Podcasts about Walt Whitman

A reading and exploration of part five of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" by storyteller and poet Jay Leeming.   www.JayLeeming.com

For William Allen White, the ideal Midwestern community was a utopian vision of what America could be: a prosperous, happy community built on equality, opportunity, and neighborly generosity. This anthology collects White's famous and obscure writings and presents him as the iconic voice of the Midwestern small town. William Allen White, the editor of The Emporia Gazette in Kansas, was an American institution. When he died in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt commented that America had lost one of its “wisest and most beloved editors.” White understood the value of his unique brand as “the voice of Main Street,” and would often preach his vision of the kind of nation the United States ought to be. From his view in Emporia, White's imagined Midwestern town was a dream for the nation to strive toward. He saw himself as a pioneer sowing the seeds of a great harvest to come, and he believed that the small-town civilization he venerated exemplified what was best in America. In Heartland Utopia: William Allen White on the Ideal Midwestern Town (UP of Kansas, 2026), Charles Delgadillo and Jason Stacy have gathered nearly twenty-five years of White's fiction and nonfiction focused on his idealized Midwestern community and how this utopian vision changed over time. Charles Delgadillo is a lecturer in history at the California State University, Pomona, and the author of Crusader for Democracy: The Political Life of William Allen White, published by Kansas. Jason Stacy is Distinguished Research Professor of history and social science pedagogy at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. His books include Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town and Walt Whitman's Selected Journalism. You can hear another interview with him about his Spoon River America here on the New Books Network. Daniel Moran's writing about literature and film can be found on Pages and Frames. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O'Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing and co-hosts the long-running podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

