Shows
Lost Xplorers198 - Be Weird, Survive, and Get Back To the CampfireOn this episode, Kris and JDO talk:
Uneasiness at work, the notion of time passing, teachers moving on, how to create amazing life stories, working on fishing boats in the North Sea.
What is the psychology of someone who chooses to be homeless? How are some people built for adventure and others aren’t?
Japanese cholos, psychotronic imagery, syncretic religions, and abandoned asylums.
“Memory is what’s happening when you’re not forgetting.”
Looking to other world traditions for a way forward. The beauty in imperfections. The importance of aesthetics...2024-06-171h 33
Lost Xplorers197 - Rewilding the Social SphereOn this episode, Kris and JDO break down a lot of the overly-complex cultural conversations to a brutally simple (but not easy) question: why can’t we just be courteous to each other?
We also talk about “rewilding” social situations, keeping things fresh, and not taking people for granted. Bringing back the sacred.
What does it mean to a child when their parents are too involved in their phones to talk to each other, let alone the child?
JDO is given an imaginative challenge as a gender swapped John Wick, and we discover the ul...2024-06-031h 15
Lost Xplorers196 - Crafting Magic w/ Kent AxellWe have a very special guest for this episode of Lost Xplorers. The great Kent Axell, Vegas stage magician and all-around cool guy, joined us to chop it up.
On this episode, we talk about the different types of magic, paranormal phenomena, the writing process of a magic routine, James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, the need for mystery in These Capitalized Times, choosing to believe, and the creative process.
One of the most interesting conversations I've had in a while. Kent's a fascinating dude. If you're in Vegas, check out his show Ghost Stories. You...2024-05-081h 14
Lost Xplorers195 - The CrusonautKris and JDO talk about the strangness of passing time. JDO talks about the biggest viral scam he ever fell for. “Americans love nothing better than to be fooled.” JDO continues his path to becoming a cult leader by channeling Alan Watts. The strangeness of Florida. The World Weekly News as the ultimate American newspaper. What would an American Tory look like?
Philip K. Dick vs. Alan Watts. There’s something in the searching. We are all still children who want to stay up late at night. Speaking in metaphors.
Degrees of compassion. Focused and tactic...2024-04-251h 24
Lost Xplorers194 - Stop Me If I Start Making SenseRed-headed robins, challenged by the weather, and Oklahoma mythology, including serial killers, mass murders, and werewolves. Imaginative subversion of the terrain. Students are not co-teaching. Two-headed chickens. A homeless freestyle rapper named Big Weiner.
And from the notes of Kris Saknussemm:
-Rapper 50 Cent, age 48 and trying desperately to look like a cartoon version of someone my students’ age, says to his 12 million X followers, “It’s almost over,” as in Humanity. This while he’s embroiled in collateral flak from the federal investigations of Puff Diddy for sex trafficking, rape, domestic abuse, drugs, guns—the usual. And w...2024-04-191h 34
Lost Xplorers193 - Travel vs. Tourism Part 3: Education as TourismFrom the notes of Kris Saknussemm...
Travel becomes Tourism. This Sacred - > Profane style degeneration is hardly an isolated phenomenon—in fact it might seem to be a Deep Algorithm. But I think the progenitors of the Tourism Age can to some extent be forgiven. It’s fine to say now that they should’ve extrapolated—seen ahead to what large-scale, organized, budget-minded transportation of people around the world for the purposes of recreation or information, fulfillment of some kind—what that would mean. What impact. Think of Tahiti and Hawaii, Venice and Dubrovnik. Yellowstone National Park.)
T...2024-04-091h 06
Lost Xplorers192 - Travel vs. Tourism Part 2From the notes of Kris Saknussemm...
We said last time that we were going to investigate further how the distinction b/w Travel and Tourism might help us understand what’s happened to the project of national public Education in America. An odd proposition to some perhaps.
But I think this is easily done, although it’s also easy to be very hard on Tourism. Travel can take many forms, but it’s never crass. Tourism can’t escape that tinge, that odor. Looking deeper, Travel suggests an openness to experience, a willingness to take risks, and to conf...2024-04-031h 31
Lost Xplorers191 - Travel vs. TourismFrom the notes of Kris Saknussemm...
Temporary tattoos and the latest Oscar’s night—two more examples of why we’ve entered the Post-Civilization Age. People who say the Oscar’s have been in “decline” for quite a while are the kind of folks who wouldn’t draw much distinction between Ted Bundy returning to have sex with a corpse three days after the murder, or three weeks. I maintain there’s a difference.
Moving along, it’s struck me of late that there’s a relationship between Education (public school system) and Tourism, which often goes unnoticed...2024-03-271h 39
Lost Xplorers190 - Representation vs. RealityFROM THE NOTES OF KRIS SAKNUSSEMM...
If people haven’t read Jung’s work on Flying Saucers (as modern myth), I recommend it. I hadn’t looked at it in some time, but I think it reads even better in this age of social media. He completely skirts the issue of “real” or “imagined,” and focuses on the sheer popularity of the mythology. This is the view I took of cargo cult beliefs when I was a failed young anthropologist in Melanesia. Real/Unreal misses the point if something is deeply vivid at the social level. Jung’s short book mak...2024-03-221h 16
Lost Xplorers189 - Beneath the Neon (w/ Matthew O'brien)Today on the show we have a special guest: author/teacher Matthew O'Brien! We chat about the expat lifestyle, finding love through a language barrier, and the lives of people who live in the flood channels beneath Las Vegas.
It's a great conversation. Matt is a fascinating guy. Here's his bio from his website, Beneath the Neon:
Matthew O’Brien is a writer, editor and teacher/tutor who lived in Las Vegas for twenty years and is currently based in San Salvador, El Salvador. His latest book, Dark Days, Bright Nights: Surviving the Las Vegas Sto...2024-03-121h 29
Lost Xplorers188 - StorylisteningFrom Kris's notes:
I take the view that visual Art begins at the crossroads of eyes and hands. A stick or a bone is good…dust mixed with water. Blood. It’s a start. (With Sculpture, the question seems to me to be how does one escape? The whole world including open ocean is one vast sculpture park.) With music, hands and voice are the original party starters…splashing water. Two rocks would be handy. Maybe a blade of grass or a taut vine. (What’s not a musical instrument?) Work from there. When it comes to Story ho...2024-03-061h 29
Lost Xplorers187 - Giving Each Other LanguageJDO gives his AWP trip. Lots of books sold! Many of JDO’s ideas about how culture is were troubled by how cool everybody was. Is the negativity we hear online…just an online thing?
Is there value in starting a collective rather than pursuing publication by an indie press or traditional publishers?
The distinctiveness of Christopher Walken’s accent…and Kris’s. The disappearance of regional American accents, Korean accents, and British accents.
Super Bowl ads…where is the Latino representation?
