Philip Sandifer's Blog, page 4

IDSG Ep68 The Trial of Christopher Cantwell, with Hilary Sargent

Christopher Cantwell, the 'Crying Nazi', was recently tried and convicted in a federal court in New Hampshire.  As our regular listeners will know, we've been following Cantwell's fortunes for some time.  In this episode, Daniel and Jack are joined by special guest, journalist and Cantwell expert Hilary Sargent, to talk about the trial, and the long, winding, bizarre, horrifying story of how we got here. 

Content warnings.

Permalink / Direct Download / Soundcloud

Notes / Links:

Hilary's Twitter: @lilsarg

Hilary's articles on the Cantwell trial for The Informant: https://www.informant.news/people/115...

Don't do meth kids: www.bitchute.com/channel/sFreBwLNiMDA/

All the Love

All the Love

A mostly unloved dirge on The Dreaming’s tails-side, “All the Love” exists as a buffer between the uxorial laments of “Night of the Swallow” and “Houdini.” Little distinguishes it from its fellow LP tracks — its lyrics scan like an embryonic “Houdini” or “Suspended in Gaffa,” presaging future such Bush songs as “Hello Earth” or “Never Be Mine.” Admittedly the song’s points of intrigue are mostly limited to what comes after it, with “All the Love” mostly existing to get The Dreaming to ten songs. 

Sonically, “All the Love” sounds like a callback to Never for Ever, to the point one wonders if the song is a holdover. The song’s centering of melody over rhythm is an aberration on the rhythm-preoccupied Dreaming, with Stuart Elliott’s drums quietly accentuating things rather than taking a “lead instrument” role. The relatively high position of Del Palmer’s bass playing in the mix also feels superannuated and reminiscent of “Blow Away (For Bill)” or “Egypt,” some of the oldest songs in Bush’s studio career. “All the Love” has some flourishes characteristic of the mid-80s — the sampling of phone conversations is the sort of thing Pink Floyd or The Smiths did around the same time (see The Wall, “Rubber Ring”). Nonetheless, “All the Love” sounds old, an adscititious swan song for Bush’s early style. 

There’s certainly a callback to the subject matter of Never for Ever, nominally catastrophes that damage and alienate families. While Never for Ever’s songs are largely narrative, The Dreaming deals with Modernist techniques of abstraction, dissociation, and stream-of-consciousness, shifting the dramatic arena to the human mind. “All the Love” is social, even amusingly caustic in its distance from human living. Its lyrical triumph, “the first time I died…”, setting up an account of a person whose deathbed experience includes “good friends of mine” who “hadn’t been near me for years.” Where the hell have you been? Why are you doing this performative fraternal visitation now? The answer comes as “we needed you/to love us too/we waited for your move.” We’re given a set of people (or perhaps just one faction) who struggles to love people and relate to them properly.

There seems to be some concession of wrongdoing, admitting she wasn’t the most forthcoming to her friends (“but I know I have shown/that I stand at the gates alone”). But she tempers this with an admission that the emotional distance was mutual: “I needed you to love me too.” There’s even a sort of “if I could start again” concession, as the character asserts the inevitability of reincarnation (or afterlife?) with “the next time I dedicate/my life’s work to the friends I make/I give them what they want to hear.” Its grief for a lost, atemporal past binds itself to the effluvium of old and new styles “All the Love” embodies. In the words of Bauhaus, “all we ever wanted was everything. All we ever got was cold.”

(Bush.) Bush — piano, Fairlight. Palmer — bass. Thornton — choirboy. Launay — engineer (backing tracks). Hardiman — engineer (overdubs). Backing tracks recorded at Townhouse Studios May – Jun ’81. Overdubs at Odyssey Aug – Dec ’81, Jan – Mar ’82. Mixed Mar – May ’82. Released 13 September 1982. Screenshot from Don't Look Now (1973, dir. Nicolas Roeg).

IDSG Ep67 Tim Pool and the Wolverine Watchmen

An unplanned, emergency mini-sequel to our discussion of Tim Pool just a couple of days ago.  Reality, displaying its customary poor timing, waited until just after we dropped our Tim Pool episode to reveal the story of the Wolverine Watchmen, a group of militia types arrested for planning the abduction and 'trial' (i.e. murder, presumably) of Michigan Governer Gretchen Whitmer.  At least one of the conspirators seems to have been part of Tim's audience; Tim has been demonizing Whitmer as a dangerous tyrant for ages; and Tim himself reacted to the story in ways that combine the hilarious, disgusting, and accidentally instructive.  And so here we are.