For William Allen White, the ideal Midwestern community was a utopian vision of what America could be: a prosperous, happy community built on equality, opportunity, and neighborly generosity. This anthology collects White's famous and obscure writings and presents him as the iconic voice of the Midwestern small town. William Allen White, the editor of The Emporia Gazette in Kansas, was an American institution. When he died in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt commented that America had lost one of its “wisest and most beloved editors.” White understood the value of his unique brand as “the voice of Main Street,” and would often preach his vision of the kind of nation the United States ought to be. From his view in Emporia, White's imagined Midwestern town was a dream for the nation to strive toward. He saw himself as a pioneer sowing the seeds of a great harvest to come, and he believed that the small-town civilization he venerated exemplified what was best in America. In Heartland Utopia: William Allen White on the Ideal Midwestern Town (UP of Kansas, 2026), Charles Delgadillo and Jason Stacy have gathered nearly twenty-five years of White's fiction and nonfiction focused on his idealized Midwestern community and how this utopian vision changed over time. Charles Delgadillo is a lecturer in history at the California State University, Pomona, and the author of Crusader for Democracy: The Political Life of William Allen White, published by Kansas. Jason Stacy is Distinguished Research Professor of history and social science pedagogy at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. His books include Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town and Walt Whitman's Selected Journalism. You can hear another interview with him about his Spoon River America here on the New Books Network. Daniel Moran's writing about literature and film can be found on Pages and Frames. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O'Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing and co-hosts the long-running podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Ahead of her new book What's So Great About the Great Books? coming out in April, Naomi Kanakia and I talked about literature from Herodotus to Tony Tulathimutte. We touched on Chaucer, Anglo-Saxon poetry, Scott Alexander, Shakespeare, William James, Helen deWitt, Marx and Engels, Walter Scott, Les Miserables, Jhootha Sach, the Mahabharata, and more. Naomi also talked about some of her working habits and the history and future of the Great Books movement. Naomi, of course, writes Woman of Letters here on Substack.TranscriptHenry Oliver: Today, I am talking with Naomi Kanakia. Naomi is a novelist, a literary critic, and most importantly she writes a Substack called Woman of Letters, and she has a new book coming out, What's So Great About the Great Books? Naomi, welcome.Naomi Kanakia: Thanks for having me on.Oliver: How is the internet changing the way that literature gets discussed and criticized, and what is that going to mean for the future of the Great Books?Kanakia: How is the internet changing it? I can really speak to only how it has changed it for me. I started off as a writer of young adult novels and science fiction, and there's these very active online fan cultures for those two things.I was reading the Great Books all through that time. I started in 2010 through today. In the 2010s, it really felt like there was not a lot of online discussion of classic literature. Maybe that was just me and I wasn't finding it, but it didn't necessarily feel like there was that community.I think because there are so many strong, public-facing institutions that discuss classic literature, like the NYRB, London Review of Books, a lot of journals, and universities, too. But now on Substack, there are a number of blogs—yours, mine, a number of other ones—that are devoted to classic literature. All of those have these commenters, a community of commenters. I also follow bloggers who have relatively small followings who are reading Tolstoy, reading Middlemarch, reading even much more esoteric things.I know that for me, becoming involved in this online culture has given me much more of an awareness that there are many people who are reading the classics on their own. I think that was always true, but now it does feel like it's more of a community.Oliver: We are recording this the day after the Washington Post book section has been removed. You don't see some sort of relationship between the way these literary institutions are changing online and the way the Great Books are going to be conceived of in the future? Because the Great Books came out of a an old-fashioned, saving-the-institutions kind of radical approach to university education. We're now moving into a world where all those old things seem to be going.Kanakia: Yes. I agree. The Great Books began in the University of Chicago and Columbia University. If you look into the history of the movement, it really was about university education and the idea that you would have a common core and all undergraduates would read these books. The idea that the Great Books were for the ordinary person was really an afterthought, at least for Mortimer Adler and those original Great Books guys. Now, the Great Books in the university have had a resurgence that we can discuss, but I do think there's a lot more life and vitality in the kind of public-facing humanities than there has been.I talked to Irina Dumitrescu, who writes for TLS (The Times Literary Supplement), LRB (The London Review of Books), a lot of these places, and she also said the same thing—that a lot of these journals are going into podcasts, and they're noticing a huge interest in the humanities and in the classics even at the same time as big institutions are really scaling back on those things. Humanities majors are dropping, classics majors are getting cut, book coverage at major periodicals is going down. It does seem like there are signals that are conflicting. I don't really know totally what to make of it. I do think there is some relation between those two things.Ted Gioia on Substack is always talking about how culture is stagnant, basically, and one of the symptoms of that is that “back list” really outsells “front list” for books. Even in 2010, 50 percent of the books that were sold were front-list titles, books that had been released in the last 18 months. Now it's something like only 35 percent of books or something like that are front-list titles. These could be completely wrong, but there's been a trend.I think the decrease in interest in front-list books is really what drives the loss of these book-review pages because they mostly review front-list books. So, I think that does imply that there's a lot of interest in old books. That's what our stagnant culture means.Oliver: Why do you think your own blog is popular with the rationalists?Kanakia: I don't know for certain. There was a story I wrote that was a joke. There are all these pop nonfiction books that aim to prove something that seems counterintuitive, so I wrote a parody of one of those where I aim to prove that reading is bad for you. This book has many scientific studies that show the more you read, the worse it is because it makes you very rigid.Scott Alexander, who is the archrationalist, really liked that, and he added me to his blog roll. Because of that, I got a thousand rationalist subscribers. I have found that rationalists at least somewhat interested in the classics. I think they are definitely interested in enduring sources of value. I've observed a fair amount of interest.Oliver: How much of a lay reader are you really? Because you read scholarship and critics and you can just quote John Gilroy in the middle of a piece or something.Kanakia: Yeah. That is a good question. I have definitely gotten more interested in secondary literature. In my book, I really talk about being a lay reader and personally having a nonacademic approach to literature. I do think that, over 15 years of being a lay reader, I have developed a lot of knowledge.I've also learned the kind of secondary literature that is really important. I think having historical context adds a lot and is invaluable. Right now I'm rereading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. When I first read it in 2010, I hardly knew anything about French history. I was even talking online with someone about how most people who read Les Miserables think it's set in the French Revolution. That's basically because Americans don't really know anything about French history.Everything makes just a lot more sense the more you know about the time because it was written for people in it. For people in 1860s France, who knew everything about their own recent history, that really adds a lot to it. I still don't tend to go that much into interpretive literature, literature that tries to do readings of the stories or tell me the meaning of the stories. I feel like I haven't really gotten that much out of that.Oliver: How long have you been learning Anglo-Saxon?Kanakia: I went through a big Anglo-Saxon phase. That was in 2010. It started because I started reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. There is a great app online called General Prologue created by one of your countrymen, Terry Richardson [NB it is Terry Jones], who loved Middle English. In this app, he recites the Middle English of the General Prologue. I started listening to this app, and I thought, I just really love the rhythms and the sounds of Middle English. And it's quite easy to learn. So then, I got really into that.And then I thought, but what about Anglo-Saxon? I'm very bad at languages. I studied Latin for seven years in middle school and high school. I never really got very far, but I thought, Anglo-Saxon has to be the easiest foreign language you can learn, right? So, I got into it.I cannot sight read Anglo-Saxon, but I really got into Anglo-Saxon poetry. I really liked the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Most people probably would not like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle because it's very repetitive, but that makes it great if you're a language learner because every entry is in this very repetitive structure. I just felt such a connection. I get in trouble when I say this kind of stuff, because I'm never quiet sure if it's 100 percent true. But it's certainly one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Europe. It's just so much older than most of the other medieval literature I've read. And it just was such a window into a different part of history I never knew about.Oliver: And you particularly like “The Dream of the Rood”?Kanakia: Yeah, “The Dream of the Rood” is my favorite Anglo-Saxon poem. “The Dream of the Rood” is a poem that is told from the point of view of Christ's cross. A man is having a dream. In this dream he encounters Christ's cross, and Christ's cross starts reciting to him basically the story of the crucifixion. At the end, the cross is buried. I don't know, it was just so haunting and powerful. Yeah, it was one of my favorites.Oliver: Why do you think Byron is a better poet than Alexander Pope?Kanakia: This is an argument I cannot get into. I think this is coming up because T. S. Eliot felt that Alexander Pope was a great poet because he really exemplified the spirit of the age. I don't know. I've tried to read Pope. It just doesn't do it for me. Whereas with Byron, I read Don Juan and found it entertaining. I enjoyed it. Then, his lyric poetry is just more entertaining to read. With Alexander Pope, I'm learning a lot about what kind of poetry people wrote in the 18th century, but the joy is not there.Oliver: Okay. Can we do a quick fire round where I say the name of a book and you just say what you think of it, whatever you think of it?Kanakia: Sure.Oliver: Okay. The Odyssey.Kanakia: The Odyssey. Oh, I love The Odyssey. It has a very strange structure, where it starts with Telemachus and then there's this flashback in the middle of it. It is much more readable than The Iliad; I'll say that.Oliver: Herodotus.Kanakia: Herodotus is wild. Going into Herodotus, I really thought it was about the Persian war, which it is, but it's mostly a general overview of everything that Herodotus knew, about anything. It's been a long time since I read it. I really appreciate the voice of Herodotus, how human it is, and the accumulation of facts. It was great.Oliver: I love the first half actually. The bit about the Persian war I'm less interested in, but the first half I think is fantastic. I particularly love the Egypt book.Kanakia: Oh yeah, the Egypt book is really good.Oliver: All those like giant beetles that are made of fire or whatever; I can't remember the details, but it's completely…Kanakia: The Greeks are also so fascinated by Egypt. They go down there like what is going on out there? Then, most of what we know about Egypt comes from this Hellenistic period, when the Greeks went to Egypt. Our Egyptian kings list comes from the Hellenistic period where some scholar decided to sort out what everybody was up to and put it all into order. That's why we have such an orderly story about Egypt. That's the story that the Greeks tried to tell themselves.Oliver: Marcus Aurelius.Kanakia: Marcus Aurelius. When I first read The Meditations, which I loved, obviously, I thought, “being the Roman emperor cannot be this hard.” It really was a black pill moment because I thought, “if the emperor of Rome is so unhappy, maybe human power really doesn't do it.”Knowing more about Marcus Aurelius, he did have quite a difficult life. He was at war for most of his—just stuck in the region in Germany for ages. He had various troubles, but yeah, it really was very stoic. It was, oh, I just have to do my duty. Very “heavy is the head that wears the crown” kind of stuff. I thought, “okay, I guess being Roman emperor is not so great.”Oliver: Omar Khayyam.Kanakia: Omar Khayyam. Okay, I've only read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald, which I loved, but I cannot formulate a strong opinion right now.Oliver: As You Like It.Kanakia: No opinions.Oliver: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.Kanakia: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. I do have an opinion about this, which is that they should make a redacted version of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. I normally am not a big believer in abridgements because I feel like whatever is there is there. But, Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, first of all, has a long portion before Boswell even meets Johnson. That portion drags; it's not that great. Then it has all these like letters that Johnson wrote, which also are not that great. What's really good is when Boswell just reports everything Johnson ever said, which is about half the book. You get a sense of Johnson's conversation and his personality, and that is very gripping. I've definitely thought that with a different presentation, this could still be popular. People would still read this.Oliver: The Communist Manifesto.Kanakia: The Communist Manifesto. It's very stirring. I love The Communist Manifesto. It has very haunting, powerful lines. I won't try to quote from it because I'll misquote them.Oliver: But it is remarkably well written.Kanakia: Oh yeah, it is a great work of literature.Oliver: Yeah.Kanakia: I read Capital [Das Kapital], which is not a great work of literature, and I would venture to say that it is not necessarily worth reading. It really feels like Marx's reputation is built on other political writings like The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and works like that, which really seem to have a lot more meat on the bone than Capital.Oliver: Pragmatism by William James.Kanakia: Pragmatism. I mean, I've mentioned that in my book. I love William James in general. I think William James was writing in this 19th-century environment where it seemed like some form of skepticism was the only rational solution. You couldn't have any source of value, and he really tried to cut through that with Pragmatism and was like, let's just believe the things that are good to believe. It is definitely at least useful to think, although someone else can always argue with you about what is useful to believe. But, as a personal guide for belief, I think it is still useful.Oliver: Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw.Kanakia: No strong opinions. It was a long time ago that I read Major Barbara.Oliver: Tell me what you like about James Fenimore Cooper.Kanakia: James Fenimore Cooper. Oh, this is great. I have basically a list of Great Books that I want to read, but four or five years ago, I thought, “what's in all the other books that I know the names of but that are not reputed, are not the kind of books you still read?”That was when I read Walter Scott, who I really love. And I just started reading all kinds of books that were kind of well known but have kind of fallen into literary disfavor. In almost every case, I felt like I got a lot out of these books. So, nowadays when I approach any realm of literature, I always look for those books.In 19th-century American literature, the biggest no-longer-read book is The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, which was America's first bestseller. He was the first American novelist that had a high reputation in Europe. The Last of the Mohicans is kind of a historical romance, à la Walter Scott, but much more tightly written and much more tightly plotted.Cooper has written five novels, the Leatherstocking Tales, that are all centered around this very virtuous, rough-hewn frontiersman, Natty Bumppo. He has his best friend, Chingachgook, who is the last of the Mohicans. He's the last of his tribe. And the two of these guys are basically very sad and stoic. Chingachgook is distanced from his tribe. Chingachgook has a tribe of Native Americans that he hates—I want to say it's the Huron. He's always like, “they're the bad ones,” and he's always fighting them. Then, Natty Bumppo doesn't really love settled civilization. He's not precisely at war with it, but he does not like the settlers. They're kind of stuck in the middle. They have various adventures, and I just thought it was so haunting and powerful.I've been reading a lot of other 19th-century American literature, and virtually none of it treats Native Americans with this kind of respect. There's a lot of diversity in the Native American characters; there's really an attempt to show how their society works and the various ways that leadership and chiefship works among them. There's this very haunting moment in The Last of the Mohicans, where this aged chief, Tamenund, comes out and starts speaking. This is a chief who, in American mythology, was famous for being a friend to the white people. But, James Fenimore Cooper writing in the 1820s has Tamenund come out at 80 years old and say, “we have to fight; we have to fight the white people. That's our only option.” It was just such a powerful moment and such a powerful book.I was really, really enthused. I read all of these Leatherstocking Tales. It was also a very strange experience to read these books that are generally supposed to be very turgid and boring, and then I read them and was like, “I understand. I'm so transported.” I understand exactly why readers in the 1820s loved this.Oliver: Which Walter Scott books do you like?Kanakia: I love all the Walter Scott books I've read, but the one I liked best was Kenilworth. Have you ever read Kenilworth?Oliver: I don't know that one.Kanakia: Yeah, it's about Elizabeth I, who had a romantic relationship with one of her courtiers.Oliver: The Earl of Essex?Kanakia: Yeah. She really thought they were going to get married, but then it turned out he was secretly married. Basically, I guess the implication is that he killed his wife in order to marry Queen Elizabeth I. It's a novel all about him and that situation, and it just felt very tightly plotted. I really enjoyed it.Oliver: What did you think of Rejection?Kanakia: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte? Initially when I read this book, I enjoyed it, but I was like, “life cannot possibly be this sad.” It's five or six stories about these people who just have nothing going on. Their lives are so miserable, they can't find anyone to sleep with, and they're just doomed to be alone forever. I was like, “life can't be this bad.” But now thinking back over it, it is one of the most memorable books I've read in the last year. It really sticks with you. I feel like my opinion of this book has gone up a lot in retrospect.Oliver: How antisemitic is the House of Mirth?Kanakia: That is a hotly debated question, which I mentioned in my book. I think there has been a good case made that Edith Wharton, the author of House of Mirth, who was from an old New York family, was herself fairly antisemitic and did not personally like Jewish people. What she portrays in this book is that this old New York society also was highly suspicious of Jewish people and was organized to keep Jewish people out.In this book there is a rich Jewish man, Simon Rosedale, and there's a poor woman, Lily Bart. Lily Bart's main thing is whether she's going to marry the poor guy, Lawrence Selden, or the rich guy, Percy Gryce. She can't choose. She doesn't want to be poor, but she also is always bored by the rich guys. Meanwhile, through the whole book, there's Simon Rosedale, who's always like, “you should marry me.” He's the rich Jewish guy. He's like, “you should marry me. I will give you lots of money. You can do whatever you want.”Everybody else kind of just sees her as a woman and as a wife; he really sees her as an ally in his social climbing. That's his main motivation. The book is relatively clear that he has a kind of respect for her that nobody else does. Then, over the course of the book, she also gains a lot more respect for him. Basically, late in the book, she decides to marry him, but she has fallen a lot in the world. He's like, “that particular deal is not available anymore,” but he does offer her another deal that—although she finds it not to her taste—is still pretty good.He basically is like, “I'll give you some money, you'll figure out how to rehabilitate your reputation, and later down the line, we can figure something out.” So, I think with a great author like Edith Wharton, there's power in these portrayals. I felt it hard to come away from it feeling like the book is like a really antisemitic book.Oliver: Now, you note that the Great Books movement started out as something quite socially aspirational. Do you think it's still like that?Kanakia: I do think so. Yeah. For me, that's 100 percent what it was because I majored in econ. I always felt kind of inadequate as a writer against people who had majored in English. Then I started off as a science fiction writer, young adult writer, and I was like, “I'm going to read all these Great Books and then I'll have read the books that everybody else has read.” In my mind, that's also what it was—that there was some upper crust or literary society that was reading all these Great Books.That's really what did it. I do think there's still an element of aspiration to it because it's a club that you can join, that anyone can join. It's very straightforward to be a Great Books reader, and so I think there's still something there. I think because the Great Books movement has such a democratic quality to it, it actually doesn't get you to the top socially, which has always been the true, always been the case. But, that's okay. As long as you end up higher than where you started, that's fine.Oliver: What makes a book great?Kanakia: I talk about it this in the book, and I go through many different authors' conceptions of what makes a book great or what constitutes a classic. I don't know that anyone has come up with a really satisfying answer. The Horatian formulation from Horace—that a book is great or an author is great if it has lasted for a hundred years—is the one that seems to be the most accurate. Like, any book that's still being read a hundred years after it was written has a greatness.I do think that T. S. Eliott's formulation—that a civilization at its height produces certain literature and that literature partakes of the greatness of the civilization and summarizes the greatness of the civilization—does seem to have some kind of truth to it.But it's hard, right? Because the greatest French novel is In Search of Lost Time, but I don't know that anyone would say that the France in the 1920s was at its height. It's not a prescriptive thing, but it does seem like the way we read many of these Great Books, like Moby Dick, it feels like you're like communing with the entire society that produced it. So, maybe there's something there.Oliver: Now, you've used a list from Clifton Fadiman.Kanakia: Yes.Oliver: Rather than from Mortimer Adler or Harold Bloom or several others. Why this list?Kanakia: Well, the best reason is that it's actually the list I've just been using for the last 15 years. I went to a science fiction convention in 2009, Readercon, and at this science fiction convention was Michael Dirda, who was a Washington Post book critic. He had recently come out with his book, Classics for Pleasure, which I also bought and liked. But he said that the list he had always used was this Clifton Fadiman book. And so when I decided to start reading the Great Books, I went and got that book. I have perused many other lists over time, but that was always the list that seemed best to me.It seemed to have like the best mix. There's considerable variation amongst these lists, but there's also a lot of overlap. So any of these lists is going to have Dickens on it, and Tolstoy, and stuff like that. So really, you're just thinking about, “aside from Dickens and Tolstoy and George Eliot and Walt Whitman and all these people, who are the other 50 authors that you're going be reading?”The Mortimer Adler list is very heavy on philosophy. It has Plotinus on it. It has all these scientific works. I don't know, it didn't speak to me as much. Whereas, this Clifton Fadiman and John Major list has all these Eastern works on it. It has The Tale of Genji, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Story of the Stone, and that just spoke to me a little bit more.Oliver: What modern books will be on a future Great Books list, whether it's from someone alive or someone since the war.Kanakia: Have you ever heard of Robert Caro?Oliver: Sure.Kanakia: Yeah. I think his Lyndon Johnson books are great books. They have changed the field of biography. They're so complete, they seem to summarize an entire era, epoch. They're highly rated, but I feel like they're underrated as literature.What else? I was actually a little bit surprised in this Clifton Fadiman-John Major book, which came out in 1999, that there are not more African Americans in their list. Like, Invisible Man definitely seemed like a huge missed work. You know, it's hard. You would definitely want a book that has undergone enough critical evaluation that people are pretty certain that it is great. A lot of things that are more recent have not undergone that evaluation yet, but Invisible Man has, as have some works by Martin Luther King.Oliver: What about The Autobiography of Malcolm X?Kanakia: I would have to reread. I feel like it hasn't been evaluated much as a literary document.Oliver: Helen DeWitt?Kanakia: It's hard to say. It's so idiosyncratic, The Last Samurai, but it is certainly one of the best novels of the last 25 years.Oliver: Yeah.Kanakia: It is hard to say, because there's nothing else quite like it. But I would love if The Last Samurai was on a list like this; that would be amazing.Oliver: If someone wants to try the Great Books, but they think that those sort of classic 19th-century novels are too difficult—because they're long and the sentences are weird or whatever—what else should they do? Where else should they start?Kanakia: Well, it depends on what they're into, or it depends on their personality type. I think like there are people who like very, very difficult literature. There are people who are very into James Joyce and Proust. I think for some people the cost-benefit is better. If they're going to be pouring over some book for a long time, they would prefer if it was overtly difficult.If they're not like that, then I would say, there are many Great Books that are more accessible. Hemingway is a good one and Grapes of Wrath is wonderful. The 19th-century American books tend to be written in a very different register than the English books. If you read Moby Dick, it feels like it's written in a completely different language than Charles Dickens, even though they're writing essentially at the same time.Oliver: Is there too much Freud on the list that you've used?Kanakia: Maybe. I know that Interpretation of Dreams is on that list, which I've tried to read and have decided life is too short. I didn't really buy it, but I have read a fair amount of Freud. My impression of Freud was always that I would read Freud and somehow it would just seem completely fanciful or far out, like wouldn't ring true. But then when I started reading Freud, it was more the opposite. I was like, oh yeah, this seems very, very true.Like this battle between like the id and the ego and the super ego, and this feeling that like the psyche is at war with itself. Human beings really desire to be singular and exceptional, but then you're constantly under assault by the reality principle, which is that you're insignificant. That all seemed completely true. But then he tries to cure this somehow, which does not seem a curable problem. And he also situates the problem in some early sexual development, which also did not necessarily ring true. But no, I wouldn't say there's too much. Freud is a lot of fun. People should read Freud.Oliver: Which of the Great Books have you really not liked?Kanakia: I do get asked this quite a bit. I would say the Great Book that I really felt like—at least in translation—was not that rewarding in an unabridged version was Don Quixote. Because at least half the length of Don Quixote is these like interpolated novellas that are really long and tedious. I felt Don Quixote was a big slog. But maybe someday I'll go back and reread it and love it. Who knows?Oliver: Now you wrote that the question of biography is totally divorced from the question of what art is and how it operates. What do you think of George Orwell's supposition that if Shakespeare came back tomorrow, and we found out he used to rape children that we should—we would not say, you know, it's fine to carry on to doing that because he might write another King Lear.Kanakia: Well, if we discovered that Shakespeare was raping children, he should go to prison for that. No. It's totally divorced in both senses. You don't get any credit in the court of law because you are the writer of King Lear. If I murdered someone and then I was hauled in front of a judge and they were like, oh, Naomi's a genius, I wouldn't get off for murder. Nor should I get off for murder.So in terms of like whether we would punish Shakespeare for his crime of raping children, I don't think King Lear should count at all, but it's never used that way. It's never should someone go to prison or not for their crimes, because they're a genius. It's always used the other way, which is should we read King Lear knowing that the author raped children, but I also feel like that is immaterial. If you read King Lear, you're not enabling someone to rape children.Oliver: There's an almost endless amount of discussion these days about the Great Books and education and the value of the humanities, and what's the future of it all. What is your short opinion on that?Kanakia: My short opinion is that the Great Books at least are going to be fine. The Great Books will continue to be read, and they would even survive the university. All these books predate the university and they will survive the university. I feel like the university has stewarded literature in its own way for a while now and has made certain choices in that stewardship. I think if that stewardship was given up to more voluntary associations that had less financial support, then I think the choices would probably be very different. But I still think the greatest works would survive.Oliver: Now this is a quote from the book: “I am glad that reactionaries love the Great Books. They've invited a Trojan horse into their own camp.” Tell us what you mean by that.Kanakia: Let's say you believed in Christian theocracy, that you thought America should be organized on explicitly Christian principles. And because you believe in Christian theocracy, you organize a school that teaches the Great Books. Many of these schools that are Christian schools that have Great Books programs will also teach Nietzsche. They definitely put some kind of spin on Nietzsche. But they will teach anti-Christ, and that is a counterpoint to Christian morality and Christian theology. There are many things that you'll read in the Great Books that are corrosive to various kinds of certainties.If someone who I think is bad starts educating themselves in the Great Books, I don't think that the Great Books are going to make them worse from my perspective. So it's good.Oliver: How did reading the Mahabharata change you?Kanakia: Oh yeah, so the Mahabharata is a Hindu epic from, let's say, the first century AD. I'm Indian and most Indians are familiar with the basic outline of the Mahabharata story because it's told in various retellings, and there's a TV serial that my parents would rent from the Indian store growing up and we would watch it tape by tape. So I'm very familiar with it. Like there's never been a time I have not known this story.But I was also familiar with the idea that there is a written version in Sanskrit that's extremely long. It is 10 times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. This Mahabharata story is not that long. I've read a version of it that's about 800 pages long. So how could something that's 10 times this long be the same? A new unabridged translation came out 10 years ago. So I started reading it, and it basically contains the entire Sanskrit Vedic worldview in it.I had never been exposed to this very coherently laid-out version of what I would call Hindu cosmology and ethics. Hindus don't really get taught those things in a very organized way. The book is basically about dharma, the principle of rightness and how this principle of rightness orders the universe and how it basically results in everybody getting their just deserts in various ways. As I was reading the book, I was like, this seems very true that there is some cosmic rebalancing here, and that everything does turn out more or less the way it should, which is not something that I can defend on a rational level.But just reading the book, it just made me feel like, yes, that is true. There is justice, the universe is organized by justice. It took me about a year to read the whole thing. I started waking up at 5:00 a.m. and reading for an hour each morning, and it just was a really magical, profound experience that brought me a lot closer to my grandmother's religious beliefs.Oliver: Is it ever possible to persuade someone with arguments that they should read literature, or is it just something that they have to have an inclination toward and then follow someone's example? Because I feel like we have so many columns and op-eds and “books are good because of X reason, and it's very important because of Y reason.” And like, who cares? No one cares. If you are persuaded, you take all that very seriously and you argue about what exactly are the precise reasons we should say. And if you're not persuaded, you don't even know this is happening.And what really persuades you is like, oh, Naomi sounds pretty compelling about the Mahabharata. That sounds cool. I'll try that. It's much more of a temperamental, feelingsy kind of thing. Is it possible to argue people into thinking about this differently? Or should we just be doing what we do and setting an example and hoping that people will follow.Kanakia: As to whether it's possible or not, I do not know. But I do think these columns are too ambitious. A thousand-word column and the imagined audience for this column is somebody who doesn't read books at all, who doesn't care about literature at all. And then in a thousand-word column, you're going to persuade them to care about literature. This is no good. It's so unnecessary.Whereas there's a much broader range of people who love to read books, but have never picked up Moby Dick or have never picked up Middlemarch, or who like maybe loved Middlemarch, but never thought maybe I should then go on and read Jane Austen and George Eliot.I think trying to shift people from “I don't read books at all; reading books is not something I do,” to being a Great Books card-carrying lover of literature is a lot. I really aim for a much lower result than that, which is to whatever extent people are interested in literature, they should pursue that interest. And as the rationalists would say, there's a lot of alpha in that; there's a lot to be gained from converting people who are somewhat interested into people who are very interested.Oliver: If there was a more widespread practice of humanism in education and the general culture, would that make America into a more liberal country in any way?Kanakia: What do you mean by humanism?Oliver: You know, the old-fashioned liberal arts approach, the revival of the literary journal culture, the sort of depolitical approach to literature, the way things used to be, as it were.Kanakia: It couldn't hurt. It couldn't hurt is my answer to that question.Oliver: Okay.Kanakia: What you're describing is basically the way I was educated. I went to Catholic school in DC at St. Anselm's Abbey School, in Northeast, DC, grade school. Highly recommend sending your little boys there. No complaints about the school. They talked about humanism all the time and all these civic virtues. I thought it was great. I don't know what people in other schools learn, but I really feel like it was a superior way of teaching.Now, you know, it was Catholic school, so a lot of people who graduated from my school are conservatives and don't really have the beliefs that I have, but that's okay.Oliver: Tell us about your reading habits.Kanakia: I read mostly ebooks. I really love ebooks because you can make the type bigger. I just read all the time. They vary. I don't wake up at 5:00 a.m. to read anymore. Sometimes if I feel like I'm not reading enough—because I write this blog, and the blog doesn't get written unless I'm reading. That's the engine, and so sometimes I set aside a day each week to read. But generally, the reading mostly takes care of itself.What I tend to get is very into a particular thing, and then I'll start reading more and more in that area. Recently, I was reading a lot of New Yorker stories. So I started reading more and more of these storywriters that have been published in the New Yorker and old anthologies of New Yorker stories. And then eventually I am done. I'm tired. It's time to move on.Oliver: But do you read several books at once? Do you make notes? Do you abandon books? How many hours a day do you read?Kanakia: Hours a day: Because my e-reader keeps these stats, I'd say 15 or 20 hours a week of reading. Nowadays because I write for the blog, I often think as I'm reading how I would frame a post about this. So I look for quotes, like what quote I would look at. I take different kinds of notes. I'll make more notes if I'm more confused by what is going on. Especially with nonfiction books, I'll try sometimes to make notes just to iron out what exactly I think is happening or what I think the argument is. But no, not much of a note taker.Oliver: What will you read next?Kanakia: What will I read next? Well, I've been thinking about getting back into Indian literature. Right now I'm reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. But there's an Indian novel called Jhootha Sach, which is a partition novel that is originally in Hindi. And it's also a thousand pages long, and is frequently compared to Les Miserables and War and Peace. So I'm thinking about tackling that finally.Oliver: Naomi Kanakia, thank you very much.Kanakia: Thanks for having me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