The American refusal to grow up is directly related to their fear...2024-02-211h 28
Lost Xplorers186 - Thoughts on WakingSHOW NOTES...
We’ve been talking a lot about Education of late, and the insurmountable problem of getting kids interested in reading if they aren’t already. Two clear thoughts have emerged.
One, I think the tired but all-too-accurate metaphor that American society is an Allegory of High School (jocks, cheerleaders, druggies and criminals in the making, nerds, and disaffected sub-groups, etc.) is becoming more concrete and congruent with each passing year. The only new element I see is the School Shooting. Telling.
But as I was thinking about reading in this context, I realized I...2024-02-131h 23
Lost Xplorers185 - A Meritocracy of MagicSHOW NOTES...
Relaxed, deep sleep is perhaps the single best natural healing agent there is. If we wake slowly, there’s still a profound vibration of nurture, if not immediate refreshment. But pattern is the key. The reliability of satisfying sleep is elemental to its satisfaction.
Consider this then. We live in a time increasingly characterized by sleep problems. Go to the appropriate aisle in any pharmacy. It’s a big aisle. The problem is an epidemic—but not a pandemic. Yet.
But are sleeping problems seeping, and sweeping around the globe?
...2024-02-131h 22
Lost Xplorers184 - The Unspeakable Shadow of the IndividualFROM KRIS SAKNUSSEMM'S NOTES 1/23/24
Hidden Terrain…
What appears to be mythic exhaustion—the Jungian Collective Unconsciousness turned to Dustbowl—may be a socially engineered fiction.
Our psychological / mental health apparatus is dysfunctional and overwhelmed. All our approaches center on social-public behaviors. As several noted sex researchers lament, what incentive do people have to share their private psychic experiences honestly? Is it necessarily obvious that they can do this even they desired to do so? Meanwhile, imagination on almost every day-to-day level is discouraged.
We find ourselves fixated on an aspect...2024-02-051h 23
Lost Xplorers183 - Lava Lamp CreativityFirst day back teaching. Education of today no longer lines up with the needs of young people. What if education was project-based? Outdoors?
Kris recounts his history with his Black Mountain Nemesis. Is there something wrong with the architecture of schools? The impossibility of convincing teenagers who don’t like to read, to read.
What’s going on with the price of sandwiches? Kris’s band for the day: THE LUXURIANTS! Radical wealth excess. A scathing attack on fandom. Is there any real cultural commentary going on anymore?
Stores used to be hubs of und...2024-01-231h 20
Lost Xplorers182 - A Bureaucracy of GhostsSnow on the mountains. Starting to teach Jurassic Park. The tallest novelist of all time. Crichton’s most controversial novel. Was Crichton a good novelist?
Trapped in the bathroom. Is the science ever settled?
Harmful Content. Militant non-musicians. Compliance. Kris vs. The Looping World. Lost malls. Hunting for bookstores in a small town. The worst bookstore in the history of America. Return policies on dirty magazines.
Osmos with the cosmos, or you will be socializing with a bureaucracy of ghosts. Sex positive interrogative counter-scientism societal utopianism.
Indistinguishable news organizations. Garmonbozia pablum. Do...2024-01-161h 29
Lost Xplorers181 - The Memory GameKris and I get in the holiday spirit!
Well, we start off cheery, at least.
Learning how to reuse the internet. Crossing the Drake Passage. The Truth About Dinosaurs. Shout out Jay for putting me on to new ways to surf the web.
Are you using your tools, or are your tools using you?
Robot Santa Carnival of Blood.
Kris has invented The Memory Game. Which game improves memory the most? JDO attempts to rank them.
Intuition vs. memory.
JDO’s imaginative exercise leads to “Poly...2024-01-061h 31
Lost Xplorers180 - Keep Them on the PhoneWe've got a slightly darker episode this time around. But there's lots of valuable insight to be had.
Kris meets a magician named Kent Axell.
Area 15 in Vegas. JDO vents about frustrations with adminstrators. Being a high school teacher is kind of like being Tyler Durden. Learning how to teach The Great Gatsby. The tragic figure of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
A potluck band. Tribal music making. Bighorn sheep at the lake. Is the universe top-down or bottom-up? JDO shares his line art with Kris.
BIG IDEAS! Where are we going in 2024?2023-12-281h 44
Lost Xplorers179 - Why Do We Have to Do Things that We Do Not Want to Do?Look out for another new episode dropping on Saturday!
Words of the year. The etymology of authentic. JDO talks about getting a bunch of birthday cards. Visual novels.
Mother Killed by Shark. Do You Know Where Your Parents Are? The inverse of a viking helmet. Pharrel’s Dudley Do Right hat.
What about all the good things cults have done? The strangeness of time. Every Wednesday is the same Wednesday.
Going full Bartleby. The singularity of the scrivener. Why do we have to do anything? Yielding sovereignty. Imperative. Septic tanks in the...2023-12-221h 35
Lost Xplorers178 - Frozen Vikings Off Route 66Over the next few days, there will be a new episode of Lost Xplorers dropping daily! A Christmas miracle! JDO got a bit behind on the uploading during finals season at school, and it is time to catch up so our official Christmas episode drops around Christmas.
It’s officially Christmas season! Cheddar biscuits. Ultimate endless shrimp. Mcnugget boxes. Gas prices. On-the-street, at-the-drive-thru-menu level economics.
The Undaunted. High lonesome cowboys wrapped in bandages into S&M. The hungry closet. Knowing vs. doing.
JDO rapping Ice Spice in front of a huge audience. Practicing pe...2023-12-151h 20
Lost Xplorers177 - Time Has DiedKris and JDO record a Tascam episode! Walking and thinking. The Accelerants. Atomic age cartoon characters. Milestones vs. mileblurbs.
What has happened to the holiday season reindeer? Undercover teacher.
The Long Kiss Goodnight. JDO recounts his most recent move into an apartment. Mental illness invariably involves time distortion. Personal alignment vs. societal expectations. Blackout time. Stretched-out time. The schizophrenic is touched by God.
Physically representing how old the dinosaurs are. Charles Knight’s dino illustrations. Are dinosaurs fake?
As above so below. Depth as a category. Time running backwards. What does it...2023-12-071h 22
Lost Xplorers176 - The Border Wants the CountryOn this episode, we begin with a bullet-pointed takedown of Neil Degrasse Tyson. Then we talk scientism as an unstable foundation to build knowledge. Philosophy of science. All sciences are not created equal. The price tag of academic credentials.
Bergson’s Principle of Proving a Negative. Shutting down interesting ideas. Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The God of Evidence.
A band made of biofeedback. Human beings as stewards of reality. The miniaturization of knowledge. Hologram vs. jpeg. The bombardment of facts from a complete idiot. Science that isn’t about proving anything.