Content Warnings.  Contains Tim Pool.

Permalink / Direct Download / Soundcloud

Links / Notes:

Episode 67: Tim Pool https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/66-tim-pool

New York Times, "F.B.I. Says Michigan Anti-Government Group Plotted to Kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/us/gretchen-whitmer-michigan-militia.html

Continuation of Criminal Complaint regarding kidnapping plot of Gretchen Whitmer: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.miwd.99213/gov.uscourts.miwd.99213.1.1_1.pdf

Emily Lawler, MLive, "Accused Michigan terrorists found natural home among anti-Whitmer sentiment promoted by far right" https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/10/accused-michigan-terrorists-found-natural-home-among-anti-whitmer-sentiment-promoted-by-far-right.html

Samuel J. Robinson, MLive, "Man accused in Whitmer kidnapping plot defended Confederate statue at June protest" https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2020/10/man-accused-in-whitmer-kidnapping-plot-defended-confederate-statue-at-june-protest.html

John Agar, MLive, "Grand Rapids man, alleged leader of plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer, had to be ‘insane,’ boss says" https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2020/10/grand-rapids-man-alleged-leader-of-plot-to-kidnap-gov-whitmer-had-to-be-insane-boss-says.html

Chad Livengood Twitter thread showing members of assassination plot at Re-open rally in June. https://twitter.com/ChadLivengood/status/1314332374759542784

Josh Russell Twitter thread collecting social media posts from assassination plot members. https://twitter.com/josh_emerson/status/1314234661820825609

Timbahontoast Twitter thread collected very non-leftist views of assasination plot members. https://twitter.com/timbahontoast/status/1314496845717143553

David Covucci and Mikael Thalen, The Daily Dot, "Pro-Kyle Rittenhouse coronavirus denier arrested in plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer" https://www.dailydot.com/debug/brandon-caserta-facebook-michigan-governor-kidnap/

Ali Breland, Mother Jones, "Men Who Allegedly Plotted to Kidnap Michigan’s Governor Celebrated Violent Far-Right Extremism" https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/men-who-allegedly-plotted-to-kidnap-michigan-governor-celebrated-violent-far-right-extremism/

The video Jack talks about: https://youtu.be/dSxyBqA8J8o

Daily Kos article on Wolverine Watchmen and Trump’s rhetoric / domestic terror policies: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/8/1984983/-Trump-s-domestic-terror-policies-rhetoric-gave-flight-to-Michigan-militiamen-s-murderous-plot

 

IDSG Ep66 Tim Pool

This time, Jack and Daniel delve into the cesspool that is the barking, beanie-wearing, bollocks-talker Tim Pool.  Prepare for a small avalanche of weapons grade stupid from YouTube's favourite reactionary propagandist pretending to be a centrist or something.

Content Warning.

Permalink / Direct Download / Soundcloud

Links / Notes:

CV Vitolo “Haddad”: Another Academic Racial Fraud? https://medium.com/@polite_keppel_dinosaur_57/cv-vitolo-haddad-another-academic-racial-fraud-c5c41fe32110

The CV Dossier: https://twitter.com/thecvdossier

Inside Higher Ed, "Fresno State Pulls CV Vitolo-Haddad's Job Offer." https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/18/fresno-state-pulls-cv-vitolo-haddads-job-offer

Timcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Timcast/videos

Timcast News YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TimcastNews/videos

Timcast IRL YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TimcastIRL/videos

SCNR YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SCNRtv/videos

Tim Pool: Day at a Chicago Warehouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LgfyUeFlzw

Tim Pool calls into the Majority Report, November 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcZodBFS8k

Christopher Robbins, Gothamist, "Is OWS Livestreamer Snitching Or Reporting?" https://gothamist.com/news/update-is-ows-livestreamer-snitching-or-reporting

"Is that his job? To hold people accountable? "Well," Pool pauses. "That's not my decision to make. That's the majority's decision. I will say that in the case of last night, I'm not advocating anyone to go after this person."