Send a textIt's a bittersweet day at The Wall Street Skinny, where we are recapping the SEASON FINALE!! While this one is lighter on finance than most episodes this season, we still dig into the mechanics of closing out a massive short position without spooking the tape. We also break down how hedge fund fees actually work — the industry-standard "two and twenty" structure where managers earn a 2% management fee on assets under management plus 20% of profits — and use that framework to reverse-engineer what this three-person fund operating out of a hotel room should have actually earned versus what got paid out. The numbers don't quite add up, and we have thoughts.This finale also takes a hard pivot into politics, power brokering, and some very dark territory for one of our favorite characters. We trace every reference and detail — from Walt Whitman to the Talented Mr. Ripley, George Orwell to Henry VIII — and debate what the show is setting up for its next chapter. Character arcs that have been building all season reach their breaking points, alliances shatter in stunning ways, and the episode forces us to ask whether people are truly capable of change or destined to become the very thing they fought against.We share our honest reactions to what worked and what left us frustrated, revisit our season-long theories one final time, and give our last bullish and bearish calls of the season. Thank you to every single listener who joined us on this ride — your feedback, theories, and insights made this our favorite recording day of the week. See you next season.For a 14 day FREE Trial of Macabacus, click HERE Visit https://iconnections.io/ to learn more about iConnections!Shop our Self Paced Courses: Investment Banking & Private Equity Fundamentals HEREFixed Income Sales & Trading HERE Wealthfront.com/wss. This is a paid endorsement for Wealthfront. May not reflect others' experiences. Similar outcomes not guaranteed. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. Rate subject to change. Promo terms apply. If eligible for the boosted rate of 4.15% offered in connection with this promo, the boosted rate is also subject to change if base rate decreases during the 3 month promo period.The Cash Account, which is not a deposit account, is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC ("Wealthfront Brokerage"), Member FINRA/SIPC. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. The Annual Percentage Yield ("APY") on cash deposits as of 11/7/25, is representative, requires no minimum, and may change at any time. The APY reflects the weighted average of deposit balances at participating Program Banks, which are not allocated equally. Wealthfront Brokerage sweeps cash balances to Program Banks, where they earn the variable APY. Sources HERE.

Rev. Christopher Zacharias is a powerful example of what it means, as Walt Whitman described, to contain multitudes. It starts with his religious calling and belief in engaging across faith traditions to advance equity and justice in communities where they have been denied. He uses his voice to call out policy decisions and corporate practices that harm communities of color and identifies the action steps needed to produce solutions. Rev. Zacharias is grounded in his position as Senior Pastor of the John Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church in Washington DC, an historic pillar of America's civil rights movement. On this episode of Power Station I speak with Rev. Zacharias about his interconnected roles as Executive Director of Interfaith Action for Human Rights, whose legislative campaigns are designed to stop the overuse of solitary confinement in prisons within DC, Maryland and Virginia and his leadership of Boycott Target DC, a coalition organized in response to Target's rejection of its DEI programs and $2.5B commitment to Black businesses after the 2025 election of Donald Trump. Momentum is building for each, and corporate and public leaders are paying attention. Rev. Zacharias invites us all to exercise our passion and purpose.

We lost a great one, kids! RIP Robert Duvall, Swalwell once considered himself the next Walt Whitman & More See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Note: Due to technical difficulties, Rhina wasn't able to join us. Instead, Timothy Green and Katie Dozier talked about her work and read poems with her friends Alfred Nichol and Pedro Poitevin. Rhina P. Espaillat is a bilingual poet, essayist, short story writer, translator, and former English teacher in New York City's public high schools. Her newest book is For Instance, just out from Wiseblood Books. She has previous published twelve books, five chapbooks, and a monograph on translation. Her most recent works include the poetry collections: And After All, The Field, and Brief Accident of Light: A Day in Newburyport, co-authored with Alfred Nicol. Her numerous translations include work by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, San Juan de la Cruz, Garcia Lorca, Miguel Hernandez, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur, and many contemporary poets of the Americas and the Hispanic diaspora, among others. Find For Instance here: https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p173/For_Instance%3A_Poems_by_Rhina_P._Espaillat.html As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem that explores how one of the cognitive biases has shaped your life. Next Week's Prompt: Write a formal sonnet—choosing between a Petrarchan, Shakespearean, Spenserian, or Miltonic sonnet. Don't forget the volta and at some point, use an exclamation mark! The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Jim talks with Ben Goertzel about his worldview. They discuss Ben's morning experience of consciousness crystallizing from ambient awareness, his identification as a panpsychic, the concept of pattern being more fundamental than stuff, Charles Peirce's ontology of first/second/third, the idea of uryphysics as a broader notion of physics beyond metaphysics, parapsychology and psi phenomena including remote viewing and Project Stargate, reincarnation-like phenomena and cases from India, experimental design in parapsychology research, the legitimation of both AGI and psi research, the consciousness explosion occurring alongside AI/ASI development, Jeffrey Martin's work on fundamental well-being and persistent nonsymbolic experience, the immense design space of possible minds, human cognitive limitations like seven plus or minus two short-term memory, the single-threaded nature of human consciousness versus potential multi-threaded ASI, scenarios for beneficial superintelligence and options for humans to remain in human form or upload, the question of how long human existence would remain interesting post-singularity, psychedelics as tools for accessing different states of consciousness and insights into mind construction, the absence of shamanic institutions in modern culture, experiences with DMT and heroic doses, holding multiple contradictory perspectives simultaneously, Walt Whitman's notion of containing multitudes, Ben's intuitive sense that consciousness and the basic ground of being are fundamentally joyful and compassionate, arguments for why superintelligence will likely be good based on efficiency of mutually trusting agents, and much more. Episode Transcript The Consciousness Explosion, by Ben Goertzel JRS EP 217 Ben Goertzel on a New Framework for AGI JRS EP 211 Ben Goertzel on Generative AI vs. AGI JRS Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI Evidence for Psi: Thirteen Empirical Research Reports, ed. Damien Broderick & Ben Goertzel Dr. Ben Goertzel is a cross-disciplinary scientist, entrepreneur and author.  Born in Brazil to American parents, in 2020 after a long stretch living in Hong Kong he relocated his primary base of operations to a rural island near Seattle. He leads the SingularityNET Foundation, the OpenCog Foundation, and the AGI Society which runs the annual Artificial General Intelligence conference. Dr. Goertzel's research work encompasses multiple areas including artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds, gaming, parapsychology, theoretical physics and more.