...2023-11-261h 12
Lost Xplorers175 - Teacher Talk (w/ Lisa Sezate)On this episode of the podcast, we invite our second guest (the first being Ellen) onto the show to discuss education. Lisa Sezate is a lifelong educator working in elementary schools, and she brings a unique look into that side of education.
Kris teaches college, David teaches high school, and Lisa teaches elementary. Between the three of them, they have a wide ranging conversation about the definition of insanity, how to get kids' attention, cell phone policies, and how to explain to students when a career path might not be for them.
Great episode. Thanks...2023-11-141h 26
Lost Xplorers174 - Ceramic Monster Crisis"Courage borne out of Curiosity"
New segments and lowered sumo standards. Unexamined cultural phrases. Engaging with the unknown throughout the day. Giving credence to memory. Dedicated reading rooms and responsible education. Growing up on algorithm curated feeds. Ancient character divides (Ambush vs. Surprise). A self-fulfilling mass psychosis in the form of a band that's more of an urban legend. Being the masks on the wall. The extension of interiority. Grave site obsessions. Following the orthodoxies of belief. Minority Consensus. Outsourced Beliefs vs. Integrated Religions / Profane barriers vs. Sacred Engagement. Distributable Ignorance and the shifting vectors of Progress. Irreducible em...2023-11-041h 43
Lost Xplorers173 - The Missing EmpireA little grumpy luminosity at the dermatologist. Some Lake Mead diving magic. Nominal Strangers and the Agents of Synchronicity. The Doppelzüngig. The sanctity of Good Shelter. Making sense with mondegreens and celebrating ghost stories. A billionaire manufactures thought contagion music with "Spanky Hanky". Seeding culture; paving paths. Crotch Level Wisdom (Romance & Lust). Famous Ghosts and Transparent Presence. Mutating villages in contaminated civilizations. Hideos cliches in the Impotent Empire. The ancestral / animistic voice within the monkey impulse. God as Anthill. Reconceiving where you come from.
Conversational speculation or speculative conversation? In Real-Time Travel. Ancient mollusks of flowing possibility. Leveraging the "Spea...2023-10-271h 34
Lost Xplorers172 - Counterintuitive Line MapsOn today's episode we're getting attention while gaining traction and forming a humble rapport between audiences in a dead age. Having 3500 years of material to sift through. Absorbing news tangentially. Nostalgic lyric-memory messages. Maintaining a harmonic congruence with reality. Being hyped on ambient anxiety. The perverse side of heroism. Surfing waves of momentum. The Raw (sacred) vs. The Cooked (profane). Oblique phrases from the Deep and one of Kris' darkest band contributions yet.
The Line as the ultimate human invention. The sequencing of Thought & Time. Spiral strategies and expanding shamanically. The importance of making multidimensional map-ceremonies. The Dark Swamp Hero. Map...2023-10-191h 40
Lost Xplorers171 - Memory as HallucinationFrom Kris's notes:
I wonder if an analogy for what lies between the private consciousness-structuring agencies we’ve presented as the Memory Palace and the Swamp (the wilderness of All the Things Someone Doesn’t Know) can be found in the Tent Cities and Homeless Camps we see today in almost every American metropolis?
-Memory as species of Hallucination. I don’t see how this position can be entirely dismissed or circumvented.
-Rethinking Heizer’s CITY as an Inverse Memory Palace??
-Begin Xplore of the Counterintuitive…the bizarre, murky notions of Instinct...2023-10-141h 44
Lost Xplorers170 - Elephants in Every RoomGetting in tandem with psychomagnetic rapports and poignant quietudes. A bit of Freudian-Quaalude lounge music with the band HypnoLiquid Motion. Tonal give-aways. Cleopatra Denial Syndrome vs. Resonant Harems. The admission of denial and denial as admission. Being the steward of your inverted Memory Palace. Being in charge of your psychic constructs and heralding your unknown terrain. Balancing Integration and Insinuation. The Allegory of the Theremin. Unmediated Sound Generation and the influence of the Hidden Hand. The impact and influence of our movements and our presence. The adversarial universe hunting of language, and the venn diagram of yourself and the universe be...2023-10-041h 35
Lost Xplorers169 - Outer MinglingThis week, a review of the terrain the Lost Xplorers have crossed and the expedition ahead. Exploring the multiple angles of motifs. Hunting butterflies in strange lands. The decompositions of The Machine Elves. Taper erections. The Unspatialized vs. The Intangible. The prism of masculinity and the hidden melancholy behind behinds. The Alienated Experts. The inescapable reflection of the human shadow. Revisiting the human habitation of the oscillation between The Edge and The Heart. Being more integrated with what we know and what is known, and the variations of beetles.
From there, conceptualizing individuals as civilizations and the distance between the ind...2023-09-271h 29
Lost Xplorers168 - Chewing NightfishOn today's episode we begin with an exorcism of distraction and nonsense while getting in motion with The Spheres. Then doing some down home divinity exams while learning to occupy vacancies during a deficit. From there it's on to reforming demoralized educators, going back to The Schoolhouse, and ironing out some spiritual deformities in The Educationists, Homoneurotic Honky Tonk, and moving within Subterranean Grammars.
Returning to The Swamp vs. Memory Palace and the notion of the music behind the meaning of language. Intimacy as a metric. Engaging with the Mysterious Meeting Grounds of Convergence. Rehaunting ourselves against the virtuality of the...2023-09-211h 49
Lost Xplorers167 - Swamp of the Unknown CategoryFortean verifications and odd news. Vanishing Bigfoot Hunters in the Outlands. Being energized through the counterintuitive. The Sick Passenger Dilemma. Yellow Bird Bait. The Stage vs. The Class (social bandwidth). Praising good intellect and having an assertive teaching ethic. After that The Raunchettes shock the Woke Nation in an inverted field of diluted spectra.
Wading in the Swamp of the Unknown. Acres of Uncontrolled Psychic Ant Territory. Dynamic Memory Neighborhoods. Inhabiting archetypal holism. Preserving exploration, celebrating interrogation. Jungle Badlang fence hopping during a foggy night. Pursuing mysteries in Forbidden Zones. Sustained Curiosity. Retrieving a fly from the Frog Man. Developing fo...2023-09-121h 33
Lost Xplorers166 - Amphibious Pancake WrestlingOn this episode we begin with Peripheral People surviving a Live Event Exploration. Needing burly men to build stages. The "Missing" at Large. Unassuming students and augmented plagiarism. Deprogramming epileptic willpower. The Role of Ministers. Following the vibrational grooves. Resurging secret histories in the New Dark Age. The Serpent Jaguar Priests. Bypassing semantics with multi-media communications. Exercising Dream and Memory to change your life. Running into Ponderosa Pine lessons. Getting unstuck from the floor. Sharing an ensemble of strangeness.
