Shows
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsLove Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 3)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Ancient Greece’s most notorious battle of the sexes, and Euripides’ rumination on the question of whether the Athenian ideals of rationality and moderation sufficiently honor the instinctual side of human nature.
Upcoming Episodes: “A New Leaf” (Elaine May), “Whoso List to Hunt” and “They Flee From Me” (Thomas Wyatt), “Beetlejuice”
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This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.c...2024-09-2351 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsLove Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 2)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Ancient Greece’s most notorious battle of the sexes, and Euripides’ rumination on the question of whether the Athenian ideals of rationality and moderation sufficiently honor the instinctual side of human nature.
Upcoming Episodes: “A New Leaf” (Elaine May), “Whoso List to Hunt” and “They Flee From Me” (Thomas Wyatt), “Beetlejuice”
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.c...2024-09-1641 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsLove Dishonored in Euripides’ “Medea” (Part 1)
Known for casting mythical heroes in human proportions, Eurpides has his hands full with Medea—homocidal sorcerous, granddaughter of the sun, and a woman who does not take betrayal lightly. Nevertheless, the poet is able to capture the agony of someone who has given up everything for love—family, home, and homeland—only to find her passion disregarded, and her sacrifices unappreciated, by a man who robotically puts practicality above all else. But can we sympathize with a woman who would kill her own children, just for spite? Wes & Erin discuss Ancient Greece’s most notorious battle of the sexes, a...2024-09-0950 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsLove and Loneliness in “Arthur” (1981) – Part 2
It’s awful being alone, according to millionaire playboy Arthur Bach, and nobody should be alone. And so he forestalls this feeling by getting drunk, picking up prostitutes, and laughing at his own jokes. Yet love in its true form can be a lonely business, as his servant Hobson reminds him, because it involves growing up, getting serious, and taking care of someone other than oneself … only to lose them—in one way or another—to the inevitable advance of time. What is it about working class Linda Marolla, whom Arthur first encounters in the process of shoplifting a tie for...2024-09-0250 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsLove and Loneliness in “Arthur” (1981) – Part 1
It’s awful being alone, according to millionaire playboy Arthur Bach, and nobody should be alone. And so he forestalls this feeling by getting drunk, picking up prostitutes, and laughing at his own jokes. Yet love in its true form can be a lonely business, as his servant Hobson reminds him, because it involves growing up, getting serious, and taking care of someone other than oneself … only to lose them—in one way or another—to the inevitable advance of time. What is it about working class Linda Marolla, whom Arthur first encounters in the process of shoplifting a tie for...2024-08-2643 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsCourtly Reciprocity in “Laustic” and “Guigemar” by Marie de France (Part 2)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of two of Marie de France’s most famous lais—”Laustic” and “Guigemar”—and how their narratives marry the “flesh” of text, art, and symbology, to the “spirit” of the spoken word (via dialogue, oaths and covenants, and authorial commentary), in order, perhaps, to communicate something of the mysterious and dangerous union that is romantic love.
Upcoming Episodes: Arthur (1981), Medea (Euripides), A New Leaf (Elaine May).
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. ...2024-08-1950 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsCourtly Reciprocity in “Laustic” and “Guigemar” by Marie de France (Part 1)
The lai, a short narrative poem from the Middle Ages that treats themes of courtly love, was originally accompanied by music and sung by minstrels. But in the 1170s, poet Marie de France translated a series of Breton lais into French and, in so doing, converted an oral tradition into text. It’s no wonder, then, that her lais’ narratives are so often preoccupied with methods of communication: both the spoken word, with its spiritual, incantatory, or even magical qualities, and the written word—physical, embodied, and analogous to the art object (particularly and, appropriately, the textile, a medium associ...2024-08-1150 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsSight and Solitude in Le Samouraï (1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville (Part 2)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 noir thriller “Le Samouraï,” and the surprising power of love to capture its fugitives, even if it means finding them in the most shadowy of underworlds.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to e...2024-08-0547 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsSight and Solitude in Le Samouraï (1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville (Part 1)
Jef Costello is a hit-man with airtight alibis, impeccable style, and a strict code of honor. Add to this a masterful ability to evade his pursuers, mobsters and authorities alike, and a simple but effective home alarm system in the form of a bird. But what he cannot orchestrate, control, or evade is the improvisational nature of a genuine encounter with another person, which he unexpectedly finds with the jazz musician who witnesses him leaving the scene of one of his crimes. Wes & Erin discuss Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 noir thriller “Le Samouraï,” and the surprising power of love to capture...2024-07-2942 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films“Notes from the Underground” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: An Anatomy of Human Self-Destructiveness (Part 2)
What is the cause of human self-destructiveness? Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Notes from the Underground,” and its agonized rumination on whether freedom can be reconciled with love, individuality with virtue, and action with reflection.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email advertising@airwa...2024-07-221h 08Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films“Notes from the Underground” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: An Anatomy of Human Self-Destructiveness (Part 1)
What is the cause of human self-destructiveness? According to Dostoyevkys’s underground man, this “most advantageous advantage” is designed to save freedom from the constraints of rationality, and vitality from the quiescence that follows success. Yet he himself finds freedom only in spite and fantasy, while in real life he oscillates between failed and humiliating attempts to dominate or ingratiate himself with other people. Wes & Erin discuss “Notes from the Underground,” and its agonized rumination on whether freedom can be reconciled with love, individuality with virtue, and action with reflection.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon...2024-07-1548 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsStaking Claims in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) (Part 2)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion John Huston’s 1948 classic, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
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Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website2024-07-0854 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsStaking Claims in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948) (Part 1)
It’s considered the definitive film on greed, a demonstration of just what the lust for gold can do to a man’s heart. Fred C. Dobbs starts out as a down-on-his-luck panhandler in a poor Mexican town and comes into a fortune of over $100,000 before the film’s end. Yet, in more ways than one, Dobbs never stops panhandling, never stops being subject to the vagaries of fate, to forces that might just as soon give as take away his fortune, and to the darkness within himself that he can neither understand nor control. Perhaps the film doesn’t chart...2024-07-0250 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsPsychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 6)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextapps for free appetizers for life.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advert...2024-06-2400 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsPsychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Part 5
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextapps for free appetizers for life.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advert...2024-06-1654 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsPsychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 4)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextapps for free appetizers for life.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advert...2024-06-1100 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsPsychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 3)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
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Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website2024-06-0353 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsPsychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 2)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast.
Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website2024-05-2739 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsPsychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
The ancient Mariner kills his Albatross with a carelessness that stands in stark contrast to his impulse for confession. For several days he and his shipmates feed the albatross, play with it, and treat it as if it were inhabited by a “Christian soul.” The mariner never tells the wedding guest why it is that he kills the bird, but the casual and seemingly unmotivated act is followed by a psychedelic nightmare that gives us some clues. Why do we rebel against our position within the natural world, even to the point of self-destruction? What is required to restore us...2024-05-2053 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsSins of Omission in “On the Waterfront” (1954) (Part 2)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “On the Waterfront.”
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
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Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website2024-05-1335 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsSins of Omission in “On the Waterfront” (1954) (Part 1)
Terry Malloy and his fellow longshoremen on the New York docks are witnesses to union corruption under labor boss Johnny Friendly, but won’t testify against him because of his violent intimidation tactics, which ensure that union members remain “D and D”—that is, deaf and dumb—to any illegal activity. When Terry’s collaboration with Friendly results in the death of his friend Joey Doyle, and when Terry subsequently falls in love with Joey’s sister, Edie, he’s forced to reckon with this D and D policy, as well as his own passivity, guilt, and naivete. Wes & Erin discuss Eli...2024-05-0640 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsConsciousness Bemoaned in “Aubade” by Philip Larkin (Part 2)
In the medieval tradition of courtly love, the aubade inverts the serenade. Where one heralds an evening arrival, the other laments a morning departure. In John Dunne’s famous poetic contribution to the genre, he chastises the sun for waking and so separating lovers, but consoles us with the notion that the power of the sun is ultimately subordinate to the imperatives of love. More bleak, Philip Larkin’s poem “Aubade” seems to abandon this indictment on behalf of love for one on behalf of self-love, perhaps even on behalf of life itself. Morning awakens us to both workaday drudgery...2024-04-2900 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsConsciousness Bemoaned in “Aubade” by Philip Larkin (Part 1)
In the medieval tradition of courtly love, the aubade inverts the serenade. Where one heralds an evening arrival, the other laments a morning departure. In John Dunne’s famous poetic contribution to the genre, he chastises the sun for waking and so separating lovers, but consoles us with the notion that the power of the sun is ultimately subordinate to the imperatives of love. More bleak, Philip Larkin’s poem “Aubade” seems to abandon this indictment on behalf of love for one on behalf of self-love, perhaps even on behalf of life itself. Morning awakens us to both workaday drudgery...2024-04-2200 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsIdentity and Infamy in “Citizen Kane” (1941) (Part 2)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextfree and use code subtextfree for free breakfast for life.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to...2024-01-1547 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsIdentity and Infamy in “Citizen Kane” (1941) (Part 1)
It’s a film bursting with objects—the treasure troves of Xanadu, a snowglobe, jigsaw puzzles, a winner’s cup, the famous sled. Even the conceptual elements of the film’s plot are expressed tangibly. Kane’s mind-boggling wealth isn’t an abstraction, but a list of concrete holdings—gold mines, oil wells, real estate. And the news Kane controls and manipulates, when yoked to another noun, is something one can hold in one’s hands: a newspaper. Kane, too, is described as the incarnation of several abstractions. As his obituary tells us, he himself was “news,” as well as the embodiment of...2024-01-0846 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsShakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 6)
Part 6 of Wes & Erin’s discussion of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, St. John’s College. Learn more about undergraduate–and graduate–Great Books programs at St. John’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Annapolis, Maryland at sjc.edu/subtext.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave show...2023-12-2542 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsShakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 5)
Part 5 of Wes & Erin’s discussion of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, St. John’s College. Learn more about undergraduate–and graduate–Great Books programs at St. John’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Annapolis, Maryland at sjc.edu/subtext.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave show...2023-12-1857 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsShakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 4)
Part 4 of Wes & Erin’s discussion of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextfree and use code subtextfree for free breakfast for life.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
Email advertising...2023-12-111h 14Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsShakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 3)
Part 3 of Wes & Erin’s discussion of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, St. John’s College. Learn more about undergraduate–and graduate–Great Books programs at St. John’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Annapolis, Maryland at sjc.edu/subtext.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave show...2023-12-0454 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsShakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 2)
Part 2 of Wes & Erin’s discussion of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, St. John’s College. Learn more about undergraduate–and graduate–Great Books programs at St. John’s in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Annapolis, Maryland at sjc.edu/subtext.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave show...2023-11-2758 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe Emptiness of Signification in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (Part 1)
When King Leontes accuses his pregnant wife of adultery, the nobleman Antigonus assumes that Leontes has been “abused and by some putter-on”—in other words, some Iago-like villain has been putting malevolent ideas into his head. In fact, Leontes is the father of his own misconceptions, just as he is the father of his wife’s children. But unlike his children, his ideas might be said to have no mother; they lack corroboration, which is to say, collaboration with a source outside himself. How, then, do we account for the seemingly spontaneous generation of his thoughts? How can false apprehen...2023-11-2056 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films(post)script: Post-Tryst (Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters”)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters.”
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science.