As the new year gets rolling, I've been trying to make room for what I call “the soul.” To me, this means being more receptive to those mysterious synchronicities, insights, and feelings so easily missed when I keep myself busy and distracted. Sometimes this energy comes from within, and sometimes it's a “postcard from God,” as Walt Whitman would say.Bernie With His Plough & The Great Horned OwlIt could be a lyric that aligns with something on my mind. The other day, I heard Elton John sing the lyric about the howling old owl in the woods (from “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”). Though I've heard the line many times before, this time was different. Recently, each night when I take my dog out, I hear the haunting sound of a great horned owl in the woods behind my house.But what do I do with that synchronicity? Is it the owl itself - a symbol of wisdom, intuition, mystery, and the ability to see beyond illusion- that I should listen to? Maybe it's the lyric Bernie Taupin wrote for Elton about a desire to leave the superficial ego-driven world behind and return to a more grounded life - a more authentic self. Bernie was ready to leave the yellow brick road of striving for success. He wanted to go back to his plough and back to the howling old owl in the woods.Maybe it's both - the haunting sound of the owl and a longing to return “home.” Maybe the owl's saying, “Leave me alone already and just honor the mystery.” Maybe Bernie is telling me he'd love my simple, quiet life in rural Kentucky, a life that at times doesn't feel full enough.Contemplating Solitude With MertonA couple of days ago, while doing Qigong (meditative movements similar to Tai Chi), I wondered if there is a place nearby where people gather and move in these gentle ways. The first place that came to mind was the Abbey of Gethsemani, which is not far from here. Finding a group of monks, at least Trappist monks, doing Qigong, would be quite unlikely. Maybe if Merton were still around.Gethsemani was made famous by Thomas Merton, an influential spiritual writer and Trappist monk who lived at the monastery for 27 years. Four of those years, he spent mainly in his hermitage - a secluded cabin in the woods. “Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard at least occasionally.” - Thomas MertonBefore entering the Abbey at 26, Merton was worldly, raucous, and rebellious. Like Bernie and many of us, he struggled with the tension between a simple, humble life and a desire to engage with and influence the outside world.While at Gethsemani, Merton wrote over 70 books about contemplation, prayer, Eastern religions, interfaith dialogue and social justice, including his famous autobiography, “Seven Story Mountain.”What do I do with that? Merton did all of that while living a quiet life right here in my neck of the woods. Hmmmmmm….Reclaiming That Girl That Used to Be MineSometimes the soul provides a shift in how we think about ourselves and our lives. Sometimes, however, a postcard cuts right through all the analysis and goes straight to the heart.Yesterday, I saw a video reel of Sara Bareilles and Rufus Wainwright singing, “She Used to Be Mine.” Though I'd heard parts of this song before, I never stopped long enough to listen. Last night, with my reclaimed intention of receptivity, I did. Instead of landing on some great insight, I found myself in tears. Quickly, I pulled myself out, before sliding right back into those tears, tears that I realized I was grateful could still flow.When was the last time I cried? And why was I crying? And, why were so many of the people in the audience crying? The song is about losing one's self, and losing the connection to the child we once were - a universal loss that can make some of us ache, even at the age of 58, when we think we've done such a brilliant job of putting all of those parts of ourselves back together.Though no longer recognizing herself, she still remembers the girl she used to be. She sings with tenderness about that girl's imperfection, effort, goodness, and self-reliance. She questions what life would have been like if she could rewrite the ending for that girl.Sara Bareilles wrote this song for the 2016 Broadway musical, “Waitress.” The lead character sings it at the end of the second act when she has hit rock bottom. She is lost and struggling to remember who she is. Through the song, she mourns the loss of herself before starting to gain footing and for a moment taps into the strength and grit of that child she starts to reclaim.The story isn't over. We all have an opportunity to write the next act and to extend unconditional affection for the child that she describes as messy, but kind, lonely most of the time, but more, she is all of this “mixed up,” and “baked in a beautiful pie.”Why Here & Now?My long-held hope in sharing information online has been to balance the mind and spirit (the right and left brain). In recent times, I've leaned into the left-brain science. That's what people tend to read or listen to. That's what people need and can't easily find elsewhere. I'd forgotten, however, that expressing myself from my heart is something that I need. It is who I am. My own health and healing required much more than scientific information. It would be dishonest to only share part of that story.Even as a child, writing was my lifeline. It helped me find my place in the world. It gave me peace. That child wouldn't need to make sense of why the owl speaks to me at night. Or, why Bernie showed up with a plough in hand. Or, why Merton put down his pen and stepped out of his cabin to greet me in the woods. Or, even why Sarah, dressed as a waitress, crossed my path while singing a song I'd be sure was written just for me.But, I'm not only that child. I'm all grown up and can't help but wonder why these particular energies showed up now, beyond the fact that I created some space for them to do so? What would they have me know? I think, to embrace paradox and to remember that we are physical beings of this world, and also spiritual beings who transcend it. We need connection, and we need solitude. We are adults shaped by a lifetime of experience, and still vulnerable children filled with wonder and sometimes hurt. We are light, and we are shadow. And as Sara would say, we are all of this “mixed up and baked in a big beautiful pie.”Wishing you wholeness as you make your way through this year,CourtneyTo learn more about my discovery calls, non-patient consultations, or mentoring, please visit my website at:CourtneySnyderMD.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit courtneysnydermd.substack.com/subscribe

Today we come to praise the one-room schoolhouse of the 19th century (and some of its earlier forebears). Humble in appearance, these buildings might be easy to overlook but their existence hints at a broader social, cultural, and educational history across Long Island. Zach Studenroth, architectural historian and preservationist, documents this history in Historic Schoolhouses of Long Island from Arcadia Publishing (compiled with his co-author, the late Kurt Kahofer). On today's episode, Zach elaborates on the role of New York State in establishing schools in the 1800s, Walt Whitman's brief foray into teaching, and the surprising afterlife of school buildings as churches, fire houses, and storage sheds. Further Research Historic Schoolhouses of Long Island (Arcadia Publishing) Schoolteaching Years (Walt Whitman Archive) George Bradford Brainerd (Brooklyn Museum) Audio Footnotes Episode 89: Walt Whitman's Birthplace Intro Music: https://homegrownstringband.com/ Outro music: Capering by Blue Dot Sessions CC BY-NC 4.0

Happy New Year, Beauties! I wanted to start 2026 by shifting focus from productivity to seeking inspiration from creative figures. Instead of advocating for work ethic and goals, I introduce you all to my 'creative board of directors' to offer perspective. Diana Vreeland, Andre Leon Talley, Zora Neale Hurston, Walt Whitemand, and Thich Nhat Hanh are the 'creative ancestors' who help guide the way I live and work. In this episode, we explore the wisdom I've gleaned from these people, from keeping one's imagination fresh like Diana Vreeland wrote about, to the importance of not shrinking oneself, as taught by Andre Leon Talley. I reflect on Andy Warhol's views on combining commerce with creativity, and highlight the spiritual resilience of writers Zora Neale Hurston and transcendentalist Walt Whitman. To conclude, I drew on the wisdom from the mindfulness teachings of Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh regarding the importance of being present. Tune in for a reminder to embrace the present moment, stay curious, and relish the current season of their lives.Rate, Subscribe & Review the Podcast on Apple Join the Naked Beauty Community on IG: @nakedbeautyplanet Thanks for all the love and support. Tag me while you're listening @nakedbeautyplanet & as always love to hear your thoughts :) Check out nakedbeautypodcast.com for all previous episodes & search episodes by topicShop My Favorite Products & Pod Discounts on my ShopMyShelfStay in touch with me: @brookedevard Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Kevin Kelly dropped out of college in the 1970s, it was almost unheard of. Instead of following a traditional path, he chose a life driven by curiosity, freedom, and hands-on learning. That decision led him to hitchhike across Asia, document disappearing cultures, and eventually immerse himself in the early internet. Years later, he co-founded Wired, a magazine that soon became the voice of emerging technology and culture. In this episode, Kevin joins Ilana to share how Wired went from fighting for shelf space to redefining what a tech publication could be. He also explains his unique relationship with time, why he tracks the days he has left, and how creators today can thrive with just 1,000 true fans. Kevin Kelly is a writer, photographer, and Senior Maverick at Wired, an award-winning magazine he co-founded in 1993. He is also a former editor and publisher of the Whole Earth Review and the author of multiple bestselling books about the future of technology. In this episode, Ilana and Kevin will discuss: (00:00) Introduction  (02:14) Choosing an Unconventional Path to Success (06:34) The Start of His Adventures in Asia (10:54) Getting into Writing and Publishing (14:17) Creating One of the First Hacker Conferences (20:18) The Grit Behind Wired Magazine's Success (30:37) The Dot-Com Bust and Why Wired was Split (34:17) The Origin and Power of “1,000 True Fans” (41:18) How a Near-Death Experience Transformed Kevin (47:10) About His Latest Book,  Colors of Asia Kevin Kelly is a writer, photographer, and co-founder of the award-winning Wired magazine, and a former editor and publisher of the Whole Earth Review. He is the co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, which champions long-term thinking, and the creator of the Cool Tools website, which has reviewed tools daily for over 20 years. Kevin is also the author of multiple bestselling books on the future of technology, and his latest book, Colors of Asia, captures the culture of all 35 Asian countries through vivid photography. Connect with Kevin: Kevin's Website: https://kk.org  Kevin's Twitter: https://x.com/kevin2kelly  Resources Mentioned: Kevin's Book, Colors of Asia: A Visual Journey: https://www.amazon.com/Colors-Asia-Journey-Kevin-Kelly/dp/B0FGJ18PG5  Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition by Walt Whitman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449505716  Leap Academy: LeapCon is the #1 Conference for Reinvention, Leadership & Career — a powerful 3‑day experience designed to help you unlock what's next in your career and life.

Hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot welcome Jeff Tweedy of Wilco for a wide-ranging discussion about his solo album "Twilight Override" and other aspects of Tweedy's long and storied career.Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9TBecome a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvcSign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnGMake a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lUSend us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops Featured Songs:Jeff Tweedy, "Lou Reed Was My Babysitter," Twilight Override, dBpm, 2025The Beatles, "With A Little Help From My Friends," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1967Jeff Tweedy, "Feel Free," Twilight Override, dBpm, 2025Jeff Tweedy, "One Tiny Flower," Twilight Override, dBpm, 2025Jeff Tweedy, "Parking Lot," Twilight Override, dBpm, 2025Jeff Tweedy, "Cry Baby Cry," Twilight Override, dBpm, 2025Jeff Tweedy, "Blank Baby," Twilight Override, dBpm, 2025The Velvet Underground, "Rock & Roll," Loaded, Cotilion, 1970Billy Bragg & Wilco, "Walt Whitman's Niece," Mermaid Avenue, Elektra, 1998Billy Bragg & Wilco, "California Stars," Mermaid Avenue, Elektra, 1998Billy Bragg & Wilco, "All You Fascists," Mermaid Avenue Volume II, Elektra, 2000Jeff Tweedy, "No One's Moving On," Twilight Override, dBpm, 2025Jeff Tweedy, "Enough," Twilight Override, dBpm, 2025Radiohead, "Everything In Its Right Place," Kid A, Parlophone, 2000See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Origin of All Songs song featured here is just one version of an excerpt from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. The version featured here is a country song. Did you ever think you'd here Whitman's Song of Myself as an actual song?And, if you listen to the following YouTube playlist, you'll hear The Origin of All Songs as folk music, pop, more pop, rock, Christian, rap, and reggae.https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBmBDUpR8MYIVCMZlHKtzjy2W8F6tt6pTI shared the above playlist because I want you to see how many versions of a song can be built from your poem, blog post, podcast episode, or book excerpt. Your songs, generated by AI, can supercharge your exposure on YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and Facebook reels.And you can create songs from every one of your blog posts, book pages, podcast episodes, etc.The program I've been using to create songs from my blog posts and poems is Mureka.AI (https://www.mureka.ai/?utm_source=rewardful&via=7aa6dd).A number of people commented on the last song I shared (Something True. One called it the best motivation he has had in 2025. Note: I wrote the lyrics for that song and used Mureka to add the music and performance.You can do the same with your book excerpts, poems, etc. I am now a songwriter or, at least, a lyricist!The Origin of All Songs LyricsHere are the lyrics for The Origin of All Songs excerpt from Whitman's Song of Myself:I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.I loaf and invite my soul,I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air,Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,Hoping to cease not till death.Creeds and schools in abeyance,Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,Nature without check with original energy.Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? have you reckoned the earth much?Have you practiced so long to learn to read?Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.Stop this day and night with meand you shall possess the origin of all songs,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun.Stop this day and night with meand you shall possess the origin of all songs,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun.Notice that I included two choruses of three lines that were not in the original poem, but which make the excerpt more song-like.Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bookmarketing.substack.com/subscribe

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 14, 2025 is: multitudinous • mul-tuh-TOO-duh-nus • adjective Multitudinous is a formal word with meanings that relate to multitudes. It can mean “existing in a great multitude”—that is, “very many”; or “including a multitude of individuals”; or “existing in or consisting of innumerable elements or aspects.” // The two old friends reminisced about the multitudinous ways in which their lives had changed. // The author's appearance is expected to attract a multitudinous gathering that will fill the auditorium. See the entry > Examples: “Launched as Holton's artistic inquiry into his own Chinese heritage, the project has evolved into a profound examination of family dynamics, migration, and cultural hybridity in contemporary New York, where the American identity is multitudinous.” — Natasha Gural, Forbes, 11 June 2025 Did you know? “I am large, I contain multitudes.” So wrote Walt Whitman in his most celebrated poem, “Song of Myself.” He was expressing his ability to hold within himself contradictory statements, facets, opinions, beliefs, etc. Another, if less poetic, way of saying “I contain multitudes” might be “I am multitudinous,” using the sense of that five-syllable word meaning “existing in or consisting of innumerable elements or aspects.” Multitudinous doesn't have a lot of meanings—three to be exact—but each one concerns, well, a lot. In addition to serving Whitmanesque purposes as noted above, multitudinous is the kind of highly expressive word that you can rely upon when you want something a little more emphatic than plain old numerous, as in “multitudinous possibilities.” Lastly, its original sense—still in use today—is a synonym of populous meaning “including a multitude of individuals,” as in “the multitudinous city.”