Then we move on to clear scenarios being the key to good communication. The Tempo of Psychic Metabolism. We go further int...2023-09-051h 44
Lost Xplorers165 - Immutable Rhythms in the Immolated AlexandriaIn this episode we talk about Satan's honor and disheartened colleagues who retreat into the dark. Trading in the general malaise of critical thinking and flexibility of mind with strict psychic discipline and defense. The LX Mission Statement: "look to the fun". Triangulating problems, personalities, and proximity. The physicality of writing and performance. Erasing introversion. The Goal of Language. How your words sound through someone else's mouth. Grammar vs. Elocution. Having the courage to share. The Personal Dynamics of making noise with each other. Then we're back to bands with some genitally mutilated screech music.
Being honored by equal magic. Co...2023-08-281h 29
Lost Xplorers164 - The Rigged Game of HumanityWhat is the value of The Tunnel?
In this episode we talk about strange summer winds steering us back to shore. The Osborne Curriculum (always have something to do). Learning to trust what you Herd. Stage managing the depths of downtime prep. The confidence of Method (performing to standard). Wincing at flaming pedagogies. A game where you learn as you flee. Working through Decisiveness and Decision.
Barbie vs. Oppenheimer (The Barbenheimer Phenomena). Having poor taste toward atrocities. Celebrated Brutality. Vibing with the Sirens. The facade of the Nuclear Dolls. Sifting through the Emblematic Rubble. The plastic significance of Mattel Omens. The...2023-08-191h 30
Lost Xplorers163 - The Brain Condom ConundrumMirage = Message / Noise = Signal
In this episode we talk about disappointing thunderstorms and dog-men transformations. Self-righteous conundrums. Archonic Co-Option. "Becoming Animal" vs. Artificial Furry Movements. William James recording at the Lyceum of the 21st Century. Grammar Warriors. The Totemic Attraction of Evil Antlers. Instead of a band, Kris provides us with his own Roguelike game.
Effective education and curiosity as the cure for ignorance. Flawed Xplanations. Conversational speech to convey information. Trusting your ear to suss out content vs. music. Strange neighbor desert aphorisms. Cultural balance between traditionalism and wokism. The Superficial Intelligence Conundrum. Image as Substance. Oblique Troubleshooting. The Com...2023-08-131h 43
Lost Xplorers162 - Magnetic TexturesWe have a bit of an ayahuasca purge on this episode. The past three years left a bad taste in JDO's mouth, and he articulates what exactly bothered him so much about people's response to global crisis. Next time, we get fun and positive as a palate cleanser, but this one felt necessary at the time to get all the poison out. We can move on from here.
In this episode, we talk:
What are you manipulating? What are you manipulated by?
We talk about High Strangeness in high temperatures. Unexpected pest control community service. Automated negligence. Survival of the San...2023-08-031h 47
Lost Xplorers161 - Night Vision Moments (The Superfice)How you spend your time is how you live your life.
Today we talk administrative nonsense during system collapse. Rediscovering an old cache of photos. Hometown house hunting (the seller-buyer synchronicity). Reading between the signs. Lawn care character assessments. A reverse car chase leading to a door that does not open.
Phantom story arcs. Anticipating "The Moment." The sacredness of sniffing out Dog Fear. Gus projects a new mom.
"Don't listen to the worried." Life stage segues. "The Gods only listen to the horns."
Dark Rave Doppler Music. Bloated tomes. Post-Ballardian speculative fiction. Bleeding for your words. Being alert to paran...2023-07-261h 49
Lost Xplorers160 - The Thin WireA sequence of photographs suggests all the photographs missing from the sequence.
What does it mean when one person in a relationship takes all the photos?
When is a key not a key?
On this episode, we talk:
Surviving the heat, big horn sheep, snake invasion, roadrunners, Tim Powers novels, the Tarantella, the Theatre Royale of Castlemaine, the Radical Nudist Psychedelic Jug Band Band, public nudity, nude Starbucks, codpieces, Eldridge Cleaver, cognitive dissonance, the autonomous instinctive animal network within humans, mowing the lawn late at night, documenting subjectivity objectively, p...2023-07-212h 05
Lost Xplorers159 - Lasers on the PrairieLaser on the Prairie
Is a life made up of a series of images? Which images do we choose? Do you begin to fade if there are no images of you?
Heat wave, 4th of July weekend recap, doing things when you want to, Dogs Per Minute, bonelessness, the word “sploot,” hauntological music, modern rock music, the Gorillaz, the confusion and sorrow of the times, men and women, leaving your keys in your car, basing your life on the best possible outcomes, Zeno of Elea, Parmenides, the slaving meat wheel, memory’s dependence on images, photog...2023-07-141h 44
Lost Xplorers158 - The Mind of the PhotographAre aesthetics a kind of philosophy? What is the most important photo of all time?
Kris’s birthday celebration, shoutout to Jay Springett, starting the day off right, The Miracle Morning, Gus encounters a passed-out junkie, Pat Murphy’s Points of Departure, (JDO incorrectly states that Tea with the Black Dragon won the 1984 PKD award; it was actually The Anubis Gates; TWTBD was the runner-up), Thomas Merton, Gary Snyder’s The Real Work, calamities that lead to epiphany, (the book JDO is trying to remember is Honest to God by John Robinson), Ralph Eugene Meatyard, every photograph is a s...2023-07-061h 41
Lost Xplorers157 - Ghosts in Machines Working Ghostly Machines to Not Work At All“Emblematic congruence” refers to how well a person represents the culture from which they grow. This leads to some interesting questions: is your culture strong enough to weight you with this cargo?
What creates squalor in a neighborhood? Can architecture be embellished and still squalid?
On this episode, we talk:
UFOs when the sun goes down, 4am wake-up time, informal meditation, not waking up in the machine, optimized sleep patterns, keeping the phone away from sleep, ratios of confidence to confusion, humans as emblems of their cultures, instilling cultural artefacts, embracing the earth spir...2023-06-281h 46
Lost Xplorers156 - Deus AbsconditusOn this episode, Kris and I develop ideas as to how to break down prepositional distance, and how to frame an approach to writing and life. What does the term “structural” even mean? What is structure?
Art exhibit retrospective, coming home, spaceship homes, how much money it would take to get Kris to live in Seattle, running away from home, returning to family, moving all the time, Aphex Twin’s head, creating a Shire, Rumble Strip, sex in a gas station, simple language, love and fear, The Implicate Order, holographic universe, what if Einstein had to go viral...2023-06-211h 48
Lost Xplorers155 - Phantom Realities (Soul or Simulation?)Kris and I begin this conversation by talking about the simulation of photography, the predictive nature of it, and move into a talk about appreciation for sentence- or paragraph-level writing, and how to perhaps sell that love to lure readers in.
We talk:
Seattle masks, Eternal Jing, the connection between Zanesville and Altered Carbon, double binds, Bateson’s Pyramid, melody smother, goodbye courage, how to have a more decisive mind, the fear of saying something bold, the vampire/zombie hybrid, totemic dreams, the strangely predictive nature of photography, Project Origin, cybernetics, creating simulations of the se...2023-06-071h 42
Lost Xplorers154 - The Eyes of SeattleOn this episode, Kris and David talk about the out of control homeless problem in America.