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Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website2023-11-1332 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe Tyranny of the Good in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters”
Hannah supports her sisters. She’s a source of money, encouragement, and advice, and seems to ask for nothing in return. In fact, she’s so giving and self-reliant that her husband Eliott begins to believe that she has no needs. This seems to be the spark that ignites his infatuation with Hannah’s sister Lee. It also leads her sister Holly to rebel against what might be called Hannah’s regime of care, only to marry another of her dissidents, her ex-husband Mickey. Wes & Erin discuss Woody Allen’s 1986 classic, and try to figure out why those closest to Hannah...2023-11-061h 02
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsOdysseus and Penelope’s Comedy of Remarriage (“The Odyssey,” Postscript to Part 3)
Wes & Erin conclude their discussion of “The Odyssey,” with a focus on Odysseus and Penelope getting reacquainted with each other in Books 19 and 23. We discuss Penelope asking Odysseus-in-disguise whether she should marry a suitor, but tells him the dream of 20 geese, foretelling their ruin; the test involving the bed post tree trunk; and how we might think of the ending to this epic as a comedy of remarriage.
Thanks to our sponsors for this episode St. John’s College, and Füm. Learn more about undergraduate–and graduate–Great Books programs at St. John’s in Santa Fe, New Mexic...2023-10-3021 minSubtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsTerminal Wooings in “The Odyssey” (Part 3 of 3)
Wes & Erin discuss the final 12 books of “The Odyssey.” Having learned the lessons of the murder of Agamemnon, Odysseus does not rush straight home to his wife and children, once he arrives at Ithaca. Athena is impressed–but why, exactly? Why is it that Odysseus feels the need to hide his identity, and put friends and family to the test? And after 20 years apart, how do Odysseus and Penelope reacquaint themselves with each other?
Thanks to our sponsors for this episode St. John’s College, and Füm. Learn more about undergraduate–and graduate–Great Books programs at St. John’s...2023-10-2358 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsFoolish Adventures in “The Odyssey” (Part 2 of 3)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of the Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson. In this episode, part 2 of our 3-part series, they look closely at the heart of the poem, books 5-12, in which Odysseus arrives in Phaeacia and provides the tale-within-the-tale of his adventures after the Trojan War. They discuss the significance of Odysseus’s fantastical encounters and asking what they might reveal both about his character and about the nature of our own progress—through times of safety, complacency, excitement, danger, and loss—as we wend our way back home.
Thanks to our sponsors for this episod...2023-09-251h 09
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsHome as Identity in “The Odyssey”
He was famously a man of many ways, whether we interpret these as abilities or norms; designs or deceptions; reasons or identities. Yet despite such resources, he was also famously stuck, making a 10-year odyssey of his attempt to return home from a 10-year war. What keeps the man of master plans from homecoming and domestic bliss? In the first of a three part discussion of Homer’s classic, Wes & Erin try to figure out what Odysseus really wants, and whether the “lord of lies” can master the trick of entrusting his mind to others.
Thanks to our sp...2023-08-281h 05
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsCompeting Affections in “The Lion in Winter”
Before Henry VIII changed history for lack of a son, Henry II had too many. His eldest, Richard, a fierce soldier who controls the wealthy Aquitaine, is the favorite of his mother, Eleanor. The youngest, John, is immature and dull, but his father’s favorite. And the middle son, scheming Geoffrey, is, quite dangerously, no one’s favorite. In the end, there are no winners; competing affections and power schemes serve only to cancel each other out. Is it true then, as this story suggests, that being a favorite amounts to nothing more than a target on one’s back...2023-07-3151 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsFriendship and Honor in “Becket” (1964)
In Jean Anouilh’s 1959 play “Becket,” the titular character seems at first to be a Saxon collaborationist to the Norman rule of England, and a man who has sacrificed his personal honor to his friendship with King Henry II and, as he puts it, “good living.” This will change when he becomes Archbishop of Canterbury, only to realize that he is enchanted by the “honor of God,” leading him to to defend at any cost the prerogatives of the Church against those of the state. When is honor more important than friendship? Wes & Erin discuss the 1964 film version of the play, with...2023-07-0349 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films(post)script: Post-Capitation (“Carried Away” by Alice Munro)
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Alice Munro’s “Carried Away.”2023-06-1937 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsLosing Your Head in Alice Munro’s “Carried Away”
Jack, a Canadian soldier recuperating in a European hospital during World War I, begins a correspondence with Louisa, the librarian in his hometown whom he has only seen and loved from afar. Their letters turn romantic. But when the war ends and he returns home, Jack never shows his face to Louisa and marries another woman, leaving Louisa to wonder if she’s been the victim of some diabolical trick. Then Jack becomes the victim of an accident at the local factory. Wes & Erin discuss Alice Munro’s short story “Carried Away” and ask how the unforgiving machinery of a factor...2023-06-0556 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsTime and Taboo in “Back to the Future” (1985)
In the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall, Doc Brown plans to use his Delorean time machine to head 25 years into the future and see, as he puts it, “the progress of mankind.” But like the license plate on the Delorean, Doc is out of time. Through his absent-mindedness—and angering some terrorists—Doc has failed to provide a future into which he or his friend Marty McFly can progress. Meanwhile, Marty’s own options and possibilities have been foreclosed by the mistakes of his parents, whose inaction and passivity have failed to secure happy lives for themselves or their c...2023-05-1651 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe Violence of Redemption in John Donne’s “Batter My Heart” (Holy Sonnet 14)
In “Holy Sonnet 14,” John Donne would like his “three person’d God” to break instead of knock, blow instead of breathe, and burn instead of shine. This vision of redemption is about remaking rather than reform. And it seems to be motivated by a sense that neither reason nor the typical rhetoric of faith are not enough to bridge the mortal and the divine—what’s needed is God’s violent intervention. Wes & Erin discuss Donne’s surprising and paradoxical use of war and rape as metaphors for salvation.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directl...2023-04-1049 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsMortal Pretensions in John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” (Holy Sonnet 10)