Giovanna Scocchera"Yonnondio"Tillie OlsenLa storia degli HolbrookMarietti1820www.mariettieditore.itTraduzione di Giovanna ScoccheraAppendice di Cinzia BiagiottiYonnondio, parola ripresa da una poesia di Walt Whitman, e che nella lingua della tribù degli irochesi significa «lamento per una perdita», è la storia della famiglia Holbrook che poco meno di un secolo fa provò a credere nel sogno americano. La seguiamo in un percorso straziante quando, durante la Grande Depressione, si trasferisce dalle miniere di carbone delWyoming a una fattoria in affitto nel Nebraska, per approdare nei mattatoi e nei quartieri miserabili di Omaha, nel vano tentativo di migliorare le proprie condizioni di vita. Otto capitoli narrati dalla piccola Mazie, la primogenita della famiglia, da Anna, la madre, e da un narratore onnisciente, che tuona implacabile contro la menzogna e incita alla resistenza politica.Tillie Olsen (1912-2007) è figlia di ebrei russi di militanza socialista, immigrati negli Stati Uniti agli inizi del Novecento. A vent'anni, già membro della Lega dei giovani comunisti, ha la prima figlia, che chiama Karla in onore di Karl Marx, da un uomo che l'abbandona subito dopo. È costretta, quindi, a lavorare senza sosta per il sostentamento della famiglia. Fa la cameriera, la lavandaia, l'operaia, la saldatrice. Partecipa al nascente movimento sindacale nella San Francisco degli anni Trenta, dove incontra il suo futuro marito, Jack Olsen, con cui ha altre tre figlie. Sono gli anni di un intensoattivismo che le costa, nel periodo maccartista, due arresti e la sorveglianza da parte dell'FBI. Solo nel 1955 grazie a una borsa di studio a Stanford, e con le figlie ormai cresciute, può dedicarsi alla scrittura, che aveva amato da sempre ma frequentato in modo solo frammentario. Nel 1961 esce Tell Me a Riddle che la consacra al successo. Nel 1974 pubblica Yonnondio, un romanzo cominciato quarant'anni prima, e nel 1978, infine, la raccolta di saggi Silences, in cui indaga la letteratura delle donne e della classe operaia. Con una produzione attenta ai temi del lavoro, della condizione femminile e della militanza politico-sociale, Tillie Olsen diventa una voce libera, potente e pluripremiata della letteratura nordamericana del XX secolo. Per Marietti1820 è uscita la raccolta di racconti Fammi un indovinello (2024).Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/

This week's topics: • Netflix's prestige season • Fleabag being the top 5 programmes of all time • What we want at our funerals • Waakye v Rice & Peas • Broken promises at funerals • Walt Whitman's Song of Myself poem • No Limit v Cash Money Verzuz • Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin is mad at Black & Asian faces on TV • Tory MP, Robert Jenrick not seeing any White faces in Birmingham • Are the above two statements racists or no • Who does integration help • Prisoners set free by mistake • Racial tint on mistaken prison release reporting • Racial disparity in prison and why • Train stabbing attack • Tanzanian election troubles, first hand • Nigerian Muslims killing Christians? • #StavrosSays : Fleabag [https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p070npjv/fleabag] Connect with us at & send your questions & comments to: #ESNpod so we can find your comments www.esnpodcast.com www.facebook.com/ESNpodcasts www.twitter.com/ESNpodcast www.instagram.com/ESNpodcast @esnpodcast on all other social media esnpodcast@gmail.com It's important to subscribe, rate and review us on your apple products. You can do that here... www.bit.ly/esnitunes

Welcome to a new episode of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh's deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives. This is the recording of our second live public event, which recently took place in London. Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and leadership coach/journalist Jo Confino are joined on stage by special guest Ocean Vuong, Vietnamese American poet, essayist, and novelist. Their conversation explores the themes of joy, togetherness, and cultivating courage in the face of hardship and suffering; the role of language, narrative, and technology in shaping modern experiences of suffering and joy; intergenerational trauma; and more. All three share personal experiences and insights about finding meaning and community amidst individual and collective challenges. Ocean recollects the way that, growing up in a community impacted by the opioid crisis, Buddhism and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh provided solace and a path to understanding suffering, while Brother Phap Huu reflects on his journey to become a Zen Buddhist monk, and the role of kindness, fearlessness, and vulnerability in his practice. The discussion culminates with a chant offered by Ocean as a message of hope and resilience in the face of adversity. Co-produced by the Plum Village App:https://plumvillage.app/   And Global Optimism:https://globaloptimism.com/ With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/ List of resources Ocean Vuong https://www.oceanvuong.com Being with Busyness: Zen Ways to Transform Overwhelm and Burnouthttps://www.parallax.org/product/being-with-busyness/ Calm in the Storm: Zen Ways to Cultivate Stability in an Anxious Worldhttps://www.parallax.org/product/calm-in-the-storm/ Interbeinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbeing W. S. Merwinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._S._Merwin Harry Beecher Stowehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Beecher_Stowe  Tom Brokawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Brokaw Duḥkhahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du%E1%B8%A5kha Ford Model Thttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T The Dhammapadahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhammapada Anaphorahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaphora_(rhetoric) Schadenfreudehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude ‘Bright Morning Star'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Morning_Star ‘The Five Earth Touchings'https://plumvillage.org/key-practice-texts/the-five-earth-touchings Quotes “When drinking water, remember the source.” “On the last day of the world / I would want to plant a tree / what for / not for the fruit […] / I want the tree that stands / in the earth for the first time / with the sun already / going down” – from ‘Place' by W.S. Merwin. “Being a Vietnamese person in the diaspora, for many of us, the temple or the church or what have you is the place where we hear Vietnamese at the longest unbroken duration. Whereas someone native to Vietnam would hear it all the time. So, to this day, the Vietnamese language, to me, elicits this collective desire to heal and understand suffering. And it’s very specific to the immigrant. It’s what I call a third culture: there’s nothing like it in the homeland; there’s nothing like it in the assimilated American ethos. But there’s this special place that displacement and violence created.” “In Plum Village, when I first entered, I was 13 years old, and I touched a kind of kindness that I’d never touched before. And I asked myself whether I could be a kind person. I think I’m good; I think I’m going to have a career of offering smiles.” “I invite us, as a collective, to invoke this peace that we can bring in our hearts and into the world at this moment. Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness. I send my heart along with the sound of this bell. May the hearers awaken from forgetfulness and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow.” “Just a smile can save someone’s life.” “Technology was supposed to bring us together. This is the promise of the Enlightenment. But it’s interesting that all technological movements or renaissances are controlled by the wealthy and the elites. So what I’m interested in, as a writer, as a teacher, is that so much of our world is about material resources and narrative. And this is why I tell my students, ‘They shame you for being a poet, for being a writer: “Oh, you’re doing this liberal arts, naval-gazing, decadent thing, dreaming”' – but the politicians and the elites are poets too. The greatest political speech is the anaphora. Walt Whitman used it as a catalog, but you hear it: ‘We will heal the working class, we will heal the great divide, I will solve, we will heal this country’s heart, we will heal the middle class.' And that's why the anaphora is so useful: because it doesn’t have to explain itself.” “All those in power are also poets. They’re manipulating meaning, but for votes, for profit, for power, towards fascism. And no wonder the system is designed to make you ashamed to be an artist. It’s so interesting, isn’t it, that, in the art world, we’re often asked to be humble, to be grateful for a seat at the table; to perform humility. And I think humility is good; as a Buddhist, I believe in it, but there is a discrepancy here: we never tell people on Wall Street to be humble. You never hear someone say, ‘You know what, we killed it last quarter, so let’s tone it down and be grateful that we have a seat at the economic table.'” “Kindness is more difficult now than ever because I think kindness is something that is deeply dependent on our proximity to suffering. It’s harder for us to comprehend suffering, now. Schadenfreude is in our hands and it’s always easier to see. We’ve normalized suffering so much that we’ve been disassociated from it.” “We speak about inclusiveness and equanimity in Buddhism, but we’re not equal. Some of us are born in places where we have more privileges: in a particular race, in a particular situation, in a particular year. But what is equal is, as human beings, we’re all going to grow old, we’re all going to get sick, we’re all going to have to let go of what we think is permanent. And we’re going to learn to live deeply in the present moment.” “Sadness becomes not just a feeling, but knowledge. So think about sadness as knowledge, as potential, and that anger even has an aftermath. And you realize that the aftermath of anger is care.” “The big trouble with masculinity is that we are not given the ability or the permission to feel and be vulnerable – but we are encouraged to have absolute agency. It’s incredible. It’s a perfect storm of violence: ‘Don’t feel, don’t interrogate, and don’t be vulnerable. But, meanwhile, go get ‘em, buddy.'” “Under our greatest fear is our greatest strength.” “Camus says that writing itself is optimism, because it’s suffering shared. Even if you write about the darkest things, it is optimistic because someone else will recognize it. And recognition is a democratic ideal, because it means that one feeling could then be taken and collaborated with.” “It’s really hard to convince people to go to war, historically. You need a lot of text, you need a lot of airwaves, you need a lot of speeches to convince people to go to war – but it's very easy to convince people to stop war. Very easy for people to stop armament. Difficult for folks who are in control to keep it up, but if you ask the general population, ‘Do you want peace?', it’s quick. So that gives me a little hope.” “In fast food is a kind of sinister beauty, because it’s an industrialized promise of absolute replication of fulfillment – and yet it’s a kind of poison as well. It’s like the ultimate democratic ideal, sadly: we can’t have equality, income equality, or healthcare, but we can all eat McDonald’s French fries, and, whether you’re a billionaire or a houseless person, it will taste the same. Likewise with Coca-Cola, etc. In a way it’s the sinister capaciousness of the American dream: you can all feel the same thing while you’re all slowly dying.”

Sermon by Jonathan Stoner at 10:00 a.m. on St. Francis Sunday, October 5, 2025 at All Saints Church, Pasadena. Readings: Jeremiah 1:1-6, The Lamentations of Jeremiah 3:19-26, Paul's Second Letter to Timothy 1:1-14 and Luke 17:5-10. Watch the sermon on YouTube.          Please consider pledging to All Saints Church at https://allsaints-pas.org/pledge/, or donate to support the mission and ministry of All Saints at https://allsaints-pas.org/giving/. Any donation, big or small, is appreciated! Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AllSaintsPasadena/. Follow us on Instagram at #allsaintspas. Check out the rest of our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/allsaintspasadena1/videos. Subscribe, like, get notifications every time we post! Enjoy our extensive archive of stimulating and inspiring content!

In this episode, we ask one of the greatest music writers of the rock and roll era to talk about Mystery Train as he celebrates its 50th anniversary with a brand-new edition of his classic book. Talking to us from Oakland, 6,000 miles away in his native Northern California, Greil Marcus looks back on the pivotal moments that led to his starting work on Mystery Train in the fall of 1972: his experiences as a student at Berkeley, his discovery of film critic Pauline Kael and his early writing for Rolling Stone. From there we focus on the book's extraordinary chapters about Sly Stone and Elvis Presley before relating its overarching theme – America as an "invented nation" – to the Trump administration's assault on the diversity that produced so much great art from Walt Whitman and Herman Melville to Robert Johnson and Randy Newman. A somewhat abrupt switch takes us over to our side of the pond and our guest's second book: the vast "secret history of the 20th Century" that was 1989's Lipstick Traces, along with the 1993 collection of his punk writings entitled In the Fascist Bathroom. Clips from Paul Moody's 2018 audio interview with Jamie Reid – the subversive graphic designer who became Malcolm McLaren's principal partner in iconographic crime – prompt Greil's reflections on what made (the) Sex Pistols such a vital sea-change in the subculture of rock and roll.  Many thanks to special guest Greil Marcus. The 50th anniversary edition of Mystery Train is published by Faber and available now. Pieces discussed: Greil Marcus⁠, ⁠Greil Marcus: A Life In Writing⁠, ⁠The Band: We Can Talk About It Now⁠, ⁠Jamie Reid audio⁠, The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Parlophone)⁠, Ray Davies: A Study In Frustration, The Pet Shop Boys: Hip, Clever and Pop and The Black Keys Acknowledge Their Muses on Delta Kream.