Notes:
Reporting live from a closet, museums and graveyards, different kinds of benches, crow attack, holding onto losses in the past, catfish girlfriends, radical agreement, living cliches, everything wants to be found, learning how to speak extemporaneously, sore necks, giant pimps, the unsexiness of Seattle, salmon everywhere, genuine diversity, tech money, John Mellencamp, perfect optics, fixing homelessness, are cities making people sick?, the conspiracy of disappearing the dead, decriminalizing shoplifting, $90 candy bars, the importance of canning, the focus on...2023-05-302h 14
Lost Xplorers153 - Where Do Thoughts Come From?
On this episode, Kris and David debrief each other on Kris’s art show and David’s three-day trip to Las Vegas.
Stick to the end of the show to hear David fall down a rabbit hole over where his thoughts are coming from.
Dad fitness, devouring sound, Radiohead at 800% slower, art as a mode, being too real to live, plague masks, time shamans, the size of Kris’s mind, cosmic vs. astronomical, ferret cage synchronicity, qualia, area unexplored because of ghosts, ACE car rental rant, the Neon Museum, crackhead soap opera, Area 15, chicken...2023-05-232h 10
Lost Xplorers152 - Photography is a Relic of the FutureOn this episode, we talk about the nature of time, and the repeating nature of certain types of people throughout history.
Other topics discussed:
Taking a handsaw to branches, feeling good after exercise, to-do lists, following through on tasks, Heavy Prowl Area, hot car music, having faith in the essential strangeness of life, objects in the mirror, thought generator, JDO recounts his family tree, Thomas Wolfe’s Of Time and the River, the repeating nature of human types, past lives, the disappearance of peoples, how do human patterns repeat?, pinhole cameras, peculiar geometry, the book of...2023-05-151h 58
Lost Xplorers151 - The Devouring MirrorKris and I have an in-depth discussion about run-down American towns.
Notes:
Kris gives a recap of his installation setup, how to run a self-publishing business, where the time goes when you’re parenting, anthills, what you can measure is what you can’t measure, inscape and instress, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Thin, Gently Scorched Metal, leaving a part of yourself behind in hotel rooms, a reason for art outside of communication, the Booty Warrior, David shows Kris a puppet, is poverty a result of degeneration, or a failure to launch?, Tortilla Flat, what causes a town...2023-05-081h 52
Lost Xplorers150 - The Breakdown between Metaphor and OriginThis begins our discussion on the introduction of photography, and how it changed the world.
On this episode, we talk:
Our reflections on the Lost Xplorers journey, doing what energizes you, expressions of gratitude, unknown callers, the difficulty of procrastination, beds of nails, never leaving well enough alone, Robert Loewy, one person having a huge effect, iron horses, the beginning of modernity, do photographs steal souls?, Tom Bombadil, self-explaining grammars, not understanding money, the ball bearing problem, the acceleration of the symbolic, things that we watch, thaumaturgy, what was lost with the invention of photography...2023-05-011h 47
Lost Xplorers149 - Electric KnowingOn this episode, Kris and David close out their architecture series.
We talk:
Making documentaries, three years of Lost Xplorers, almost good at podcasts after 400 episodes, beginner’s mind, areas unexplored due to ants, constructing unknown areas in the mind, defense mechanisms against derangement, a go master vs. a computer, doing everything wrong, practicing thinking together, a sea change of strangeness, rappers who don’t speak, anarchists of mind, thinking hard vs. thinking far, fans running too hot, making peace with hierarchies, suspicion of disorder, houses as machines for living, the children of the machine, the...2023-04-241h 45
Lost Xplorers148 - What’s in the Lagoon in the Tunnel of Love?On this episode, we're going to Disneyland!!!!
We talk about:
Post-cultural society, hornswoggle consumerism, OCD update, self-imposed crutch, bad job interview, explaining what I do, long silences, businesses are vampires, creating courses, Harry Stack Sullivan, tardigrades, anxiety as a choice, idiosyncrasies as defense mechanisms, going into other people’s dreams, David throws Kris for a loop, adult Disney fans, Disney’s cryogenically frozen head, Sam Cooke’s 24-hour access, the connection between Disney and J. Edgar Hoover, trapped on It’s a Small World, the Smellitizer, giant Mickey Mouse effigy, the peerless theme park, arrested developm...2023-04-172h 01
Lost Xplorers147 - Hunting the Soul of AmericaOn this episode, we talk:
Change of scenery, 60-mph winds, boating safety, dust storms, friendship resonance, distance vision, The Control Group, algorithms of destruction, cyborg rights, feminine energy, getting out of the house, scaring yourself, the hardest time zone to find, novelty and pattern, theme parks built on the corpse of the parks, sacred spaces, the home as earthship, mosques, fractal patterns, keeping the eyes moving, obsessed with the Islamic State theme song, Don Cherry, evensong, ostentatious movie theaters, haus tambarans, the Church in the Rock, crocodile scarification, storytelling masks, the Guild Navigator, transcendental time awareness, dropping...2023-04-102h 07
Lost Xplorers146 - The Time ShelterOn this episode, we talk about:
Old Route 66, A&W, psychic judo, push reel mowers, nice weather, mariachi bands, phobophobia, Golden Guide collections, a pitch for the Principles of Design by Manfred Maier, occult books, John Woo movies, varying degrees of nonlocal connections to the past, Kris’s text message, sharing homes, architecture’s relation to human needs, being bored, are all buildings “architecture”?, subjectivity vs. objectivity in perceptions of buildings, Notre Dame sync, how would you modify your house, the storm shelter industrial complex, the occult mathematics in the walls, geodesic domes in Oklahoma City, space age opti...2023-04-032h 18
Lost Xplorers145 - Brutalism, Cell Phone Buildings, and Anteaters: Every Idea Has Its TimeOn this episode, Kris and I nerd out on different forms of architecture, and develop a system for sharing syncs with strangers.
We talk about:
Hoodies vs. fleeces, Jiffy Lube play, W-H-I-T-E privilege, Tom Wolfe's refrigerator writing, scriptedness has taken hold, QUACK!!!, stunt doubles, ricochet harmonics, Burmese pythons, the Counting Man with the clothespin hands, basic structural grammar, gimmick buildings, purple houses, the gimmick of no gimmick, actually having to live in a space, the Lost City Museum, tic-tac-toe heads, semantics precedes perception, the welcome ambush, wild surmise, architecture defining the age, the quantum nature...2023-03-272h 23
Lost Xplorers144 - Extinguishing the FlameToday we talk about invisible architecture, how buildings can define time, and holding ideas loosely.