A recusant Catholic turned Protestant, a rake turned priest, a scholar, lawyer, politician, soldier, secretary, sermonizer, and of course, a poet— John Donne’s biography contains so many scuttled identities and discrete lives, perhaps its no wonder that his great subjects were mortality and death. His Holy Sonnets, likely composed between 1609 and 1610, and published posthumously in 1633, are a collection of 19 poems written after the sea change in Donne’s subject matter from the secular to the sacred. They reflect his anxiety over his conversion to Anglicanism and his eventual decision to enter the priesthood, and meditate on salvation, death, and th...2023-03-1357 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsTrauma and Repetition in Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” (1974)
Roman Polanksi’s 1974 film “Chinatown” seems to have little to do with its titular neighborhood, which is the setting for only one horrible and final scene. Chinatown functions instead to represent the traumatic moment that drives this story just because it is hidden from view—a place indecipherable even to the hard-boiled private investigator who has seen it all … the place he doesn’t go … the place that bothers him to talk about … the place where inaction and evasion are the only ways to avoid causing harm. Wes & Erin discuss what Chinatown has to do with “Chinatown,” and how the theme connects t...2023-02-1348 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsBetter and Bested in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
It’s a play full of contradictions, secrets, lies, and unspoken rules. It’s a play decidedly for adults, but about a child—an imaginary one, no less. It takes place on a college campus, but it is absent of students. And it’s about “fun and games” and “playing pretend,” but its games are harsh and shocking, and playing pretend involves vengeance and even murder. Wes & Erin discuss Mike Nichols’s 1966 film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, adapted from Edward Albee’s 1962 play, and ask what it has to say about the nature of game and play itself, as well as what mi...2023-01-1659 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsProduction for Use in “His Girl Friday”
Before she settles down to life of homemaking, security, and insurance policies with Bruce Baldwin in Albany, star reporter Hildy Johnson has one more story to write for her ex-husband and ex-boss Walter Burns, editor of the Morning Post. Hildy must write up an interview with convicted killer Earl Williams that will grant him a last-minute reprieve on the basis of insanity. The ingenious angle she finds to prove he’s insane: Earl listened to so many soapbox speeches in the park about the socialist concept of “production for use” that when a gun was placed into his hands, he had...2022-11-2154 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsPost-Doctoral Bedevilment in Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus”
Dr. Faustus expected more from his education. After a lifetime of study, his professional options—philosophy, medicine, law, and theology—all seem disappointingly ordinary. He is of course not the first to have this experience. At a societal level, the promise of knowledge is power, especially once it has become technology. At an individual level, what education seems to make us is an insignificant part of a formidable machine. For Faustus, the only way to make book learning great again is to extend it to the domain of black magic. And yet all this seems to earn him is an a...2022-10-241h 12
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsFate and Blame in “Long Day’s Journey into Night”
Who is to blame for Mary Tyrone’s morphine addiction? Is it Mary herself? Is it Edmund, her younger son, after whose difficult birth Mary was first prescribed the drug? Is it Jamie, her older son, who caused the death of the brother that Edmund was born to replace? Is it the doctor who prescribed morphine too readily? Or is it James, Mary’s husband, who hired a third-rate doctor because he was too cheap to pay for his wife’s proper care? James, in turn, will have his own story to tell of familial suffering and a miserliness acquir...2022-09-261h 07
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsWhat Falls Upon the Living in James Joyce’s “The Dead”
In 1906, presumably finished with his short story collection Dubliners, James Joyce wrote to his brother with dissatisfaction that, though he set about to create a comprehensive portrait of Ireland’s capital city, he had not managed to render its famous, unrivaled hospitality. His efforts to rectify this omission resulted in “The Dead,” the book’s final story. It takes place chiefly at a party in the home of the elderly Morkan Sisters on the Feast of the Epiphany, and fittingly its central character, the Morkans’ nephew, Gabriel Conroy, will have his own epiphanic experience by the story’s end. Gabriel prea...2022-04-111h 03
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe Power of Calm: Two Wordsworth Sonnets
William Wordsworth wrote no fewer than 523 sonnets over the course of his career. (By comparison, the second most prolific Romantic sonneteer was Keats with a paltry 67.) Two of Wordsworth’s best-loved efforts in the form are both Petrarchan sonnets with the same rhyme scheme, written in the same year, published in the same volume. Yet their messages, at least at first blush, are fundamentally opposed; one admires London’s cityscape and establishes a truce between the trappings of human innovation and the untouched features of the natural world, while the other laments a developed, industrialized, disenchanted England. How might we r...2022-02-281h 06
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsMother Nature’s Nurture in Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (Part 1)
After an absence of five years, the poet William Wordsworth returned to the idyllic ruins of a medieval monastery along the River Wye. The spot was perhaps not so very different from his last visit, but Wordsworth found that he had undergone a significant transformation in the intervening years. In a long blank-verse meditation, he explores the changes that the memory of this landscape has affected on his psyche and the role it played in his now-mature comportment towards nature, impulse, and desire. What can Wordsworth’s poem teach us about our own relationships to the natural world? Can Mo...2022-01-3151 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe Fool Gets Hurt in Fellini’s “La Strada” (1954)
Fellini called his film “La Strada” a dangerous representation of his identity, and had a nervous breakdown just before completing its shooting. Perhaps this identity, and its vulnerability, have something to do with the film’s portrayal of a disappointed hope that love might vanquish pride, if properly assisted by the forces of playfulness and creativity. The problem is that such forces are often themselves an offense to pride, and become the target of its cruelty. And so while the clown and tightrope walker Ill Matto convinces tenderhearted Gelsomina to stay with heartless Zampanò, his murder severs their tenuous, highwir...2022-01-1751 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsFalse Roles and Fictitious Selves in “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin
In the late 19th century, the “New Woman” was a term coined by Henry James for a particular kind of feminist who demanded freedom of behavior, dress, education, and sexuality. Out of that paradigm came “The Awakening,” a novel that scandalized critics upon its publication with its tale of New Orleans society wife Edna Pointellier, who tries to throw off the shackles of society’s expectations for women and follow her own passions. What might the novel have in common with a fairy tale? How do Edna’s artistic ambitions frustrate her role as a wife and mother? And do Edna’s ef...2022-01-031h 00
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films(post)script: Post-Wonderful
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters can learn more about their online courses at tischpro.smashcut.com/subtext.