"But it does offend me when people say I'm putting them at risk. If you throw a bottle at the police, you're putting people at risk. When two innocent people who were doing nothing get arrested because you threw the bottle, that's putting people at risk. I'm going to hold those people accountable." "

Tim Pool at Vice.com: https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/tim-pool

Vic Berger thread on Tim Pool: https://threader.app/thread/1101208956230356994

James Allsup and Tim Pool, June 2017. https://archive.org/details/youtube-5_QaIhe7JxA

Thought Slime, "Hats Off to Tim Pool." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxDVhNuFAq4

Cassandra Fairbanks Telegram: https://t.me/s/CassandraFairbanks

Jose, "Diving Into the Shallow End, My Week With Tim Pool (Part 1)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Wv59W0uPo

Jose, ""Diving Into the Shallow End, My Week With Tim Pool (Part 2)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AnrGWF2ri4

Earlier Jose video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtrZQ_bu8Sc&t=402s

Tim Pool clips https://twitter.com/TimPoolClips

Matt Binder video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfoLE-eHnwM&t=1022s

Tim Pool’s Grift Exposed https://youtu.be/jpRyjI8oC_E

Inside the Mind of Tim Pool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6zbw2vWOz4&t=1531s

Antisocial Media https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsNKtRZEVjk&t=522s

Tim Pool, Phony Liberal by Abe Gaustad https://medium.com/@abegaustad/tim-pool-phony-liberal-67e409cd34ca

RationalWiki https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tim_Pool

Of Human Bondage Ep. 003: One Chin Shared Among Four Million (Goldfinger)

The third episode of Of Human Bondage, the podcast where Kit Power, Sam Maleski, myself, and occasional guests talk about the Eon Productions James Bond 007 films, is now publicly available. This week we're talking about 1964's alleged classic Goldfinger, and, spoilers, we all detest it on artistic, moral, and political grounds. We discuss the politics of luxury, classism, the heightened cinematic language of director Guy Hamilton, race and Oddjob, and that scene. 

Massive trigger warning for this one. From the beginning we clearly delineate the time stamps for the relevant segment of the episode, but we there is a long digression about the rape scene that occurs near the end of Goldfinger. It gets pretty raw, as we're talking about a scene endorsing the sexual assault of a queer woman. There's a part of the conversation where I discuss my experiences with sexual trauma, so if you want to avoid triggering autobiographical material, you may want to skip that part of the episode.

We're very proud of this podcast though, and the triggering segment is clearly marked for anyone who wants to skip it. After we recorded this one we all agreed we'd hit our stride with it. It's a strong couple hours of audio, and we hope you enjoy it.

Christine's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ballardiangorse
Christine's blog: https://katebushsongs.wordpress.com/
Christine's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ballardiangorse

Sam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sammaleski
Sam's group blog: https://downtime2017.wordpress.com/
Sam's solo blog: https://sammaleskiwriter.wordpress.com/
Sam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/LookingForTelos
Sam's first book: https://www.amazon.com/Sheffield-Steel-Essays-Thirteenth-2018-2019/dp/1083103474
Sam's latest book: https://obversebooks.co.uk/product/48-arachnids-in-the-uk/ 

Kit's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/kitpower
Kit's blog: https://gingernutsofhorror.com/my-life-in-horror.html
Kit's books: https://www.amazon.com/Kit-Power/e/B00K6J438K
Kit's Twitter: https://twitter.com/KitGonzo

Houdini

Houdini

Patreon pledges have declined precipitously, sometimes descending below $300, which is my baseline for comfortably living off the blog. Furthermore, my day job as a college tutor is getting an hours cut, meaning my outside income is jeopardized. These are stressful circumstances that can make concentrating on work difficult. As a disabled 21-year-old working class trans woman who has complex PTSD, ADHD, major clinical depression, and chronic anxiety, this gig is mostly what puts food on my table. It’s survivable for now, but if you could help me get to $350, I’d be immensely grateful.

