And what if nobody listens? Yes, entering our calls for justice into public space carries no small amount of anxiety. And the poster-child for being unheard, the Trojan princess and priestess Cassandra, may–if we read our mythology carefully&

  26 Dec 2025 Episode 6.21 – Writing Back: Letters to Humanity A different sort of New Year Resolution, moving us from personal improvement to public advocacy! Let’s write an essay of address, framing our passions into a perspective that

  19 Dec 2025 Episode 6.20 – The Great Societies: Lowry’s The Giver Another thorny utopia, Lowry’s Community practices a different kind of strategy to the Hideous Bargain: ethical evasion, a too tempting strategy for all of us. Poli

  12 Dec 2025 Episode 6.19 – The Great Societies, Pt 2: Metropolis & The Ways of Meaning We finish our discussion of the silent film Metropolis and answer our question of art and politics by examining the text, context, and reader meaning-m

It seems everything is politics these days. But at least can't we keep art pure? You know, art for art's sake? I offer my thoughts on the topic while we examine the classic silent film, Metropolis (1927).

We finish our side trail on the implications of Poe's horror by stepping more deeply into our own capacity to violence, reaching finally to Le Guin's own direction: look to our modern political scene and the impulse to annihilation.

We say Poe has influence the genre of horror, but have we really considered what that influence has revealed to us across the generations? What happens when we tell stories of a culture that has abandoned its moral foundations?

There really isn't that much to say about Poe, is there? He's just creepy. But wait. What if we could explain the supposed madness in all these stories?

Another Halloween treat from Poe, a reading of this lesser-known tale. And follow the podcast for some ways to think about it and "The Tell-Tale Heart"!

This story, a quintessential Poe classic, is perfect not only for its conception of the psychology of horror, but for our larger discussion in Le Guin's Journey 6.