Most (post)script episodes are paywalled. To get them all, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave...2021-12-2718 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe Pain of Anonymity in “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946)
Though sometimes accused of a sentimentality dubbed “Capracorn,” Frank Capra’s films are clear-eyed about the suffering of the everyman. A quintessential director of the Great Depression and World War II eras, Capra expressed better than most the desperation at the heart of a young country’s ambitions. And as a chronicler of his age’s disillusionment and alienation, he joined an American cultural landscape stretching back to Hawthorne, Melville, and Twain. How is George Bailey, a purveyor of the American dream, representative of the anonymyzing terror of 20th century society? And how might Christmas, rather than providing merely the heart...2021-12-2056 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films(post)script: Is “Die Hard” a Christmas Movie?
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Die Hard.” The first (and much longer) part of this discussion can be found here.
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters can learn more about their online courses at tischpro.smashcut.com/subtext.
Most (post)script episodes are paywalled. To get them all, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes.
This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast networ...2021-12-1316 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsAttachments “Die Hard” at Nakatomi Tower
It’s a Christmas movie, some say, and in the end the holiday classic “Let it Snow” plays over the credits. But what counts as snow in the final scenes is a confetti of smoke, debris, and millions of dollars of bearer bonds, not to mention the Euro-villain who tried to steal them. These descend from the blasted-out upper floor of a skyscraper onto a scene of total destruction. Worse, it all happens in Los Angeles. Is “Die Hard” actually a Christmas movie? And what is a Christmas movie, anyway? Wes & Erin try to figure out if there’s anything lik...2021-12-0653 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsMad as Hell in “Network” (1976)
Diana Christensen is a television executive in search of an angry show—something that articulates the rage of the average viewer. In Howard Beale, failed newscaster turned mad-as-hell prophet, she seems to get exactly what she’s looking for. Yet in doing so, she reduces political and social discontent to a form of entertainment focused on generating audience excitement and television ratings. Wes & Erin discuss the 1976 film Network, which seems to suggest that with the advent of mass media, acts of anti-establishment defiance tend to be incorporated by the systems they oppose.
For bonus content, become a paid...2021-11-2255 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsAutonomy and Incest in Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex”
His first claim to fame was the solution to a riddle that earned him a kingdom by sheer force of intellect. His second was a doomed attempt to escape the particularly gruesome fates of patricide and incest. With his first act, Oedipus saved the city of Thebes from the sphinx; with his second, he afflicted it with a plague. In his retelling of this myth, Sophocles reflects on the competing claims of three paths to knowledge: reason, revelation, and experience. Why can’t Oedipus’s brilliant mind save him from the enactment of a prophecy? Why might we be most...2021-11-081h 06
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsGender Opera in “Tootsie”
How do you become the many you truly are? Try becoming the woman you aren’t. While Michael Dorsey can take the blame for his desperate transformation into Dorothy Michaels, it’s she who gets the credit for making him a better man. How are gender dynamics reflected in our relationships to ourselves? When are we staying true to ourselves, and when are we just acting out a role for others? Wes & Erin discuss Sydney Pollack’s 1982 film, “Tootsie.”
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get e...2021-10-2559 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsSex and Tech in “Alien” by Ridley Scott
The Nostromo is a labyrinthine spaceship, a hulking ore refinery run on a sophisticated computer operating system and manned by a crew of seven. But somehow it’s not the most impressive piece of technology in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien. That distinction belongs to the title character, an organism with blood of acid and two sets of jaws, highly-evolved, adaptable to any climate. Its scientific mission, if you will, is to fulfill a basic biological imperative: to become a parent. Fitting, then, that it chooses to prey on a ship controlled by its own problematic Mother. Just what kind o...2021-09-271h 14
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsDead Wall Reveries in Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”
Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” is subtitled a “Story of Wall St.,” yet there is almost nothing in it of the bustle of city life, and entirely nothing in it of the hustle of the trading floor. The story’s walls block out the streets, serving on the one hand as a container for a colorful assortment of human Xerox machines, on the other as a blank projection screen for the reveries of a man who seems to quietly rebel against the very concept of imitation. Can we continue to live and work, if we strongly prefer to do nothing that...2021-09-1356 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsCursed Kids or Psych-Au Pair? “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James
The story begins and ends with two variations on the meaning of the title. On the one hand, to give another turn of the screw is to ratchet up the horror of a good ghost story, in this case by involving children in it. On the other, it’s to treat the cause of that horror as if it were just another of life’s many obstacles, to be overcome both by screwing one’s courage to the sticking place, and by suppressing awareness of what is revoltingly unnatural in it. Whose screw turns out to be looser—the audience...2021-08-301h 27
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsGentility and Injustice in “Gone with the Wind” (1939)
On the moors of medieval Scotland, three witches hail Gone with the Wind— adjusted for inflation, the highest-grossing film in American history— has undergone several critical reappraisals in the 82 years since its production and release. Certainly the film romanticizes the Antebellum South and the Confederacy while glossing over the evils of slavery and stereotyping many of its black characters. Yet it may also provide a sharp critique or even satirization of its white characters— the ambivalent, arrogant, and deluded plantation owners who fail to acknowledge that their so-called “fairy-tale kingdoms” are built on the backs of slaves. What can we make of...2021-08-161h 15
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsRealism as Cruelty in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams
In the transition from stage to screen, A Streetcar Named Desire retained its long-running Broadway cast with a single exception: the role of Blanche Dubois, which passed from Jessica Tandy to Vivien Leigh. Like Blanche, Leigh was the odd woman out. A symbol of the glories of the studio system, married to the symbol of English stage acting, her classical training ran contrary to that of her Method-trained co-stars. Thus to the clash of wills between Blanche and Stanley Kowalski was added a clash of acting styles— and the struggle between the death of Old Hollywood and the birth of...2021-08-021h 33
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsPrestidigitocracy in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939)
The Wizard of Oz is supposed by the land’s inhabitants to be its most powerful magician. But far from having any actual power, he is not even native to the place in which real magic is in plentiful supply. Oddly, this supernatural world seems to be secretly governed by mundane sleight of hand, and growing up, for Dorothy, involves uncovering the flimsy basis of adult authority. Which magic is more potent: the childish imagination, or the symbolic power of grown-ups to educate it? Wes & Erin analyze the 1939 film, “The Wizard of Oz.”