The Dreaming’s sessions with Nick Launay exemplify the album’s episodic production. The songs originally engineered by Hugh Padgham explore relationships between headspace and environment and how unreleasing trauma and mental illness can be cathartic. Bush and Launay’s songs are teeming with trauma and catharsis. Frequently they anatomize historical subjects, particularly subaltern or marginalized narratives. An overarching focal point tends to be enunciating the unspoken. Perhaps this was Bush’s way of asserting agency over a largely masculine music industry that had thus far limited her and kept her from true leadership positions in the creation of her albums. “[It was] very dark and about pain and negativity and the way people treat each other badly,” Bush asserted to Canadian broadcaster Daniel Richer in 1985. “Perhaps the biggest influence on the last album was the fact that I was producing it and so I could actually do what I really wanted to for the first time.”

“Houdini” is the face of The Dreaming. It’s one of the only Bush sleeves where the image is supplied by the song. Its aspect, another creation of fraternal mainstay John Carder Bush, is a sepia photograph in medium closeup depicting a slightly agrestal Bush with her head tilted to the right, with her mouth open wide revealing a key on her tongue, which she passes to a faceless Del Palmer. This image derives from the lyrics of “Houdini,” which impart the fictionalized yet broadly historical experience of Bess Houdini, widow of premier escapologist Harry Houdini, who tries to contact her late husband through necromancy (“I wait at the table/hold hands with weeping strangers/wait for you/to join the group”). The relevant lyric “with a kiss I’d pass the key/and feel your tongue, teasing and receiving,” is unique among pop lyrics, as the overwhelming majority of them don’t contain idle recollections of Frenching a deceased spouse. It’s a bald-faced and ostentatiously move that flags how uninterested in notions of “normality” Bush is. 

This furthermore indicates the subversive narratology Bush is pursuing. It’s quite boldly literal in the Carder Bush photo, where Del Palmer’s face is turned away from the frame. There’s an occlusion of “great man” narratives to “Houdini.” It’s named after one of the 20th century’s great performers, but it’s largely defined by his absence. As a result, the story has to be about the widowed Bess and her grief. Impressively, “Houdini” avoids elegy for the accomplishments of a Great Man, opting instead for the love Bess Houdini bore for her husband and the ecstatically weird lengths she went to demonstrate that. 

The song is far from a stringent one. “Houdini” is fueled by anguished conniptions rather than melodic coherence. The verse initially sounds like “The Infant Kiss” or some other perfectly normal song with its piano balladry in Eb minor with a progression that finishes on a major tonic chord. It commences as a séance with mourners preparing to reach into the ether (“the tambourine jingle-jangles/the medium roams and rambles”). The refrain is the apex of Bush shrieks, culminating in a gravely, agonized “WITH YOUR LIFE/THE ONLY THING IN MY MIND/WE PULL YOU FROM THE WATER!” The result is hardly melodic — it’s willfully ugly, produced by Bush eating lots of chocolate and drinking milk to sabotage her own voice. Whether or not the experiment works, it doesn’t seem like Bush cares — she wants this to sound raw and ugly.

We’ve talked about The Dreaming’s equation of the mind and spirituality quite often, so running into a rationalist-leaning figure like Houdini is quite something. A man who sought to discredit mediums during his lifetime, Harry made a pact with Bess to attempt contact after his death with a passcode only they knew, which would prove the medium who discovered was legitimate. In the song, this even seems to work — “this is not trick of his/this is your magic.” Houdini specialized in illusions, but if said illusions worked, that seems about equivalent to his magic being real. Curiouser is how the song legitimizes the séance, as it seems to transcend spacetime as it takes Bess back to her past assisting her husband’s dangerous performances. “You hit the water” comes across as temporal fuckery of the kind found in Bush’s favorite movie, Don’t Look Now. Linearity this ain’t. Functionality is irrelevant to Bush. Often she tries for beauty, but just this once Kate Bush fiercely clutches onto the awfulness of emotional reality. 

(Bush.) Personnel: Bush — vocals, piano, Fairlight, production. Weber — bass. Elliott — drums. Powell, Lawson — strings (writing and arrangement). Farrell — spoken word. Palmer — spoken word. Launay — engineer (backing tracks). Hardiman — engineer (overdubs). Backing tracks recorded at Townhouse Studios May – Jun ’81. Overdubs at Odyssey Aug – Dec ’81, Jan – Mar ’82. Mixed Mar – May ’82. Released on The Dreaming 13 September 1982. Issued as B-side to “Night of the Swallow” in Ireland, 21 November 1983. Photo: Bess Houdini and her husband (1907, Musée McCord).