Send us a textIn the previous episode, we walked with Walt Whitman down the open roads of America, hearing the chorus of ordinary lives. Now we cross continents and step into the narrow corridors of the human soul with Fedor Dostoevsky—where freedom and conscience wrestle in shadows. Whitman's poetry celebrated the sweep of America, the chorus of countless lives, and the boundless possibilities of freedom. Across the ocean and slightly later in time, Dostoevsky turned his gaze inward, exploring the shadowed recesses of the human heart. Whereas Whitman's lines embraced the world, Dostoevsky's narratives probe the tensions, doubts, and moral struggles that define our inner lives. In moving from Whitman to Dostoevsky, we travel from the expansive optimism of a young nation to the intense psychological and ethical landscapes of nineteenth-century Russia—a shift that reminds us just how varied, yet universally human, the work of great writers can be.Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) is one of the towering figures of 19th-century literature and is often credited with deeply influencing modern psychological fiction. Born in Moscow into a middle-class family, he faced hardship early: his mother died when he was young, and his father was reportedly a strict and harsh figure. Dostoyevsky originally trained as an engineer, but his passion for literature led him to the literary scene in St. Petersburg.His life was marked by intense personal struggle. He was arrested in 1849 for involvement in a group promoting liberal ideas and was sentenced to death— On December 22, 1849, Fyodor Dostoyevsky stood on a frozen parade ground in St. Petersburg. He and his fellow prisoners were blindfolded, tied to stakes, and told they had only moments left to live. The firing squad raise  d their rifles. - the prisoners realized they only had a few seconds to live …And then—at the very last instant—the sentence was commuted. Death was postponed and his sentence was commuted at the last moment to imprisonment in a Siberian labor camp.  Life returned, with an almost unbearable intensity.Support the showThank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

I was blessed to spend the last week in Ethiopia. As we traveled into some of the most remote areas, places where clean water remains out of reach, I witnessed something that filled my heart with joy and sparked a new hope within me.Closing Songs:We Are One by Walt Whitman & the Soul Children of ChicagoJesus is Love by Lionel RichieSupport the showwww.BibleDeliverance.org

If you teach American literature, chances are you're touching on the theme of the American Dream somehow, through book clubs, a poetry unit, a look at Gatsby, or an essential question that binds together a variety of genres and perspectives. So when I received this request for our Plan my Lesson series, "How about a fun way to introduce the American Dream unit for juniors, about 36 of them," I was ready. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how you might introduce the concept of The American Dream through a series of multimedia activities, first letting students choose which ones to explore, then letting them respond with multimedia of their own, creating a collage of dream experiences for the class to view. American Dream Text Possibilities (Starter List): Death of a Salesman Trailer (Royal Shakespeare Company) American Gothic Painting (Painting at The Art Institute of Chicago) Reyna Grande: A Migrant's Story (Video on Youtube) The Sun is Also a Star (Movie Trailer) "American Dream" (Video from the Beltway Poetry Slam on Youtube) "Let America be America Again" (Poem by Langston Hughes at Poets.org) "Immigrant Photos by Augustus Sherman" (Photos from Ellis Island at the National Park Service) "An American Sunrise" (Poem by Joy Harjo at Poets.org) "American Dreamers Mural" (Mural by Shepard Fairey and Vils, Photo at Obey Giant) - you'd want to pull the photo out of the blog post "Lincoln, Nebraska 1977" (Photo by Keith Jacobshagen at the Spencer Museum of Art) American Dream Exhibit (Punto Urban Art Museum) "Gold Mountain Dreams" (PBS: Bill Moyer's Becoming American: The Chinese Experience") "This Hill we Climb" (Amanda Gorman on PBS Youtube) "I hear America Singing" (Poem by Walt Whitman at The Poetry Foundation) Start-up Story: "Jerry Yang" (The Immigrant Learning Center) Multimedia collage response example (one illustration, one quotation, and an interpretive 6 word memoir):  Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Launch your choice reading program with all my favorite tools and recs, and grab the free toolkit. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram.  Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!   

Nous sommes le 16 décembre 1862, en pleine guerre de Sécession, aux Etats-Unis. Le poète Walt Whitman lit, dans le New York Tribune, que son frère George, lieutenant dans le 51e régiment d'infanterie de l'armée unioniste, a été blessé, peut-être tué, lors de la terrible bataille de Fredericksburg remportée par les troupes confédérées. Whitman décide de partir à sa recherche. Au cours de l'effroyable périple qu'il entreprend, l'homme de lettres va découvrir la situation épouvantable des hôpitaux militaires. Il ne peut rester indifférent et ne peut faire autrement que de confronter ses idéaux humanistes à la réalité de la guerre. Il décide alors de se consacrer aux blessés et d'accompagner les mourants. Durant plus de trois années, il va se mettre entièrement à leur service, les écouter, les réconforter et apporter le minimum de bien matériel à ceux qui n'ont rien. Le soir, Walt Whitman écrit. Il confie son désarroi, sa tristesse, ses espoirs aussi, dans des lettres qu'il adresse à sa mère. Il rédige des carnets qui le libèrent, un peu, du poids de la souffrance et il fait part de son indignation dans des articles qui paraissent dans les journaux. La guerre de Sécession est considérée comme étant la première guerre moderne. Écoutons ce que Walt Whitman peut nous en dire … Invité : Thierry Gillyboeuf, écrivain et traducteur. A établi et traduit l'édition d'une partie des œuvres de Walt Whitman « Tant que durera la guerre », éd. Finitude Sujets traités : Walt Whitman, poète, chroniqueur, guerre de sécession, Fredericksburg, Etats-Unis Merci pour votre écoute Un Jour dans l'Histoire, c'est également en direct tous les jours de la semaine de 13h15 à 14h30 sur www.rtbf.be/lapremiere Retrouvez tous les épisodes d'Un Jour dans l'Histoire sur notre plateforme Auvio.be :https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/5936 Intéressés par l'histoire ? Vous pourriez également aimer nos autres podcasts : L'Histoire Continue: https://audmns.com/kSbpELwL'heure H : https://audmns.com/YagLLiKEt sa version à écouter en famille : La Mini Heure H https://audmns.com/YagLLiKAinsi que nos séries historiques :Chili, le Pays de mes Histoires : https://audmns.com/XHbnevhD-Day : https://audmns.com/JWRdPYIJoséphine Baker : https://audmns.com/wCfhoEwLa folle histoire de l'aviation : https://audmns.com/xAWjyWCLes Jeux Olympiques, l'étonnant miroir de notre Histoire : https://audmns.com/ZEIihzZMarguerite, la Voix d'une Résistante : https://audmns.com/zFDehnENapoléon, le crépuscule de l'Aigle : https://audmns.com/DcdnIUnUn Jour dans le Sport : https://audmns.com/xXlkHMHSous le sable des Pyramides : https://audmns.com/rXfVppvN'oubliez pas de vous y abonner pour ne rien manquer.Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement. Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Walt Whitman's startling line—“every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”—meets the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, where Nārada Muni confronts two proud sons of Kubera and forces them to consider: who really owns the body? From Whitman's atoms to the yogic teaching “not me, not mine,” we uncover the liberating truth that the body is a vehicle on loan, entrusted for a higher purpose. Along the way we also explore how sages wield the power to curse—and why those curses are often hidden blessings. Srimad Bhagavatam 10.10.1-12 ********************************************************************* LOVE THE PODCAST? WE ARE COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AND WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO JOIN! Go to https://www.wisdomofthesages.com WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@WisdomoftheSages LISTEN ON ITUNES: https://podcasts/apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-of-the-sages/id1493055485 CONNECT ON FACEBOOK: https://facebook.com/wisdomofthesages108 ********************************************************************* Join the Gita Collective Whatsapp group! https://chat.whatsapp.com/IoClfPirgHXBad5SxjH2i6?mode=ems_copy_t

In today's episode, we're discussing the Circle of Sex, a 1960s astrological representation of sexuality, and its eccentric creator Gavin Arthur. Join us to hear about how to have sex à la Walt Whitman, how to figure out if you're a Sappho or a Club Woman, and whether there is a faint possibility, just maybe, that the Circle is a tiny bit flawed.  If you would like to follow along at home, please have a look at the Circle of Sex diagram. We do our best to explain it, but it will hopefully make things a little bit clearer if you have a look yourself! Check out our website, where you can find our sources, as well as everything there is to know about Queer as Fact. If you enjoy our content, consider supporting us on Patreon, checking out our merch, and following us on Instagram, Tumblr and Bluesky. [Image: The Circle of Sex, a diagram of a circle cut into twelve segments, with a Yin-Yang symbol at the centre. Each segment has a label such as 'Hyperheterogenic - Don Juan' or '3/4 homogenic - Lesbian'.]

Walt Whitman's startling line—“every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”—meets the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, where Nārada Muni confronts two proud sons of Kubera and forces them to consider: who really owns the body? From Whitman's atoms to the yogic teaching “not me, not mine,” we uncover the liberating truth that the body is a vehicle on loan, entrusted for a higher purpose. Along the way we also explore how sages wield the power to curse—and why those curses are often hidden blessings. Srimad Bhagavatam 10.10.1-12 ********************************************************************* LOVE THE PODCAST? WE ARE COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AND WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO JOIN! Go to https://www.wisdomofthesages.com WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@WisdomoftheSages LISTEN ON ITUNES: https://podcasts/apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-of-the-sages/id1493055485 CONNECT ON FACEBOOK: https://facebook.com/wisdomofthesages108 ********************************************************************* Join the Gita Collective Whatsapp group! https://chat.whatsapp.com/IoClfPirgHXBad5SxjH2i6?mode=ems_copy_t

640. Bruce's son Kerr joins us for part 1 of our conversation with Josh Neufeld about his non-fiction graphic novel, A. D. After the Deluge. “A stunning graphic novel that makes plain the undeniable horrors and humanity triggered by Hurricane Katrina in the true stories of six New Orleanians who survived the storm. A.D. follows each of the six from the hours before Katrina struck to its horrific aftermath. Here is Denise, a sixth-generation New Orleanian who will experience the chaos of the Superdome; the Doctor, whose unscathed French Quarter home becomes a refuge for those not so lucky; Abbas and his friend Mansell, who face the storm from the roof of Abbas's family-run market; Kwame, a pastor's son whose young life will remain wildly unsettled well into the future; and Leo, a comic-book fan, and his girlfriend, Michelle, who will lose everything but each other.” Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 221 years. Order your copy today! This week in the Louisiana Anthology. Walt Whitman came to New Orleans for 3 months to write at the New Orleans Crescent. There he saw things he had not seen in New York. This poem is about one of those.  "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing." I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near, for I knew I could not, And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room, It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,) Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love; For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near, I know very well I could not. This week in Louisiana history. August 23, 1714. St. Denis begins his exploration of Red River Valley. This week in New Orleans history. The grass-roots organization Levees.org, founded by Sandy Rosenthal and her son Stanford (while exiled in Lafayette after Hurricane Katrina) is devoted to educating America on the facts associated with the 2005 catastrophic flooding of the New Orleans region. On August 23, 2010 the group installed a Louisiana State Historic Marker which reads “On August 29, 2005, a federal floodwall atop a levee on the 17th Street Canal, the largest and most important drainage canal for the city, gave way here causing flooding that killed hundreds. This breach was one of 50 ruptures in the Federal Flood Protection System on that day. In 2008, the US District Court placed responsibility for this floodwall's collapse squarely on the US Army Corps of Engineers.” This week in Louisiana. Quad Biking Juderman's ATV Park 6512 Shreveport Highway Pineville, LA 71360 Website Trails length: 5 mi/8 km Type: Swamp Elevation:130 - 160 ft/39.6 - 48.7 m     This 200 acre park has about 5 miles of marked woods trails, mud bogs and pits plus deep creek water crossings. The park is open every weekend but weekday riding is permitted if arrangements are made in advance. Park amenities include shaded picnic areas, air filling station, vault toilets plus an area for barbequing. The property also hosts various events throughout the year. Visitors should note that camping is not permitted and tire size is limited to 28 inches. The Gone Wild Safari Exotic Zoo is only a couple minutes away making this a good choice for a fun filled family weekend. Postcards from Louisiana. "The Hurricane." William Cullen Bryant. Sung by the Keller ISD 5th and 6th Grade Honor Choir. Listen on Apple Podcasts. Listen on audible. Listen on Spotify. Listen on TuneIn. Listen on iHeartRadio. The Louisiana Anthology Home Page. Like us on Facebook. 

Odd sequence of events allowed me to see Jennifer today.  As she notes in the podcast - someone booked a session which prevented me from seeing her - and then when the day wore on, someone couldn't do their session with Jennifer - so we got together. There's some really mind bending information here.  Jennifer tells the story of her son losing his wallet and passport, credit cards - and then dreaming about where they were, and going out at 4 in the morning and finding them. Luana Anders, our moderator on the flipside shows up to talk about a party going on - and the screenwriter, my former boss Robert Towne comes forward to talk about the new book "She Was Never Lost: the Amelia Earhart Saga." I worked with him for three years, and remained pals with him for the rest of his life.  He became a fan of our work together and had a number of sessions with Jennifer where he was able to communicate with his mother, father, and dog Hira.  (Search that name on our podcast site for some mind bending conversations.) Then on a whim, I asked Robert who surprised him on the other side - and he said (again) it was seeing Will Shakespeare.  So I asked Will some questions about the ending of Hamlet.  Funny answers. Then, because of a mention of William Blake - I asked to speak with a poet named Allen. I met him in 1996 at a concert for Tibet House in New York City.  I was standing by myself in the VIP room (I had traveled with Robert Thurman to India at that time, later we went to Tibet together).  But this poet named Allen came over to speak to me - and I wondered why that was. It's a fun answer he gives. Jennifer had no idea who he was, or his pal Jack, or his pal Lawrence.  Also was curious about the poet Walt Whitman because many compared Allen to him.  Marilyn Monroe stopped by to admonish people for judging others for how they look.  Amelia Earhart stopped by to say again how much she likes this new book of mine, Robert said that there's going to be a 'part two' with regard to the book - (we'll see) and Luana pointed out that the story Jennifer told about finding her son's wallet is related to "opening one's mind up to allow for the answer to come forward." This is pretty much what Jennifer and I have been doing for over ten years. Talking to people offstage and learning new information from them. Enjoy!