For bonus content, become a paid...2021-07-191h 17
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsFormulated Phrases in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot: Part 2
Wes & Erin continue their analysis of T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” In Part 1, they covered roughly the first third of the poem. In Part 2, they begin with a discussion of Prufrock’s coffee spoons, and then continue on to: his allusions to John the Baptist, Lazarus, and Hamlet; the disjointed portrait of his probable love interest; and the twinning of aging and fantasy in the final stanzas.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular...2021-07-051h 32Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsDisturbing the Universe in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot: Part 1
It was T. S. Eliot’s first published poem. Written when he was only in his early 20s, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” rode the crest of the wave of literary Modernism, predated World War I, and presaged an age of indecision and anxiety. The poem is the dramatic interior monologue of the title character, a middle-aged man whose passivity and ambivalence are threaded with artistic allusions, epigrammatic observations, and meditations on the nature of time, the fraudulence of relationships, and the risks of eating a peach. Should Prufrock dare disturb the universe? Should we? Wes & Erin analyz...2021-06-211h 03
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films(post)script: Post-Apocalypse
Listen to more episodes of (post)script at Patreon.
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Apocalypse Now.” Wes apologizes for asking Erin to watch something so disturbing, and we further discuss dueling conceptions of the arts, one Platonic and the other Aristotelian.
We agree that “Apocalypse Now,” despite being challenging, is an aesthetic masterpiece. What about the narrative? Wes argues that it is very close to not having enough of an arc. What it does most successfully is to convey a kind of surreal, psychedelic mood, one that is meant to capture the insanity of the Viet...2021-06-1417 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsAt Home with War in “Apocalypse Now” (1979) by Francis Ford Coppola
Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore doesn’t flinch for enemy fire, loves the smell of napalm in the morning, and would literally kill for good surfing and a beachside barbecue. His attempts to recreate home within the theater of war render him the perfect foil to a certain upriver madman, who seems intent on making high culture serve the purposes of primitive horror. And yet Kurtz is ready to argue that it is his methods that are more sound, just because they embrace their ruthlessness more honestly, in contrast to the impotent half-measures of an imperial power that can rationalize it...2021-06-071h 14
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsUnsound Methods in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”
On his journey to the heart of the Congo, Marlow learns of a famed ivory trader named Kurtz— a remarkable man; a “universal genius;” a painter, poet, and musician; a man whose success in his trade has been unparalleled, but whose “unsound methods” have put him at odds with local bureaucrats. When Marlow finally meets Kurtz, he hears firsthand the trader’s essential characteristic: a deep and commanding voice which, combined with his methods, has earned him disciples and inspired local tribes to worship him as a god. But what message does Kurtz speak into the terrible silence of the African...2021-05-241h 28
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsOn the Lam with “Thelma & Louise” (1991)
Two women—one a straight-laced waitress, the other a naive housewife—leave town for a quiet weekend getaway. But after a deadly encounter with a rapist, the two become unlikely…and then increasingly confident…outlaws. Though a kindly police officer tries to convince the women to turn themselves in, their refusal to surrender to a future scripted by forces more powerful than themselves drives them to a shocking and iconic ending. Is their fate triumphant or tragic? Wes & Erin analyze Ridley Scott’s 1991 film, Thelma & Louise.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Appl...2021-05-101h 29
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsSpiritual Matters in Chekhov’s “The Student” and “A Medical Case”
In Chekhov’s stories, beautiful natural surroundings are often a setting for unnatural lives and ugly social conditions. This sets the stage for a reflection on the relationship between physical and spiritual needs. His story “The Student” suggests that material deprivation–whether it is the exhaustion of the apostle Peter or the poverty of the Russian peasant–can undermine the capacity for fidelity and cultivation. In “A Medical Case,” a young heiress is made physically ill by her guilty awareness of oppressive conditions in her family’s factories. Can art, science, and faith truly redeem the individual human spirit without first tr...2021-04-261h 14
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsArt and Action in Chekhov’s “The House with the Mezzanine”
In this story, there are two sisters: one introverted, frail, and bookish; the other dominant, opinionated, and politically active. In meeting them, an accomplished artist seems to be confronted with a dilemma. Should art subordinate itself to the project of creating a just society? Or should it focus on serving more spiritual needs? These questions make Chekhov’s “The House with the Mezzanine” is an interesting meditation on the relationship between politics and the arts, and whether the windows of our proverbial dwellings are best used to illuminate a new path forward, or to articulate the beauty of the world...2021-04-121h 20
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsNipped by Love in Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Little Dog”
Dmitri Gurov does not take love seriously. His wife annoys him, long-term relationships scare him, and his love life consists of brief affairs with women he meets at vacation resorts. In Anna, he finds someone who appears to be the usual victim—traveling alone, tired of her husband, and unlikely to make any effective demands for intimacy, something that seems to be revealed in the diminutive portability of her traveling companion. This time, however, he has met a match too powerful for his predatory ambitions. When is love’s bite bigger than its bark? Wes & Erin analyze Anton Chekhov’s “The...2021-03-291h 09
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsBusiness Gets Personal in “The Godfather” (1972)
Out of the darkness of the opening frames comes a supplicant— Buonasera the undertaker. He pleads for the justice that the American legal system denied him. As the camera draws back, we see the outline of a face, a hand… Don Corleone holds court at the confluence of loyalty and duress, generosity and calculation, power and fragility. It is not money, but friendship that he asks of Buonasera. Within and without the world of the film, can one consider Don Corleone a great man? Or does his moral code, like his favor, always hide a transaction? Wes & Erin give thei...2021-03-011h 21
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films(post)script: Post-Hall: Pimps, Pills, and Automobiles
Listen to more episodes of (post)script at Patreon.