I wrote these notes while scrubbing my floor on my hands and knees. It was a satisfying experience. As I write this, my son is banging on the glass of the fireplace. I told him to stop. He doesn’t look happy about that.
Notes:
Slapstick double helix, old school skater style, aesthetics as a manifestation of harmony, defining "woke," Hostile Witness, embracing the edge, needing a reminder, weapon salve as longitudinal measurement, Max Ernst's father's tree, building in...2023-03-202h 24
Lost Xplorers143 - The Pinball Machine Will Tilt, and the Ears Will BleedWe’re making rebuses and diving deeply into our own psychology. What happens when we shift our dichotomy from materialist vs. mystic to known vs. unknown. What happens if you become comfortable with potentially doing things wrong? Is that how to break through?
Hard, wet and wild, the biker messiah, fun photo sessions, feelings yakuza, thrashing the bathroom, Disabled Princess, enormous butt plugs, self-amputees, pornography vs. horror, is horror just a container for our worst impulses?, going along to get along, reading auras, dervishes, George Lucas, Analog Sea notebooks, Rotring 800, David Origin Story, “slow is smooth and smoo...2023-03-132h 35
Lost Xplorers142 - The MomentariansOn this episode, Kris and JDO continue their discussion of architecture.
Subjects include:
DIY instrument building, tornado update, Paul Winter Consort group, Woody Harrelson’s dad, Stephen Colbert, psychedelic frog fish, a dog watching TV, when did the Momentarians arrive?, sonic decay, disappearing space contingent on space that is there, spacial issues as cultural issues, design decisions, temporary buildings, a pueblo snow globe, and leaving the theremin on.
2023-03-052h 05
Lost Xplorers141 - Reverse PleasantvilleThis episode kicks off Kris and JDO's segue into talking about architecture! We've been looking forward to this one for a long time.
Little people out of work, cleaning up language, Roald Dahl's makeover, flattening nuanced curves, addition to text, Kris writes a children's books about a hippopotamus,, lines in the sand, the best of intentions (and a little bit of mental illness), making books spineless, editing the Autobiography of Malcolm X, the rise of mental illness, is this all fake?, kayfabe, the ultimate devouring television, Modern Weiner, the end of midi, Looshaus, remembrance of the past...2023-02-262h 34
Lost Xplorers140 - Super Bowl DebriefOn this episode, Kris and I talk:
California condors, witnessing the beginning of semantic architecture, Cadillac ad campaigns, the alarming balance of society, the communal feeling of watching football, the black national anthem, sports as a safe space to argue, celebrating interracial community, Super Bowl commercials, aggressively antagonistic terrain, coach wars, and an imaginative challenge that finds David telling a tale of an outsider artist with a goopy alien intelligence giving his art a life of its own.
There's also book talk at the end!
2023-02-192h 37
Lost Xplorers139 - The AccelerationistOn this episode, we go deep into the world of social media. JDO is feeling burnt out on the whole thing, the pervasive feeling of the third man in the woods looming over every aspect of it. What is a Jellyfish Word? What does it mean to be reduced to a talking head spouting the same opinions we all see a hundred and fifty times a day?
Kris tasks JDO with coming up with a pitch for a movie about a Blade Runner who hunts down MK Ultra spawn.
The whole conversation is fantastic. We're...2023-02-112h 35
Lost Xplorers138 - Clock Faces Upon Which Deep Syntax DependsOne of my favorite episodes yet. On this one, we talk timestreaming, experiencing art together, sloganeering as a replacement for the unison of cultural ritual, JW Dunne, Andrew Sims' Symptoms of the Mind, fixing people's relationship to time, the schizophrenic experience, TV's ability to compress time, Alexis de Tocqueville, and what is real.
Imaginative challenge = design a new clock.
This one is good.
2023-02-032h 05
Lost Xplorers137 - A Fairy Tale, As It Was in the BeginningOn this episode, Kris and I continue our discussion of time. He brings two quotes for analysis:
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once." - John Wheeler
"In time, history must become a fairy tale, so that it might become what it was in the beginning." - Novalis
Wordsworth as proto-hiphop and the oscillation of time's contraction and dilation.
Thrash burlesque of The Obscene Toys, the importance of starting to live, and a new hummingbird shade of blue. Kris tasks me with a storytelling challenge: a...2023-01-282h 32
Lost Xplorers136 - A Rush of Thought with No ActionWhat is time? What happened when the clock was invented. Kepler says implicitly that the discovery of the mechanized nature of the universe denied the existence of God. This has been repeated and expanded upon since.
What happens to time when you can travel through time zones in a matter of hours? What happened in 1365?
On this episode, we talk about Kepler's dream, the Gutenberg Galaxy, the experience of chemical sensations without their corresponding causes, evil children, brainwashing cuttlefish, and encounters with strange people in pools and gas stations.
2023-01-212h 28
Lost Xplorers135 - Forest Fire On Potato RoadDiscussion of the New Paradigm: the advent of photography, social/media temporality, rows of Laura Palmer corpses in bikinis. What does slowed-down dialogue do to the tempo of time we're forced to endure.
We revisit the concept of the Third Man in the Woods, this time as a malevolent entity that thrives on gossip and innuendo, a kind of Thing That is Watching at all times. Are there tools to combat that?
The Bone Girls marching band juxtaposes radical individuality with the rigidity of formation. We visit a futuristic Las Vegas where a giant inclusivity...2023-01-121h 49
Lost Xplorers134 - Spirits Rising Up Out of Turned-Over EarthThere's a cow in a bog and a savage attack on a train platform. A man's face is eaten and Jeremy Renner ends up under a snowplow. Is it possible to sizzle at 56? The news is not what's supposed to happen, and in this episode we wonder about the intersection of accidents and getting ready. Kris tasks David with beginning to develop a triadic harmonic offshoot of design and evolution, individual and unique, repetition and singularity.
We supply tools for robust synoptic understanding, making fields of study your own, finding the shadow outlines of questions, and injecting...2023-01-052h 25
Lost Xplorers133 - The Year in Review 2022Happy New Year!
On this episode, Kris and I talk about:
Fake celebrity deaths, developing human-like pig livers, normalization of AI, the human element of AI art, medium as membrane, green screen decisions, fear of nuclear war, the shifting war parties, microgenerations, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, who runs the world?, meta shadow puppets, pervasive homelessness, how having a kid changes your perspective, collective/communal living vs. ease of existence, hygge, Vikings, repetition of words, the Biden laptop, conversion of thought leaders, Kanye West, the University of Idaho murders, and new discoveries at the Nazca...2023-01-013h 19
Lost Xplorers132 - The Embodiment of ChristmasThis conversation continues our discussion of disembodiment, focusing on the story of Christmas and some of the major ideas in Christianity in general. How do we think with the story of a god embodying himself in the form of a helpless child, and eventually a tortured and executed man?
JDO is in a much better mood for this episode, which includes a fun creative challenge to invent a scenario in which one of the three wise men is a Terminator-style assassin in disguise.