 

Shabcast 40 - Shelley Duvall Directed The Shining, with Christine Kelley

Heeeeere's Jack, back with another Shabcast.  In a break from recent tradition, this new episode does not feature me talking to Kit Power about his new book even though he does have a new book out as usual.  Devastating news?  Well, it would be except that instead I'm talking to our very own Christine Kelley), writer of the brilliant Dreams of Orgonon blog and all-round starburst of interestingness.  Nominally our conversation is about Alien and The Shining, movies to which we both indefinitely rent cranial real estate, but you'll find we range pretty freely from topic to topic as you'd expect from Eruditorum Press people.  Our topics include Mckellen's Richard III, Julie Taymor's Titus, Branagh's Hamlet, and even a few things that aren't Shakespeare movies.  Enjoy.

Direct Download: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/pexlives/Shabcast_40_-_Shelley_Duvall_Directed_The_Shining.mp3

Permalink: https://pexlives.libsyn.com/shabcast-...

 

My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Jack_Graham_
Shabogan Graffiti: http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/author/jack/
IDSG: https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/

Christine's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ballardiangorse
Christine's blog: https://katebushsongs.wordpress.com/
Christine's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ballardiangorse

IDSG Ep65 - The Alternative Influence Network, with Rebecca Lewis

This time, Daniel welcomes special guest Rebecca Lewis to the show.  Rebecca is the author of the Data & Society report 'Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube' about which Eric Weinstein was such an asshole (our word, not Rebecca's).

Content Warnings as ever.

Permalink / Direct Download / Soundcloud

The report: https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/

Rebecca's Twitter: https://twitter.com/beccalew

IDSG 62 (on Eric Weinstein and Peter Thiel, etc): https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/62-eric-weinstein-part-2-cancel-culture

 

 

 

Lord of the Reedy River

(Donovan, Goodbye Again)
(Donovan, If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium)
(Donovan, HMS Donovan)
(Hopkin, Postcard)
(Bush, “Sat In Your Lap” B-side)

CW: brief discussion of rape.

Cycling several incarnations before appearing on record, Scottish singer Donovan Leitch’s “Lord of the Reedy River” is a minor classic of his career. Getting performances on a 1968 TV programme and a 1969 celebrities’ demo reel romcom before appearing on Donovan’s 1971 double LP HMS Donovan. Serene, erotic, creepy, and sensuous all at once, Donovan somehow manages to make the Greek myth of Leda and the swan, a fable in which Zeus seduces or rapes (depending on the telling; Ovid, surprisingly, removes the rape, while Yeats writes about it as one) the Aetolian princess Leda. Donovan’s telling is a strictly romantic and erotic one, rejecting the sexual violence of the tale in favor of a sensuous, mythical love affair (“she fell in love with a swan” has no business sounding as beautiful as it does, but that’s Donovan). It’s a stunning piece of work that fixates on the uncanny and eerie aspects of the tale (“he filled her with song,” “she in my boat long hours/he in his royal plumage”). The song’s sense of place is potent and inextricable from its sensuousness (“black was the night and starry,” “she threw him some flowers/in the reedy river”). Most delightfully, the song has a Shape of Water ending, with the final act of its drama being the “glide” of “two swans.” With its chilling harmonies, palpitating vocal, uncanny vocal, and genuine lyrical beauty, “Lord of the Reedy River” is a masterpiece, an unjustly forgotten landmark of late-60s-to-early-70s folk music. 

Its album of origin HMS Donovan was a favorite of Kate Bush, a long-standing Donovan fan. Wavering between slating “Sat in Your Lap” with a cover of either Donovan or Captain Beefheart (the latter of which is mind-boggling to think about), Bush opted to cover the melodic Scotsman after serendipitously watching him perform on a Crystal Gayle programme. The choice was an interesting if unsurprising one — Donovan is as much a part of the British songwriting tradition Bush hails from as Ferry or Bowie or Waters. Yet the form of mystical, childlike ballad exemplified by “Lord of the Reedy River” was something of Bush’s past, an aesthetic that Bush had largely moved past by when she recorded The Kick Inside. This was an unexpected return to her musical roots. 