Featured : HANNAH CARLSON, Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close Okay, million dollar question: Who gets pockets, and why? It is definitely peculiar and frankly, I have a lot of questions. Why do men's clothes have so many pockets and women's so few? And why are the pockets on women's clothes often too small to fit phones, if they even open at all? GOOD NEWS: Hannah Carlson, a lecturer in dress history at the Rhode Island School of Design, can finally tell us! This book reveals the issues of gender politics, security, sexuality, power, and privilege tucked inside our pockets. (Cue Gollum) #GiveMePocketsOrGiveMeDeath.Filled with incredible images, this microhistory of the humble pocket tells us a lot about ourselves: How is it that putting your hands in your pockets can be seen as a sign of laziness, arrogance, confidence, or perversion? Walt Whitman's author photograph, hand in pocket, for Leaves of Grass seemed like an affront to middle-class respectability. When W.E.B. Du Bois posed for a portrait, his pocketed hands signaled defiant coolness. And that's just the beginning. We'll tackle the past, the present, and the future—with Hannah as our guide. So stuff your own pockets with treats and pull up a chair—Let's get to the bottom of a sartorial mystery!Episode was recorded live August 15, 2025.Email: peculiar@bschillace.comWebsite: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://peculiarbookclub.com/⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://eepurl.com/ixJJ2Y⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/PeculiarBookClub/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@PeculiarBookClub/streams⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@peculiarbookclub.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠facebook.com/groups/peculiarbooksclub⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@thepeculiarbook

What can a lifetime of storytelling teach us about unity, socialchange, and spiritual growth? In this week's The No BS Spiritual Book Club, Sandie Sedgbeer talks with Robert Atkinson—developmental psychologist, storyteller, and author—about the mentors, books, and experiences that shaped his personal and professional journey. He reflects on the influence of Joseph Campbell, Pete Seeger, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and Kahlil Gibran, along with his own commitment to life story interviewing, authenticity, and unity consciousness. Through stories of mentorship, transformative books, and his own work in social change, Robert reveals how storytelling can be a bridge between personal growth and collective evolution. **Guest:** Robert AtkinsonWebsite: https://www.robertatkinson.net/

Send us a textWelcome to Celebrate. Creativity  - This is Episode 434 - A Fierce Undeniable AttractionWalt Whitman's words about the female form is the subject of the first section of this episode.Section 4  This is the female form,A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the dawn,Undulating into the willing and yielding day,Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.And this episode continues with Walt Whitman's words and commentary about the female form.Support the showThank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

The University of Nebraska was selected to receive a grant to continue its work uncovering and publicizing the journalistic writings of famed poet Walt Whitman. The National Endowment for the Humanities selected the project as one of 97 recipients across the country receiving grants for August 2025. The university will receive $300,000 over the course of three years for its research.

Join our book club!  / lifeonbooks  Follow Dave on Instagram  / thebookishmanc  Follow Seth on Instagram  / wastemailinglist  Join the Life on Books mailing list to stay up to date on all of our latest book giveaways, projects, and more!https://linktw.in/BRYAnVhWant to read one book from every country? Check out our resource online:https://linktw.in/ZeoltyWant to know my all time favorite books? Click the link below!https://bookshop.org/shop/lifeonbooksFollow me on Instagram:  / alifeonbooks  Follow Andy on Instagram  / metafictional.meathead  The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolanohttps://amzn.to/45k6Mrahttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780312...To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Leehttps://amzn.to/4fkfLNyhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780060...The Poetry Toolkit by Rhian Williamshttps://amzn.to/46vDo3ohttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781350...Crow: From the Life and Songs of Crow by Ted Hughes https://amzn.to/40KAxjqOmeros by Derek Walcott https://amzn.to/3JdnCjRhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780374...Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminskyhttps://amzn.to/454qTcwhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781555...Brother by Michael and Matthew Dickmanhttps://amzn.to/4lUatdZGravity's Rainbowhttps://amzn.to/3ISay3nhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780143...Midden Witch by Fiona BensonLyrical Ballads, with a few Other Poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge https://amzn.to/40LQTZ6The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson https://amzn.to/4lbdyFjThese Walls Do Not Fall by H.D.https://amzn.to/3UDWdKmThe ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound https://amzn.to/3UFJtD3The Raven and Other Poems (1845) by Edgar Allen Poehttps://amzn.to/3IXevUlThe Cantos (1962) by Ezra Pound https://amzn.to/3U3wRWhThe Bridge (1930) by Hart Cranehttps://amzn.to/4lVSEeRShadow Ticket by Thomas Pychonhttps://amzn.to/4lUtKMqA Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley https://amzn.to/3U4K4OBLeaves of Grass by Walt Whitman https://amzn.to/479mbNiElegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray https://amzn.to/4mozWMFThe Hocus Pocus of the Universe by Laura GilpinPaterson by William Carlos Williams https://amzn.to/4lVz4z8Context Collapse (2025) by Ryan Ruby

Aunties on Air Episode 29: Leaning into the Healing: Connection & Community, the Two Critical ElementsThe Aunties are excited to share a new guest with our listeners! The guest we have today is someone deeply committed to partnership and strengthening the foundation of community. We are speaking with Betsy from the Downtown Bangor Partnership, and we are eager to share their work and our continued partnership together. In any thriving community, you will see connection at its core. You see this present in Wabanaki communities, where connection to culture, ceremony and values are integrated into everyday experiences. The Downtown Bangor Partnership is a non-profit organization that works with property owners, residents, business owners, community organizations, and governments entities to advance our collective vision for the future of downtown Bangor (https://downtownbangor.com). The values of the partnership closely aligning with whatWabanaki people know to be true: connection, community, and collaboration, heals. Wabanaki Words Used:Apc-oc (again in the future, parting, good-bye, farewell) https://pmportal.org/dictionary/apc-oc Topics Discussed:Umami Noodle Bar (Bangor) - Umami Noodle Bar Downtown Bangor -https://downtownbangor.com/Betsy Lundy - https://downtown.org/emerging-leader/betsy-lundy/Jamacia Plains - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_PlainWake up the Earth Festival - https://www.boston.gov/calendar/wake-earth-festivalNorth American Indian Center of Boston - http://www.naicob.org/Bernese Mountain Dog - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernese_Mountain_DogAdopt-a-Garden - Adopt-a-Garden ArticleKenduskeag Stream - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenduskeag_StreamNorumbega Parkway - https://www.tclf.org/landscapes/norumbega-parkwayUmbrella Sky Project - Umbrella Sky Project Bangor Beautiful - https://www.bangorbeautiful.org/Shenna Bellows - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenna_BellowsCloth Diaper - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloth_diaperChristopher Columbus Diaper Fact - https://kidsstoppress.com/why-you-should-buy-cloth-diapers-for-your-little-one/Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass” - https://www.amazon.com/Leaves-Grass-Original-Walt-Whitman/dp/1449505716HIV Outbreak in Bangor - HIV Outbreak in Bangor, MEMaine Family Planning - https://mainefamilyplanning.org/our-services/PCHC - https://pchc.com/Houlton, ME - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houlton,_MaineDowntown Ambassadors - https://downtownbangor.com/bangor-ambassadors/ Wabanaki Tribal Nations:Houlton Band of Maliseet  Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians | Littleton, ME (maliseets.net)Mi'kmaq Mi'kmaq Nation | Presque Isle, ME (micmac-nsn.gov)Passamaquoddy Tribe Indian Township  Passamaquoddy Tribe @ Indian Township | Peskotomuhkati MotahkomikukPassamaquoddy Tribe Sipayik  Sipayik Tribal Government – Sipayik (wabanaki.com)Penobscot Nation  Penobscot Nation | Departments & Info | Indian Island, Maine Special Thanks/Woliwon: Guests: Betsy LundyProducer: Gavin AllenPodcast Team: Becky Soctomah Bailey, Macy Flanders

In this episode, we connect with Simone Weil, the deeply spiritual French philosopher and activist known for her deliberate acts of compassion and her challenging exploration of suffering and de-creation as paths to the divine. Her experiences, born from a pre-birth intention to find enlightenment through pain, offer a unique perspective on affliction, ego dissolution, and encountering God as a personal presence.   And then, we shift to the expansive spirit of Walt Whitman, the iconic American poet, who saw spirituality in the 'scent of the real'—in the sweat, soil, body, and breath of the world. Whitman's essence is about embracing the wild, untrimmed poem of life and daring to be misunderstood.   He viewed his poetry as a channeled field of collective longing, a drumbeat from the soul of Earth itself. Though seemingly 'mismatched,' Weil and Whitman offer complementary insights, revealing themselves as opposite ends of the same vibrational frequency – exploring enlightenment through suffering and through joy, respectively.   Together, they deliver powerful messages on authenticity, releasing approval-seeking, and navigating a world in collapse. You'll hear Weil's profound question: "Am I offering me or am I auditioning for love?" and Whitman's liberating declaration: "Misunderstanding is not rejection. It's a space for mystery. Smile when it happens. You are becoming massive." They invite us to hold grief and joy simultaneously, to sing new stories into the cracks of collapsing foundations, and to radiate our authentic selves even in a 'loveless hour'.   To learn more about Christy Levy, click here. To book a 55-minute connect call with Gary, click here For more info about the new 7 Rays Activations program, please click here For retreat info, click here   

Send us a textA chance connection on social media led to one of the most heartwarming conversations in Kindness Matters history. Philip Parker, creator of multiple podcasts including "Unscripted Perspective" and "Untouched Melodies," joins Mike Rathbun to explore how kindness functions as both a personal healing force and a powerful tool for positive change.The conversation takes a particularly moving turn when Philip shares the origin story of "Rory Stories" – a podcast born from his four-year-old son's concern that his friends weren't getting bedtime stories. What began as a simple father-son project has evolved into a partnership with United Way, supporting both independent authors and children in need. It's a beautiful example of how even the smallest acts of kindness can create unexpected ripple effects.Despite navigating personal challenges including a recent separation, Philip maintains a commitment to kindness that shines through in his parenting philosophy. "I don't want to raise people that are not kind," he explains, sharing touching examples of how his children naturally absorb and reflect the kindness they witness. His guiding principle, borrowed from both Ted Lasso and Walt Whitman – "Be curious, not judgmental" – offers listeners a practical approach to navigating difficult interactions with grace.The episode weaves through discussions of modern media, the evolution of music platforms, and the importance of basic human connection in an increasingly digital world. Philip's infectious enthusiasm for creating content that uplifts others serves as a powerful reminder that while we cannot control global events, we can control our own actions – we can "lead with kindness."Whether you're seeking inspiration for your own creative endeavors, looking for practical kindness strategies, or simply need a reminder that goodness still exists in the world, this conversation delivers with authenticity and heart. Subscribe to Kindness Matters for weekly doses of positivity and join our community on social media to share your own kindness stories.Support the show

Episode: 3320 Brown.  Today, Let's talk about the color brown.

This episode recorded back in November of 2024 was aging so gracefully we almost forgot to dust it off and take if down from the shelf. It was a little celebration of the 25th anniversary of the release of Mule Variations and has a special alternate "Spiritual" version of Get Behind The Mule. For all you hardcore Tom fans, this one stays squarely centered on Tom quotes, peculiar perspectives and a cover by Willie Nelson. Feel the love!

As long as there have been poets, they have been writing war elegies. In this episode, Mark and Seamus discuss responses to the American Civil War (Walt Whitman), both world wars (W.B. Yeats, Wilfred Owen, Rudyard Kipling, Keith Douglas) and the conflict in Northern Ireland (Michael Longley) to explore the way these very different poems share an ancient legacy. Spanning 160 years and energised by competing ideas of art and war, these soldiers, carers and civilians are united by a need that Mark and Seamus suggest is at the root of poetry, to memorialise the dead in words. Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applecrld⁠ In other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/closereadingsld Poems discussed in this episode: Walt Whitman, ‘Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night' ⁠https://⁠⁠w⁠⁠ww.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45478/vigil-strange-i-kept-on-the-field-one-night⁠ Wilfred Owen, ‘Futility' ⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57283/futility-56d23aa2d4b57⁠ Keith Douglas, ‘Vergissmeinnicht' ⁠https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar2/poem/vergissmeinnicht/⁠ W.B. Yeats, ‘An Irish Airman foresees his Death' ⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57311/an-irish-airman-foresees-his-death⁠ Michael Longley, ‘The Ice-Cream Man' ⁠https://poetryarchive.org/poem/ice-cream-man/⁠ Rudyard Kipling, ‘Epitaphs of the War' ⁠https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57409/epitaphs-of-the-war⁠ Further reading in the LRB: Ian Hamilton on Keith Douglas's letters: ⁠http://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n03/ian-hamilton/tough-guy⁠ Jonathan Bate on war poetry: ⁠http://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n22/jonathan-bate/players-please⁠ Poems by Michael Longley published in the LRB: ⁠https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/michael-longley⁠ Next episode: Family elegies by William Wordsworth, Denise Riley, Anne Carson and Robert Lowell.