2022-12-221h 36
Lost Xplorers131 - The Disembodiment of the SocialOn this episode, JDO shows up to the program with a grumpy attitude. It melts away quickly as he and Kris discuss the disembodiment experience through online discourse. As we become more "social," the individual gives way to the group. Instead of cultivating an inner world that is shaped by principles and history and thought, we turn that over to whatever the group thinks at the time. And when you have a small and unexamined inner life, strangely, you begin to become "too honest" with the world, exposing parts of your personality that should probably be left private.
2022-12-151h 39
Lost Xplorers130 - May You Live in Uninteresting TimesOn this episode, JDO presents an experiment involving deep fakes. We talk about not always being the audience, not living in interesting times, and living in the present. Alan Watts was fond of saying that wanting a positive experience is in itself a negative experience. So what does it mean to radically accept where you are? What does it mean to only have thirty-six summers left? We also talk repurposing cliché, and JDO is tasked by Kris with writing a woke Christmas rap. Seriously.
2022-12-081h 39
Lost Xplorers129 - Melody is Music You Can Hear When You’re Not ListeningOn this episode, Kris and I discuss the current state of the writing world. Spurred on by an NPR article in which all the books look the same, we touch on Kris's move into non-fiction, philosophy, visual art, and music. Does the passed-down structure of novels create an "assumption of frames" that make the whole medium appear dull? What are some ways to break out of this?
We also discuss the Word of the Year, writing tips, and the first object printed by a 3D printer.
2022-12-012h 09
Lost Xplorers128 - Media Hygiene Best PracticesOn this episode, I ask Kris some important questions about sense making and storytelling. Considering all of the information out there, how does a person learn what's important and what isn't? How do we build a structure of reality in which we can exist in a healthy way?
Kris recounts an experiment with sound, a dream of killer plants and swords, and the importance of remembering 11/22.
2022-11-231h 33
Lost Xplorers127 - The Writers’ Room: HauntidsKris and I get together to work out a "pilot episode" for a non-existent television show. Kris brings the concept this time: Hauntids is an X-Files, paranoid PKD thriller story about a girl in a hyper progressive future who begins to see a world that those around her can't. Unless, of course, she's just going crazy.
2022-11-161h 38
Lost Xplorers126 - A Pirate of Exquisite MindToday on the show we talk about William Dampier, a pirate turned ship captain turned pirate again. Dampier headed the first official Royal Navy mission to collect flora and fauna from distant lands. Along the way he gifted the English language hundreds of new words, recipes, and understanding of winds, currents, and sailing.
But he also committed lots and lots of crime along the way. How do we tangle with complicated legacies such as this? Is there a way to become pirates in our own minds, with our own incomplete maps?
Note: my audio got...2022-11-092h 10
Lost Xplorers125 - More Like GuidelinesOn this episode, Kris and I begin our discussion on PIRACY! What caused the pirate craze in the 17th century? Is there a way to incorporate this spirit Ito your day-to-day? What did the pirate utopias of the past teach us? Is this a mindset?
2022-11-032h 05
Lost Xplorers124 - Harvesting a Dead Man’s BrainKris and I continue our discussion about imaginary worlds by looking into the work of Daniel Defoe, with a particular focus on Moll Flanders and his Imaginary Voyages to the Moon. Did Defoe predict the invention of virtual reality? We discuss the importance of satire as a method of observing and reporting, a "descriptive" practice rather than a "prescriptive" one. This morphs into a great discussion about writing and storytelling. What's the difference between "telling a story" and "building a narrative"?
For the creative challenge, David is tasked with using a blind eel to navigate the web of...2022-10-271h 55
Lost Xplorers123 - A Clock is a Spider Missing Some LegsFor part two of our discussion of Michael Heizer's 'City,' Kris asks the question: what makes a city a city? Is the city's purpose tied into the "feel" of it? Are people the main component, or are cities built first, with the intention of herding people around? This is a great critique of Heizer's massive project, the first of its kind that I've ever seen. We also talk the origins of "beaver" as a euphemism, the City Museum of St. Louis, the credo of the Space Family Robinson, and "antonym therapy." David is tasked with taking us on...2022-10-191h 55
Lost Xplorers122 - A Tour of Michael Heizer’s ’City’Big episode today folks! Kris got to take a tour of the new Michael Heizer project 'City.' I start off by telling him about a trip I took to an estate sale (complete with a creepy "Christmas room") and from there we move into an absolutely fascinating look at this project 50 years in the making. We talk about accessibility of art, anticipation of experience, obsessive outsider artists, and exotic aircraft over Area 51. This one is a banger!
2022-10-121h 59
Lost Xplorers121 - A Voyage to the MoonOn this episode, we talk writing routines, positive and negative nodes of discourse, imaginary worlds, psychoarchaeology, utilizing A Voyage to the Moon to map the psyche of thinkers of the path, and perhaps to rewrite our own internal maps. Kris tasks David with developing a play about Darwin's theory of evolution...to be put on by a sixth-grade class.
Authors who set out visions of the Moon and other worlds pre-modernity:
Plutarch
Cicero
Lucian
Wilkins
Godwin
Defoe
de Bergerac
Dante
2022-10-061h 30
Lost Xplorers120 - Attack of the Purple CrabsOn this episode, Kris relates an amazing story about riding out a hurricane on the Isle of Pines and doing battle with mice, ants, and crabs. We then talk about the imaginary as a necessary component of the material, The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish (the first work of science fiction by a woman, 1666), lost casinos, dreams of return, and the logical aspects of perception.
2022-09-281h 24
Lost Xplorers119 - Atlantis as SigilOn this episode, Kris and I discuss the deeper mythological meaning of Atlantis. Kris weaves together Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Burroughs, and the story of Fordlândia to interrogate why this story holds such power. What if Atlantis was a sigil?
2022-09-211h 11
Lost Xplorers118 - The Road to AtlantisWhat happens when a point becomes a line?, the Atlantean Halls of Record, Atlantis as a Greek cautionary tale, the difference between a lost civilization and a lost tribe, the importance of ruins, the truth of Atlantis, the need for speculation, afrofuturism, the different thought processes between tribes and civilizations, and mapmaking.
Lots of Gus noise in this one! It was quite the experience.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Atlantis Disney movie
Atlantis games
The Maracot Deep
Kull of Atlantis
Plato’s Timaeus and...2022-09-141h 24
Lost Xplorers117 - One Measures a Circle, Beginning AnywhereWelcome to the 117th episode of No Country...or the 1st episode of "Lost Xplorers." The "E" has gone missing. Kris and I were chatting on the phone about a new book that he's working on called The Lost Xplorer's Handbook. That started lighting up parts of my brain. I've recently been getting back into esoteric stuff, archaeology, history, and anthropology, and I wondered, "What if we changed the name of the podcast, redirected our focus a bit?"