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Annie Hall; Wes pines to revisit his many unwritten essays, including the one about love and nostalgia in Woody Allen films. We discuss whether Mike Nichols used crack, and the way Google’s algorithms mercilessly hunt Wes down to forcibly dose him with information about the director, all because of a few searches. Wes couldn’t get through Clue, but that may be due to the variability of his many movie moods, and in any case Erin’s Madeline Kahn impression captures a rede...2021-02-2217 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsYielding to Suggestion in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”
On the moors of medieval Scotland, three witches hail the nobleman Macbeth as the future king—despite the fact that King Duncan is very much alive, and Macbeth is not in line to the throne. At the suggestion of power, Macbeth’s mind leaps to murder. Later, he fancies he sees a floating dagger leading him to Duncan, and after more bloodshed, believes he is haunted by the ghost of a friend. Is Macbeth merely a victim of divination, goaded by suggestion and his own imagination? To what extent is every ambition an imaginative act—and perhaps a form of pro...2021-02-011h 32
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsClever Hopes in W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939”
W. H. Auden hated this poem. He called it the most dishonest he had ever written, and eventually had it excluded from collections of his poetry. And yet it quickly became one of his most popular poems. And after the attacks of September 11, it was published in several national newspapers and widely discussed. This might seem to be a strange result, given that the poem is not a call-to-arms, but an invitation to self-critique. What explains the enduring appeal of Auden’s September 1, 1939? Was he right to repudiate it? Wes & Erin give their analysis.
For bonus content, bec...2021-01-181h 18
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe “Human Position” of Suffering in W. H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts”
As war loomed in Europe, the poet W.H. Auden left Britain for the United States. One of the poems he wrote just before leaving is about the nature of human suffering—or as Auden puts it, the “human position” of suffering: for the most part, it happens invisibly, and the procession of ordinary life leaves it unacknowledged. Yet, the representation and transcendence of suffering are tasks important both to religion and the arts. Is suffering’s “human position” something that can be redeemed? Wes and Erin analyze Auden’s poem Musée des Beaux Arts.
For bonus content...2021-01-041h 03
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsMutual Amusement in “The Awful Truth” (1937)
It’s a romance that begins with a divorce. Lucy and Jerry Warriner suspect each other of affairs, so they file suit, battle for custody of their dog, see other people, and generally go wild. Despite the spectre of infidelities— real or imagined— Lucy and Jerry learn a surprising truth: that the only person they enjoy “fooling around with” is their spouse. How are all relationships a kind of performance? And how might finding a mate mean finding not just a co-star, but one’s best audience? Wes and Erin analyze the 1937 classic comedy of remarriage, The Awful Truth.
For bo...2020-12-211h 10
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsAgainst Specialization in Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”
Hedda Gabler is not a fan of specialization: not in the professor she has married, and his esoteric scholarly interests; not in domesticity, and the specialized affections required by marriage and motherhood; not in any lover’s infatuated specialization in her; and perhaps not in the form of specialization arguably required by life itself, with its finite and confining possibilities. Is there any way, short of suicide, to transcend such limits? Wes & Erin give an analysis of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patr...2020-12-071h 17
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsKill Billy: Order and Innocence in Melville’s “Billy Budd”
Bill Budd is a beautiful man. Not just good looking, but exquisitely good natured, something that costs him no effort and has required no instruction. And yet it is ultimately his beautiful soul and good nature that get Billy killed. Wes & Erin analyze Herman Melville’s final and unfinished work of fiction, and whether a good heart and good intentions are more important than obedience to authority and adherence to civilized norms.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular ep...2020-11-231h 32
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films(post)script: Post-Gatsby
Listen to more episodes of (post)script at Patreon.
Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “The Great Gatsby”; the ongoing development of our approach to the discussions; Arnold Rothstein and the fixing of the 1919 World Series; Fitzgerald’s neighbors on Long Island, including Ring Lardner and Ed Wynn; the contemporary feel of the novel; the NYC movie-making scene in the early 20th century; Marilynne Robinson; and possibilities for the next episode, where because of a weird time warp we talk as if “A Woman Under the Influence” will follow “The Great Gatsby” when it has always already preceded it. 2020-11-1613 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”
We all know this story, in part because it captures a period that will always have a special place in the American imagination. Prosperous and boozy, the Jazz Age seemed like one great party, held to celebrate the end of a terrible world war; the liberating promise of newly ubiquitous technologies, including electricity, the telephone, and the automobile; and a certain image of success as carefree, inexhaustibly gratifying, and available to all who try. And yet perhaps this fantasy is rooted in disillusionment, and a denial of inescapable social realities, including the impossibility of genuine social mobility. What do...2020-11-091h 23
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsBeing Yourself in John Cassavetes’s “A Woman Under the Influence” (1974)
John Cassavetes is known today as the father of American independent film, a pioneering writer, director, editor, actor who managed to make movies on his own terms, and has since inspired two generations of filmmakers. In his own day, however, he couldn’t catch a break–unappreciated and unseen by most of the public, lambasted by critics. But what contemporaries didn’t understand about Cassavetes’s movies may actually be his message. What can he teach us about authenticity and the ways in which we confront and avoid our own emotions? Wes & Erin give an analysis of Cassavetes’s best-known...2020-10-261h 17
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsWorrying about the Future in Mike Nichols’ “The Graduate” (1967)
Benjamin Braddock is a little worried about his future. He’s a recent college graduate who moves back in with his upper-middle-class parents and feels smothered by their vapid, materialistic lifestyle. But he begins an affair with a woman from his parents’ circle… And then he falls in love with her daughter. Like Benjamin, we wonder what the future can and should hold for us. Can it be free of the negative trappings of our society and culture, of our parents’ influence, of the past? Wes and Erin analyze Mike Nichols’ 1967 film “The Graduate.”
