets... well, everyone else on an doomed Interstellar Lighthouse. Doomed? Yes, the lighthouse is about to be obliterated by an approaching space cruiser unless someone can do something. A hot bath is suggested.

Decoder Ring Theatre is proud to present Mark Time Show Time, a Showcase series celebrating scripts originally written for live performance by Great Northern Audio, in conjunction with the awards ceremony of the Mark Time and Ogle Awards. This Week: Peter Galaxy, Interstellar Envoy They used to be big stars on the radio, Peter Galaxy and his sidekick, Dr, Simon. Now they're just two retired actors playing cards on the front porch and riding herd over their grandchildren. But can these two old-timers find work for 300 billion illegal aliens?

Our first Mark Time award-winning episode! In a far-flung galaxy, a survivor of a space wreck has to come to terms with her rescuer's lifestyle. Music by Sulatus Cover art by Brett Coulstock

We wrap up our focus on the 2008 Mark Time Awards with the presentation of the Gold Mark Time winner, 19 Nocturne Boulevard's “The Outpost.” We talked to the series' diva, Julie Hoverson, back in December so we throw that interview in here for good taste. In “The Outpost,” a woman from a matriarchal space-roving […] The post Episode 131: Mark Time Winner “The Outpost” appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

In part 2 of our mega-episode celebrating CONvergence, we feature Great Northern‘s 2008 Mark Time Award live radio show, featuring the tales “Magic Notes,” “Broken Tree Bridge,” and “The Last Shuttle.” Much fun ensures. Enjoy. [audio:https://radiodramarevival.com/podcasts/rdr-podcast130b.mp3] Radio Drama Revival – Episode 130, Part 2 of 2 Want more Great Northern? Downloads available on: Audible Spoken […] The post Episode 130, Part 2 of 2 – Mark Time Award Radio Show from CONvergence 2008 appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

A mega-episode here today to celebrate the NATF workshop down in West Plains, Missouri, and then moving on to our focus on this year's Ogle and Mark Time winners. Lance Axt, man of many hats, introduces us to several personalities at NATF and gives us flavor of the workshop. We look into the #NATF feed […] The post Episode 128: NATF in the Field and “The Return of the Bogman Mummy” appeared first on Radio Drama Revival.

"Mark Time!" - Fools in Space show #10 - Firesign Theatre - Jul 27, 2002 - video clips from Firesign Theatre's XM radio show

"Mark Time!" - Fools in Space show #9 - Firesign Theatre - Jun 22, 2002 - video clips from Firesign Theatre's XM radio show

Mark Time! - Fools in Space show #1 - Firesign Theatre - Oct 27, 2001 - video clips from Firesign Theatre's XM radio show

Mark Time! (part B) - Fools in Space show #2 - Firesign Theatre - Nov 17, 2001 - video clips from Firesign Theatre's XM radio show

Mark Time! - Fools in Space show #5 - Firesign Theatre - Feb 23, 2002 - video clips from Firesign Theatre's XM radio show

Mark Time! (part A) - Fools in Space show #2 - Firesign Theatre - Nov 17, 2001 - video clips from Firesign Theatre's XM radio show

Episode 20- Aired 1/17/06 The Sonic Society This week our Society meeting looks at Texas Radio Theatre. Our good friend and Society member in good stead Richard Frolick has been writing and creating radio drama for many years now. One of his favourite productions is yet another famous Jack- and that being a hardnosed or rather hardcastled detective. Jack Hardcastle is a delightful romp in the style that Texas Radio Theatre has become best known for- loving tributes with a wink to the past and an eye to the future. Winners of the Ogle Awards and mentioned honourably by the Mark Time awards for their productions, Texas Radio Theatre produces live performances nearly as often as it works in the studio. Tireless, Mr. Frolick and his theatre players provide a wide variety of fantasy, comedy, drama and suspense in their lineup. After, we'll have an interview with myself and Andrew Dorfman from the Sonic Society to talk about how it all began, and where we see the Society going in the future.

Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama. Episode 4: While Giants Mark Time

Indie director, author, radio producer, and "Hitchcock Whisperer" Jeffrey Michael Bays talks about creating gripping moments for all genres of film. He produced the SiriusXM radio production 'Not From Space,' winner of the Mark Time and Communicator awards, and directed the suspense film 'Offing David.' Jeffrey is an adjuct instructor at Lights Film School, and travels the world teaching suspense techniques. He also co-hosts this podcast! GET REAL INDIE FILM[CAST] is hosted by filmmaker and author Jeffrey Michael Bays (www.borgus.com), and filmmaker Forris Day, Jr. Show Notes:1. Jeffrey's website: www.borgus.com 2. Hitch20: www.youtube.com/borgusfilm 3. Suspense With a Camera: https://www.amazon.com/Suspense-Camera-Filmmakers-Hitchcocks-Techniques/dp/1615932739 Tweet us @borgusfilm or email info@borgus.com Special Thanks to Jeffrey Michael Bays Hosts: Jeffrey Michael Bays & Forris Day, Jr. Hitch20 Theme music by Radoslav Zdravkovic Suspense With a Camera: https://www.amazon.com/Suspense-Camera-Filmmakers-Hitchcocks-Techniques/dp/1615932739 Follow us on Twitter @borgusfilm

Indie director, author, radio producer, and "Hitchcock Whisperer" Jeffrey Michael Bays talks about creating gripping moments for all genres of film. He produced the SiriusXM radio production 'Not From Space,' winner of the Mark Time and Communicator awards, and directed the suspense film 'Offing David.' Jeffrey is an adjunct instructor at Lights Film School, and travels the world teaching suspense techniques. He also co-hosts this podcast!GET REAL INDIE FILM[CAST] is hosted by filmmaker and author Jeffrey Michael Bays (www.borgus.com), and filmmaker Forris Day, Jr.Show Notes:Jeffrey's site: http://www.borgus.comSuspense With a Camera: Suspense With a Camera: https://www.amazon.com/Suspense-Camera-Filmmakers-Hitchcocks-Techniques/dp/1615932739Hitch20 series: bit.ly/2G1CFLqTweet us @borgusfilm or email info@borgus.comHosts: Jeffrey Michael Bays & Forris Day, Jr.Suspense With a Camera: https://www.amazon.com/Suspense-Camera-Filmmakers-Hitchcocks-Techniques/dp/1615932739Follow us on Twitter @borgusfilm