We discuss the recent change in this episode. I think you'll hear the enthusiasm. Next week we start talking a...2022-09-071h 22
Lost Xplorers116 - Fabian and the Sun KingOn this episode, we discuss:
Nap: Interrupted, what would happen if you were shrunk to the size of an ant, the rise of the Sophists, the possibility of knowledge, the value of speculation, believing everything, thought-terminating clichés, rudeness, and how not being a dick is the most important goal in this day and age.
Notes:
Harold Budd
The Voyage of the Beagle
"Letter Concerning the Fire on the "Helen" by Alfred Russel Wallace
2022-08-311h 40
Lost Xplorers115 - Land Art and the ”City”One of my favorite episodes, now. In this episode, Kris and I take Michael Heizer's recently-completed fifty-year art/architecture project "City" as a frame to talk about collaboration, ego, atomization, and communitarianism.
Notes:
Michael Heizer
Land Art Movement
Robert Smithson
Michael Govan
Basin and Range National Monument
James Turrell
Final Hot Desert
Roden crater
Christo
Florence Goodenough's "Draw a Person" test
2022-08-251h 50
Lost Xplorers114 - To Remain Whole and Share Across TimeOn this episode, we talk the realm of angels and saints, visits from the dead, baby DJs, not complaining, externalizing thought, Giordano Bruno, books as sacred objects, the roots of the word “tradition,” the humors, order and secrecy, the importance of worlding, symmetry, and bonds.
Henry Corbin - The History of Islamic Philosophy
James Hillman - The Dream and the Underworld
John Searle’s Chinese room
Llullian wheel
Vovelles
2022-08-171h 23
Lost Xplorers113 - Value and MoneyOn this episode, we talk about covid recovery, finding your focus, monetization, and how that idea relates to value and values. We also have an imaginative challenge about artworks conversing, and a dream of a public toilet.
David Blaine
James Nestor
The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe
2022-08-101h 32
Lost Xplorers112 - Square Dancing in the Meramec CavernsSorry for the delay on this one. As we talk about in this episode, I've been a bit under the weather. On this episode, we talk about icons and heritage, and whether or not our youngest generations have any connection to time and history. Can we still have devotional practices when everyone has become atomized?
2022-08-051h 53
Lost Xplorers111 - For the RecordWhat does it mean to say that something is "on the record"? Who's keeping this record? Kris and I talk about moving away from community, becoming a stranger to old friends, and developing tribes instead. It's good to be a part of a tribe...not so much a mob. Also, David is tasked with making a billionaire believe that he lives in 1988.
2022-07-271h 20
Lost Xplorers110 - In the Library of LibrariesOn this episode, Kris and I continue our discussion of mental maps. We're getting really close to something here
Sorry for the lateness, my cord broke on this one.
TOO MANY MIKES.
2022-07-251h 20
Lost Xplorers109 - MattangOn this episode, Kris and I discuss Marshall Islands stick charts (known as Mattang), and their relation to the maps we know and (no longer know how to) use. How do we construct maps in our minds? What is their relation to the territory? When is it good to trust a guide?
Kris tasks me with inventing a scenario involving deals, and we tell each other our dreams. (Giant Hyenas!)
2022-07-131h 21
Lost Xplorers107 - The Jukebox on the Other Side of the SunOn this episode, Kris and I talk Roe v. Wade, gun control, big government vs. small, mutual aid societies, plumb bob 9/11, dogs with explosive diarrhea, non sequiturs, and a dream poem.
Notes:
Leonora Carrington
Carlos Mérida
Baker Hotel
T.R.M. Howard
Pootie Tang
2022-06-291h 08
Lost Xplorers106 - My Own Private DerangementOr, The Puppeteer Adjudicators
Kris and I talk de-normalization, adding color to the wardrobe, and mitigating OCD. We then address our two “derangement syndromes,” ie the cultural debates that trigger us: COVID-19 and wokeness in academia. How do we inoculate ourselves against this allergic reaction to beliefs that we find distasteful? How do we just get on with the process of living?
Should values follow from skills?
Notes:
Jonas Salk
Heather Mac Donald
John McWhorter
Wilfred Reilly
Indonesian shadow puppets
The Museu...2022-06-221h 21
Lost Xplorers105 - Living in the PastOn this episode, Kris and I recap the strange incident of the "lost" episode. Last week, we had a real banger recorded...but something had other plans.
We go on to discuss this essay by The Convivial Society, "We are Not Living in a Simulation, We are Living in the Past." Is it accurate to say that the transparent, false nature of the internet is a function of it being a large archive? Can you be in the present while constantly reinterpreting the past? What does that even look like?
I am tasked with inventing...2022-06-1555 min
Lost Xplorers104 - The Chair of OblivionAlternate title: Turn Your Mirrors to the Wall in the House of the New Dead
How do we reconcile our beliefs with stark reality? Why does this keep happening? On this episode, Kris and I discuss the sacredness of hobbies, young men gone wrong, incel gamers, car culture, private grieving, the pornography of the feed, and how art can act as a cure for the mind-melting wide-eyed Clockwork Orange-style hypnosis.
Finite and Infinite Games
Tristram Shandy
The Idiot
2022-06-011h 20Lost Xplorers103 - The Jury of the Dead Within UsWe talk about the concept of wantok, the ability to hold two thoughts at once, engaging with ideas that you don't agree with, Christopher Hitchens, Jordan Peterson Derangement Syndrome, drug trips as ways to grapple with reality, cinema's unique ability to communicate psychedelic experience, and the necessity of love and hate in creating a public figure.
The Trip
Head
The Northman
Wolfman Jack
2022-05-301h 13
Lost Xplorers102 - You Can’t Normalize ComplexityOn this episode, Kris and I talk about the recent Roe v. Wade controversy. It leads to a reinvigorating idea about the ability to hold two thoughts at the same time. What ways can we look to indigenous thought styles to maintain (in)coherence?
2022-05-251h 15
Lost Xplorers101 - SlogansOn this episode, Kris and I ponder the various types of clothing people wear, constant messaging, and developing a Sherlock Holmes-style observational ability.
2022-05-251h 19
Lost Xplorers100 - Integration vs. ImpositionOn this episode, Kris and I discuss new directions for the show, the difference between integration and imposition, and Kris relates a dream where an action figure is stuck in his chest.
2022-05-251h 06
Lost Xplorers99 - The Rewind ButtonOn this episode, Kris and I talk about the ability to pause and rewind, filling in your own blanks, and psychosomatic illness. Kris tasks me with developing three intro questions for a psychological examination.
2022-05-251h 17
Lost Xplorers98 - HeroesKris recounts a disturbing conversation, and we discuss the value of having heroes. What does a hero look like? He also gives me the task of elaborating on a high-concept idea about tattoos. It's Gus's birthday today! The young man is one. Hope you are all doing well.
2022-05-251h 27