And yet the song works as a unit of Bush’s Dreaming era. The sensuous, place-centered ethos of “Lord of the Reedy River” is the sort of thing Bush explores throughout her four albums we’ve read about. The mythical aspect of Bush’s work has never departed, nor has her tendency to explore complex subjects through a perspective of searing childlike simplicity (one of the most useful critical tools for exploring the endemic truths of myth). Simplicity isn’t inherently equivalent to reductivism — simple truths have fractal implications. Certainly “Lord of the Reedy River” is both unostentatious and unnerving. Creeping into the senses through such channels of voice and harmony is as erotic as folk songs get.

In keeping with Bush’s explorations of psychological emancipation, “Lord of the Reedy River” fits in with Bush's recent musings on transformations and desire. Who amongst us doesn’t at some point get so horny they turn into a swan? (I’ve read your posts, Kate Bush Forums.) It’s a treatment of childhood fantasy as a realization of deep-rooted desires. 

Bush niftily makes the song hers. She appears to be the only performer on the track, whose only instrumentation appears to be Bush's Fairlight. Bush's vocal is soft and throaty at once — she recorded it by the Townhouse’s disused swimming pool so her voice could “reflect” the water. Perhaps most crucial to the cover’s functionality is Bush’s change of pronouns from third person to first person — “she fell in love with a swan” becomes “I fell in love with a swan.” The result is Kate Bush singing about getting topped by a swan, the sort of surreal psychosexuality that appears in her later snowman-fucking song “Misty.” Nonetheless, Bush's cover makes it feel like Leda's story has come full circle, shaping her narrative into a love story of the sublime and the authorial presence of a woman.

The source material makes this tricky. In many tellings, "Leda and the Swan" exemplifies the predatory behavior of Zeus, the Greek pantheon's patron deity of rape, with Zeus raping Leda. The plot varies by account (a knock-on effect of misogynistic sexual violence's normalization in classical antiquity) and it eventually became a motif of classical eroticism in the Italian Renaissance, when the ostensible lovers were painted by da Vinci and Michelangelo. Yet Leda's part in this myth has been sadly occluded. Greek mythmaking was populated by writers like Ovid and Aeschylus, who weren't averse to telling stories about rape. In the myths, Leda becomes a Spartan queen, but this is occluded by her memorialization as exclusively a rape victim or a plaything of Renaissance artists and Classical playwrights and poets.

Donovan gets the ball rolling on repairing Leda's story by jettisoning its violent misogyny. Bush takes this a step further by stressing the myth's quintessential weirdness and providing the story with a woman to tell it. It’s one of Bush’s most idiosyncratic minor works, and an aberration in her greater career. An undervalued gem of Bush’s B-sides.

(Leitch.) Recorded May/June 1981 at Townhouse Studios, Shepherd’s Bush. Released as B-side to “Sat In Your Lap” on 21 June 1981. Personnel: Bush — vocals, Fairlight(?), production. Launay — engineer. Gray — assistant engineer. Leda and the Swan painted by Michelangelo in 1530. Screencap from If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969, dir. Mel Stuart).

Of Human Bondage Ep 2: Istanbul Not Constantinople (From Russia With Love) feat. Chris O'Leary

Hello all!

Apologies for taking so long to update this show. We've been having some technical difficulties and life difficulties largely caused by lockdown. Such is life (and death I suppose). Dead men record no podcasts with the exception of Chris Cantwell.

Anyway, Of Human Bondage, the podcast where Kit Power, Sam Maleski, and myself watch and analyze the Eon series of James Bond 007 films, has returned. This month we're discussing From Russia With Love, the first true classic Bond movie, for all the polysemic pregnancy of that phrase. And for the first time, we're joined by a guest, the brilliant Chris O'Leary, author of the (ostensibly) now completed and sublime David Bowie blog Pushing Ahead of the Dame, its two-part book adaptation Rebel Rebel and Ashes to Ashes, and currently, the delightfully sprawling blog 64 Quartets, which is exactly what you think it is. He's a great addition to our little entourage, and we expect we'll speak to him again down the line (about a much worse movie, per Chris' request). 

It's a great time. Sam, Kit, and I always walk away from recording sessions feeling elated after laughing and commiserating together for two hours. I can vouch for it being the most fun I've ever had on a podcast as well as some of the most fulfilling creative work I've ever participated in. You should listen to it, sans the content warning letting you know that it's not for you (we're talking about James Bond, after all). See you next month, when Of Human Bondage will return in: Goldfinger!