For bonus content, become a paid...2020-10-051h 21
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsSlouching Towards Bethlehem in W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming”: Part 2
Wes and Erin continue their discussion of W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming.” In Part 1, they analyzed the first stanza of the poem, in particular Yeats’ use of “gyre”; the meaning of the phrases “things fall apart” and “the center cannot hold”; and the conflict between aristocratic and revolutionary values. In Part 2, they discuss — with a little help from Nietzsche — the anti-redemption of the second stanza, and the meaning of Yeats’ vision of a “rough beast” slouching towards Bethlehem.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-fr...2020-09-2843 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThings Fall Apart in W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming”: Part 1
In 1919, the world seemed to have descended into anarchy. World War I had killed millions and profoundly altered the international order. Four empires, along with their aristocracies, had disintegrated. Russia was in a state of civil war, and Ireland was on the verge of its own. It’s these events that helped inspire William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming,” which famously tells us that “things fall apart,” that “the center cannot hold,” and that a new historical epoch is upon us. Just what rough beast is it that slouches, as Yeats has it, toward Bethlehem? Wes & Erin give their analysis o...2020-09-2136 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsFilial Ingratitude in in Shakespeare’s “King Lear”
Do we owe parents our gratitude for our upbringing? What if they haven’t done such a great job? And anyway, perhaps we inevitably resent all the forces that have shaped the characters that confine and limit us. If so, the quest for filial gratitude is ultimately hopeless. It could even be a kind of madness: a foolish attempt to transcend the same formative forces that we resent in our parents, to be “unaccommodated,” free of the “plague of custom.” Wes and Erin give an analysis of William Shakespeare’s King Lear.
The conversation continues on our after-show...2020-09-141h 25
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe “Intelligent Way to Approach Marriage” in Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” (1954)
L.B. Jefferies has the perfect girlfriend—beautiful, intelligent, wealthy—but too perfect, he insists, for marriage. And so he spends his time spying on the love lives of his neighbors, and ropes his girlfriend into this project as well. Which, strangely enough, turns out to be a really effective form of couples’ therapy. What’s the connection between voyeurism and what Jefferies calls “the intelligent way to approach marriage”? Wes and Erin give an analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window.
Thanks to CranioDsgn for permission re-purpose his poster for the cover art.
The conversati...2020-09-071h 11
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsThe Acceptance of Mortality in Keats’s “To Autumn”
In this third and final installment of our series on Keats’s odes, we’re looking at To Autumn, the poet’s last major work before his death at the age of 25. Keats’s elegiac meditation on the season also serves as a metaphor for his favorite subject matter, artistic creation itself. What parallels does Keats find between art-making and the bounty, harvest, and barrenness of autumn? And what can the poem teach us about loss and our own mortality? Wes and Erin analyze.
The conversation continues on our after-show (post)script. Get this and other bonus content...2020-08-3156 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsEscape into Art in Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”
Second in our series on the odes of John Keats is Ode to a Nightingale, in which Keats imagines a journey into the realm of negative capability, a concept introduced in our previous episode on Ode to a Grecian Urn. Keats hears a nightingale’s song and it inspires him to ponder such questions as, what makes an ideal artist? How might we access the world of artistic creation? How does art unite humanity across the ages? Wes and Erin discuss whether artists, however inspired, can escape the anxieties of a potential audience.
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Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsTruth as Beauty in Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
The poet John Keats is famous for the concept of “negative capability,” his description of the ability to tolerate the world’s uncertainty without resorting to easy answers. Literary minds in particular should be more attuned to beauty than facts and reason. In fact, truth in the highest sense is the same thing as beauty, he tells us at the end of his poem Ode on a Grecian Urn. What does that mean? Is it true? Wes and Erin discuss these questions, and how it is that aesthetic judgments can communicate a kind of truth that is not strictly descri...2020-08-171h 08
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsMastery and Repetition in “Groundhog Day” (1993)
When egotistical weatherman Phil Connors gets trapped in a time loop in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, he gets drunk, steals money, manipulates women, binges on breakfast food, plays God… and finally grows up. The story charts Phil’s development over the course of thousands of repeated February 2nds. Along the way, it raises questions about our own capacity for growth. How do we go about improving ourselves? How can we escape boredom? Achieve fulfillment? Wes and Erin analyze the 1993 film Groundhog Day.
For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subs...2020-08-101h 00
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsLove and Wit in Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”
At the center of every courting ritual, there’s a great unknown. How do we know when we’ve met someone we can love? How do we know the other person is actually who they seem to be? In the beginning, all we have to go on is surface appearances, which amount to a kind of hearsay. The question is how to get beyond them. Wes and Erin analyze Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, which seems to suggest that witty banter is more than just good fun, and has an important role to play in getting to know others...2020-08-041h 29
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films(post)script: Debut
How did it all begin? Where is it going? What’s the point of anything, anyway?
With (post)script, get to know your quirky hosts, their existential doubts, and all the behind-the-scenes drama that’s concealed by their staid demeanors, not to mention an ample Patreon paywall. Actually, we’re giving you this debut episode of (post)script — and every fifth one thereafter — for free.
Wes talks about his experiences with alien abduction, and Erin cautions against the use of mayonnaise. Erin then recounts her former life as deep sea fisherman, and Wes reminisces about his Fleetw...2020-08-0114 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsExpediency and Intimacy in Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” (1960)
You know, it’s that old story of boy meets girl … girl is dating boy’s married boss … girl tries to commit suicide … boy saves girl’s life …. Okay, that sounds pretty dark. But somehow it’s the basis for a classic romantic comedy, Billy Wilder’s 1960 film, The Apartment. The film raises the question of how we distinguish authentic relationships from relationships of utility and convenience. What cultivates human intimacy? What compromises it? When are we just using people? Wes and Erin analyze.
Cover art is based on a French poster for the film.
The conversation c...2020-07-2757 min
Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and FilmsMarital Economics in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”
An advantageous marriage is Elizabeth Bennet’s only potential escape from a foolish mother, a disinterested father, three very silly sisters, and a house that’s entailed away to her idiotic cousin Mr. Collins. But she turns down fabulously wealthy Mr. Darcy because he’s prideful—and maybe a little prejudiced. But then, so is she. How do we know if two people are well-suited to each other? What makes a successful match? Is Mr. Collins actually the perfect man? Wes and Erin give their analysis of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
The conversation continues on our after-sh...2020-07-201h 20