633. We talk to Heidi Kim about her research into the novel, Vieux Salomon. "Set in Guadeloupe, New Orleans, the surrounding Louisiana plantations, and briefly in other areas of the South, this is a key text of the history of slavery in Louisiana and the Deep South.There is obviously a difference between memoirs and novels in terms of perception and claims to nonfiction. However, in U.S. antislavery literature, both usually attempted to appeal to the same white mainstream readership (with the exception in this case of Testut's audience being French-speaking and largely Catholic). Most claimed realism; even novels asserted that they depicted events that had happened or were familiar, even if the characters were fictional." "Heidi's research and teaching ranges through 19th-21st century American literature, with specializations in the Japanese American incarceration of World War II, law and literature, and the Cold War period. She has also published on Walt Whitman and antislavery literature, including the partial translation of Louisiana Francophone novel Le Vieux Salomon, and collaborated on interdisciplinary environmental research" (Kim). Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 221 years. Order your copy today! Camille Naudin (pen name). “La Marseillaise Noire — Chant de Paix.” "Let march on! Regardless of color, Men of color, unite; For the light of the sun is for everyone. May each happy race prosper, To the frontiers of humanity Engrave these words: I hope in Thee, Thou shalt reign, Equality." This week in Louisiana history. July 5, 1910. Gov. Sanders appointed to fill senate seat after Sen. McEnery dies, he chooses to remain governor. This week in New Orleans history. Moisant Airport renamed July 5, 2001. The New Orleans City Council unanimously approved the New Orleans Aviation Board's proposal to rename the New Orleans International Airport in honor of the great Louis Armstrong. This week in Louisiana. Lake Bistineau State Park 103 State Park Road Doyline, LA 71023 318-745-3503 1-888-677-2478 lakebistineau@crt.la.gov Website     Situated on the western shore of Lake Bistineau, this park offers a satisfying blend of beautiful vistas and outstanding recreational facilities. Memorable for its upland mixed hardwood forest, its open waters, and its enchanting stands of cypress and tupelo trees, the park offers two boat launches, hiking and biking trails, playgrounds, camping, cabins and excellent fishing!     Beginning in January with the "yo- yo" season and lasting through the spring, summer, and early fall, the dedicated fisherman can draw such freshwater catches as black crappie, large-mouth bass, yellow bass, catfish, bluegill, and red-ear sunfish from the lake's clear waters. Postcards from Louisiana. Delfeayo Marsalis at French Quarter Fest.  Listen on Apple Podcasts. Listen on audible. Listen on Spotify. Listen on TuneIn. Listen on iHeartRadio. The Louisiana Anthology Home Page. Like us on Facebook. 

Kelly and Mark discuss this unforgettable episode. We Hope you enjoy it!  In the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman episode “The Body Electric,” aired on April 5, 1997, Dr. Michaela Quinn encounters the renowned poet Walt Whitman, who arrives in Colorado Springs. Whitman, struggling with health issues, forms a bond with the townsfolk, particularly Brian, as he shares his poetry and unconventional views. However, his presence stirs controversy due to his rumored homosexuality, leading to tension among some residents. Michaela defends Whitman, advocating for tolerance, while the episode explores themes of individuality, acceptance, and the power of art in a conservative frontier town. The Body Electric originally aired on April 5, 1997 Now there’s a place to buy Dr QuinnCast Merchandise! https://www.etsy.com/shop/ForYourLittleHouse The post The Body Electric first appeared on Dr.QuinnCast Podcast.

Live performances often bring an energy and spontaneity that studio recordings can't fully capture. On stage, musicians interact with the audience, infusing the song with a palpable energy and improvisational flair. The live setting can also allow for reinterpretation of arrangements—extended solos, altered tempos, or unexpected twists—that make the experience feel more personal and vibrant compared to the polished, precise nature of studio versions. Just ask legendary bassist Mike Watt, who is about to embark on his 72nd tour over his 45 year career - a career that started with one of the greatest American punk bands ever, Minutemen, and countless projects including fIREHOSE, The Stooges, dos, and, currently, mssv. mssv is a post-genre supergroup consisting of watt, drummer Stephen Hodges (who played on some of Tom Waits's classic records, among others), and led by guitarist extraordinaire Mike Baggetta. Their new album, On And On is an exciting, trippy psychedelic fever dream featuring eight boundary-pushing tracks. It is out now on BIG EGO records on 12" vinyl LP, digital download, and streaming services. mssv's 52-date "haru tour 2025" starts in watt's hometown of San Pedro, CA on March 13th, and winds through the country before concluding at the Zebulon in Los Angeles on May 3rd. No matter where you are in the U.S., mssv will be close by this spring! Segment #1: The beginnings of Minutemen, playing with mssv, what is punk rock?, Walt Whitman...indie hero Segment #2: The real prac is front of a crowd, keeping an open mind, the tour van, gear Segment #3: His long running radio show/podcast the watt from pedro show, Rocky Horror Picture Show, "use a lot of manure" Segment #4: Playing with the Stooges, watt's next? Much like your favorite live recordings, this is a one-of-a-kind O3L that you won't want to miss! mssv: ⁠https://mainsteamstopvalve.com⁠ mike watt: ⁠https://mikewatt.com⁠ Special thanks to Howard Wuelfing at Howlin' Wuelf Media for the introduction and coordination. Proud members of the Pantheon Podcasts network. Be sure to take advantage of O3L Podperks, a curated selection of discounts for YOU with promo code 'O3L'. Visit ⁠http://onlythreelads.com ⁠ and click on 'Promo Codes' to take advantage of these exclusive savings for O3L listeners! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The boys talk about two new movie musical trailers, as well as the new FX/Hulu show “Adults,” and we get an update on the Bark Box Pride Collection saga. --- Share the gift of gay all year round! https://www.patreon.com/RealityGays/gift JOIN RealityGays+ for exclusive content  + Patreon  https://www.patreon.com/RealityGays or  + Supercast  https://realitygaysmulti.supercast.com/  + Apple Subscriptions https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reality-gays-with-mattie-and-poodle/id1477555097  Click here for all things RG!  https://linktr.ee/RealityGays We covered the latest season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season 2 on Hulu!  Watch us on video- www.youtube.com/@RealityGays To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While you may know the Brooklyn Museum for its wildly popular cutting-edge exhibitions, the borough's premier art institution can actually trace its origins back to a more rustic era -- and to the birth of the city of Brooklyn itself.On July 4, 1825, the growing village laid a cornerstone for its new Brooklyn Apprentices Library, an educational institution to support its young "clerks, journeymen and apprentices." This was a momentous occasion in the history of Brooklyn, a ceremony overseen by the Marquis de Lafayette and observed by a young boy named Walt Whitman.The library was part of a movement -- started a century before by Benjamin Franklin-- to make knowledge readily available within the young country.The Brooklyn Museum's celebratory new exhibition Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200 looks back at its storied origins and eventual growth, encompassing most of the young city's cultural institutions and soon expanding into a monumental new home next to the new Prospect Park, designed by McKim, Mead and White.Abigail Dansiger, the Director of Libraries and Archives, and Meghan Bill, the Coordinator of Provenance, join Greg on this week's show to explain the unusual origins of the Brooklyn Museum and the unique philosophies which inform its exhibitions.PLUS: A couple genuine mysteries lurk within the new exhibition, including a bottle-shaped niche within the cornerstone and an Egyptologist's unencrypted notebook.This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon 

Kelly Scott Franklin, associate professor of English at Hillsdale College, delivers a lecture on the Civil War poetry of Walt Whitman and Herman Melville. This lecture was given at the Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence seminar, “The Art of Teaching: Upper School Literature” in February 2025. The Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence, an outreach of the Hillsdale College K-12 Education Office, offers educators the opportunity to deepen their content knowledge and refine their skills in the classroom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of The First Day from The Fundraising School, host Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., reconnects with his longtime mentor and fundraising sage, Tim Seiler, Ph.D., Director Emeritus of The Fundraising School. Together, they dive into a topic that's more relevant than ever: how to navigate the stormy seas of fundraising during uncertain times. Dr. Seiler shares war stories from his early fundraising days, reflecting on crises from the 1987 stock market crash to today's mix of economic and social uncertainties. His message? While fundraisers can't control the turbulence, they can control their approach, and it starts with what he calls “rational hope.” Dr. Seiler unpacks this idea of rational hope, steering us away from the siren song of blind optimism. Instead, he champions a clear-headed, proactive mindset: keep reaching out to donors, but with empathy and creativity. Forget about relentless asks, instead, update them on your mission's progress, share ideas, and show them you're still standing tall. He shares his own experiences as a donor receiving thoughtful “just checking in” messages from nonprofits, illustrating how these gestures reinforce connection and purpose. As Seiler says, it's about reminding donors not just of the need, but of the joy and satisfaction that comes from making a difference. The conversation also explores a delicate, often unspoken challenge in the nonprofit world: fundraisers' hesitancy to admit when times are tough. Dr. Seiler and Stanczykiewicz shine a light on this vulnerability, encouraging transparency and authenticity. They argue that sharing struggles, whether it's a budget cut or a missed goal—doesn't signal failure; it signals humanity. This honesty not only builds trust but also invites donors to become part of the solution. As Seiler puts it, “If it were easy, we wouldn't need fundraisers.” Or in the words of A League of Their Own: “The hard is what makes it great.” Wrapping up, the episode channels a rousing spirit of resilience, celebrating the enduring generosity of donors who bounce back time after time, through recessions, crises, and even pandemics. With references to the classic wisdom of Henry Rosso and a dash of literary flair from William Faulkner and Walt Whitman, this episode offers fundraisers a playbook for tough times: stay hopeful but realistic, be persistent, and never forget the shared humanity that fuels philanthropy. Bottom line? Keep swinging for the fences. Fundraising's not for the faint of heart, but it's worth every pitch.

This week we head back to Carl Richard's masterpiece from 2009, and the guys are taking a careful look at Chapter IV: Nationalism. We start out with a nice definition and perspective from one of Dave's long list of overrated authors (does he like anybody?): C.S. Lewis. Clive explains to us from The Four Loves that every country has a dreary past of some shameful and shabby doings, but it's natural and good to love her nonetheless, within reason. Then we dive into the antebellum adulation of one George Washington. Is he Demosthenes, Cicero, Hannibal, Severus, Cincinnatus, Camillus? Or is he actually all of them rolled into one? Tune in for insights from Edward Everett, Calhoun, Walt Whitman, Danile Webster, Frederick Porcher, and more, on everything from neoclassical revival to the vast American superiority over those doddering ancients. Along the way, you'll enjoy reminiscences of the celery fields of Jenison and rural Ionia County, Michigan, as well as one of Jeff's all-time best puns. And in the end, Marathon is Always Great Again.

Disability Series, Episode #1 of 4. How and when scientists, doctors, and society started conceiving of the physical and emotional components of same-sex desire as a psychiatric condition of the mind? This was neither an ancient belief nor a postmodern (aka, post-1950) one, and it wasn't an exclusively American phenomenon either. Rather, the classification of same-sex desire as a “disorder” had its roots in the foundations of psychiatry as a profession in the 19th century. Over the last 100+ years, that classification impacted individuals all across the world. You've heard of Sigmund Freud, whose work in the 1920s standardized a form of talk therapy that sought to interpret actions, thoughts, and desires through a particular lens of analysis. “Psychoanalysis,” though short-lived as a psychiatric practice, was certainly part of the longer-term framing of queerness and transness as “mental illness.” But Freud is just the tip of the iceberg. Today we're digging into the history and relationship between psychiatry and sexuality; the scientific theories of sexuality that helped shape modern ideas about the relations between gender, genitals, desire, and identity; and the consequences of the medicalization of sexuality. Bibliography Adriaens, Pieter R., and Block, Andreas De. Of Maybugs and Men : A History and Philosophy of the Sciences of Homosexuality, University of Chicago Press, 2022. James E. Bennett and Chris Brickell, "Surveilling the Mind and Body: Medicalising and De-medicalising Homosexuality in 1970s New Zealand," Medical History 62, no. 2 (2018): 199-216. Ross Brooks, “Transforming Sexuality: The Medical Sources of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–95) and the Origins of the Theory of Bisexuality,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 67 (2010) 177–216. Maurice Casey, “‘I want to be to Ireland what Walt Whitman was to America': Esotericism and Queer Sexuality in an Irish Social Circle, 1890s–1920s,” History Workshop Journal, 00 (2025), 1–22. Mian Chen, "Homo(sexual) socialist: Psychiatry and homosexuality in China in the Mao and early Deng eras," Gender & History 36 (2024): 657-672. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis (1894) Harry Oosterhuis, Stepchildren of Nature (2000) John Stuart Miller, "Trip Away the Gay? LSD's Journey from Antihomosexual Psychiatry to Gay Liberationist Toy, 1955-1980," Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 33, no. 2 (May 2024) Lamia Moghnieh, "The Broken Promise of Institutional Psychiatry: Sexuality, Women and Mental Illness in 1950s Lebanon," Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 47 (2023): 82-98 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices