Otis Brown's Podcast: Recent Episodes
Otis
Interesting Stuff: reflections on the American place with side trips into literature, art, music, culture and language.Otis Brown's Podcast is a weekly 20 minute monologue podcast often addressing current issues through the lens of personal anecdotes and American Art and Culture--think of it as a radio show you can listen to whenever you want. With free-ranging stories built around cultural figures from John Lewis to Dolores Huerta, musicians from Little Richard to Dolly Parton and painters from the cave painters of Chauvet to living artists like Wayne Thiebaud, Otis Brown's Podcast attempts to construct literary narratives that try and make sense of the beautiful American mess we walk with in the world.
Just a few thoughts on defending my doctoral dissertation twenty years ago today.
Dedicated to the memory of Michael T. "Timo" Gilmore
A bit of news about my decision to walk the Earth--at least while I heal from shoulder surgery.
This week on Otis Brown Podcast, I rerun an (unfortunately) still relevant Podcast from July 15, 2020 on the state of the pandemic and some of the ways our response to it continues to be cultural rather than medical or epidemiological.
Hope you enjoy. If you remember this podcast and don't care to listen to it again, please be patient. NEW CONTENT COMING SOON!!
Thanks, as always.
Some news on the podcast along with my apologies for (finally and inevitably) missing my (self-imposed) deadline.
Thanks!
In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I recount a chance meeting with an old friend and explore the complex feelings we have when new information does violence to old memories.
Key words:
J.D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye, Seymour: An IntroductionEugen Herrigel. Zen in the Art of ArcheryLooking Glass "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)"Dixie Fire
Wear your lifejacket! In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I tell only the latest story of having to help pluck someone out of a would-be watery grave. I also talk about a bunch of old dead New England writers and painters, just because I always do . . .
Hey, what do you do if you get a tax break? Pay down your credit card? Go out to eat? Bezos and Branson build cool rockets that the rest of us can look at on our phone! What fun! In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I offer some thoughts on the centibillionaire space race and make the (rather obvious) observation that Jeff Bezos is no John Glenn.
Key words:
Jeff Bezos
Richard Branson
John Glenn Friendship 7
Gil Scott Heron: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," "Whitey on the Moon"
Lightnin' Hopkins: Walking This Road by Myself, "Happy Blues for John Glenn"
Just a little coda to the Wonderful World podcast.
Image is Joe Everson's amazing "Louis Armstrong."
In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the new Questlove film Summer of Soul, which makes visible, for the first time to a large audience, the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. Dubbed the "Black Woodstock," the HCF was truly its own unique thing and its invisibility in the American cultural landscape has been a tragedy. The podcast is intended as a primer for the film and doesn't really contain any spoilers and, I hope, it also offers some useful insights to those who have already seen it.
Enjoy.
The Louis Armstrong of your time might be living in your town right now, and if you don't find him, you will still come out more than conqueror (just to be clear, a reference to Zora Neale Hurston and the great song of the same name by Estelle!) . In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I think about Ralph Ellison's assertion that there was a Charlie Parker in every town. I also encourage my listeners to embrace local music and discuss a painting by the NOLA artist Todd Lyons.
An ad for Popeye's classic chicken sandwich? A rant about the Toyota Prius? No! It's this week's Otis Brown Podcast, wherein I think about my life behind the wheel of a pickup and the contemporary "list" country songs about trucks.
Keywords:
Blake Shelton "Boys Round Here"
Tim McGraw "Truck Yeah"
Jerry Jeff Walker/Ray Wylie Hubbard "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother"
Steve Goodman/John Prine/ David Allen Coe "You Never Even Called Me By My Name"
Jefferson Airplane "We Can Be Together"
Amiri Baraka "Black People"
Patty Hearst
Popeye's Classic Chicken Sandwich
This week's Otis Brown Podcast borrows a title from the great fly fishing essayist John Gierach's 1999 book of the same name. Gierach's humorous and insightful writing casts a long shadow over the podcast and his 1986 book Trout Bum provided a practical handbook for much of my early life. The text I engage most this week, though, is Richard Brautigan's wild and scenic Trout Fishing in America. I hope I do justice to my passion for catch-and-release fly fishing by translating it into something edifying or at least enjoyable for you.
As always, thank you so much for supporting the podcast!
James Joyce's great novel Ulysses is set on today's date 1904; the date is observed around the world in what are called Bloomsday celebrations. In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I reflect on my experiences with Bloomsday and wonder out loud why so many people celebrate a novel that so few read.
In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I think about why I get hung up on assessing my hobbies in terms of economics or A though F grading. I reflect on the toxicity of allowing academic or professional standards to rob us of the simple joy of doing something for its own sake. I also discuss the circus, Bob Ross and paint-by-numbers paintings.
I hope you enjoy it!
Thanks for sticking around for Season II of the Otis Brown Podcast.
In this first full episode of season two of the Otis Brown Podcast, I reflect on why I picked up a shabby little cabinet on the side of the road and put more time and money into restoring it than I would have spent on making something good! Through a conversation about woodworkers James Krenov, Christopher Schwarz, Roy Underhill and Shakespeare's 130th sonnet, I attempt to articulate a theory of second hand stuff and second chance lives. So, in the spirt of Malcom Butler (the patron saint of second chances), I start the second season of the podcast with some thoughts on all that.
Thanks
Reflecting on the first year of Otis Brown Podcast!
Thanks so much everyone for supporting the podcast. It means so much to me that any of this has meant anything to you.
In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I discuss the Urban Chicken Movement, William Carlos William's poem "XXII" (aka "The Red Wheelbarrow") from his 1923 collection Spring and All, as well as an earlier poem, "To a Solitary Disciple," the Allen Ginsburg poem "A Supermarket in California," the Taj Mahal song "Cakewalk Into Town," from Recycling the Blues and Other Related Stuff, and just about everything else! You know the drill--it's an Otis Brown Podcast.
I hope you enjoy it and THANKS!
Now that the Graduation season is upon us, let's think about unlearning, let's sing the virtues of resisting training, let us move confidently now in the direction of our dreams . I don't know. In this week's podcast, I tell a story about a friend who wouldn't throw a ball for a dog and reflect on a life spent mostly on a front porch playing a guitar and complaining about the heat.
I hope this is something you relate to and enjoy.
In this week's podcast, I reflect on the early stages of what we are all hoping is the end of the pandemic and offer some thoughts on what we might become when we reach that point , as Katherine Anne Porter writes at the end of Pale Horse Pale Rider, where "there would be time for everything."
Keywords:
Katherine Anne Porter Pale Horse Pale Rider, "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" Louis Armstrong
Mark Twain
Tom Rush "Wasn't That a Mighty Storm"
Wislawa Szymborska "A Word on Statistics"
15th Century Morality Play Everyman
*the image of Pops is a photo of a painting hanging in my kitchen by Todd Lyons that Mrs. Podcast bought off the fence at Jackson Square last time she was in NOLA.
Social anxiety, stage fright, glossophobia, lonesomeness, melancholia, I got 'em all. Yet, I persist. In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the perks of not being a wallflower and tell some embarrassing stories on myself, stopping along the way to explore paintings by Edvard Munch, the writings of Soren Kierkegaar and songs by Hank Williams and William Tyler.
Enjoy!
What is live music anymore? Does an autotuned, canned music high wire stage show even count? I don't really have an opinion on whether it does or does not, but I know for sure one performer one guitar and an audience still matters, no matter what the kids are calling it nowadays and there's still a lot of it to go around.
In this week's Otis Brown Podcast, I discuss Jason Isbel, Greg Brown, Ryne Doughty, Samantha Crain, Freakwater and some other poets with guitars who continue to hold my attention.
Keywords:
Jason Isbel "Tupelo"
Greg Brown
Ryne Doughty Spring Done Sprung
Samantha Crain "Elk City"
Freakwater Old Paint
Adam Carroll "Ricebirds"
Townes Van Zandt "Lungs"
Jerry Jeff Walker
John Prine
Sussurrus
Pardon the bad puns--I can't help myself. In this week's podcast, I ask why de-oculation is solely the domain of the Greeks, the Bible, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, A. B. Longstreet, Davy Crockett, Cormac McCarthy, the TV show Deadwood--oh wait, everyone is obsessed with blindness in art! In an iteration that seems Biblical, but is unique to the American "Old Southwest," taking out your adversary's eyeball in a brutal hand-to-hand no-holds-barred fight called the Rough and Tumble is a favorite literary subject and rural pastime. I explore all of it and more in "The Eyes Have It," this week on OBP.
Please like, follow, subscribe and tell a friend!
Thanks (and, seriously, take care of your eyesight)
This week's Otis Brown Podcast takes its title from Peter Case's great "The Open Road Song." I seem to be obsessed with singing this song lately. I've also been thinking about what constitutes "professional dress" for me and how this period of isolation may be changing that. Though I'm in a position to flout expectations of professional dress in my workplace, I fully-realize that not everyone has or wants that option, so I also want to use the podcast description to promote "Dress for Success," a really wonderful organization that has been helping economically disadvantaged women pull themselves out of poverty by providing them with the necessary professional attire they need to get and keep the career jobs they have trained for and deserve. If you would like to explore the organization or make a donation, you can find them online at www.dressforsuccess.org.
Thanks!
Be well friends.
Keywords:
Peter Case "The Open Road Song"
Smoke (1995)
Repo Man (1984)
Cormac McCarthy, Suttree (1979)
Emmylou Harris
John Randolph Neal
John Scopes
"Scopes Monkey Trial"
Clarence Darrow
William Jennings Bryan
H.L. Mencken
Ralph Waldo Emerson "Self-Reliance"
In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the culture of dueling in America and add some thoughts on Hamilton and Jackson--two of America's most famous duelists.
Key Words:
Dueling
Alexander Hamilton
Andrew Jackson
Mark Twain
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
William Faulkner
Absalom, Absalom!Thomas McGuane
The Sporting ClubLin-Manuel Miranda Hamilton: An American Musical
In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the monkeys who explored South American 40 million years ago. If we all came from the same place--however you imagine that--how did we get to where we went? The answer, of course, is that we went by boat. In Monkey Armada: I dwell in possibility, I follow Emily Dickenson, from whom I borrowed the podcast's subtitle, over the horizon of reason and into the possibility that the urge to voyage by boat co-evolved along with language as the oldest of primate traits.
In the opening lines of Moby-Dick, Melville describes the wharves of Manhattan, where "posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries." Why do people take vacations just to stare at the empty sea? What do they see when they see the sea? In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I share some thoughts on the subject based on my experience as a long-time sea gazer and sailor.
Thank you!
And enjoy!
Most of us have shaped objects with our hands. I want to explore how objects have shaped us through our hands. Though scientists who study haptic or tactile memory are reluctant to make assertions about touch memory and personal identity, I'm more than ready to make that leap!
In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I tell the story of the first great guitar I ever played and think about how that moment may have shaped my life as a guitar maker and as an individual.
Hey! Help me complete the map: I need some U.S. states! I would be eternally grateful if you would like, follow, subscribe and spread the word of Otis Brown Podcast.
And, too, I'm already eternally grateful that you continue listening to my rambling improvised lectures.
Thanks!
In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the Thomas Cole painting "The Oxbow"(1836) and muse on its use of the signs and symbols of his life in freemasonry. Are they a secrete code? Do they get us closer to the heart of the painting? Are we all looking at the same world here? Through a reading of the painting, I hope to take us to a conversation about our subjectivity and our deep need to control our understanding of the world.
I hope you enjoy.
The Western is the most enduring American genre. In a perpetual state of revival, the western vanquishes all comers as the most important genre of American film. It has profoundly shaped who we are and how we are perceived as a people and I have a few thoughts on the subject. In this week's podcast, I discuss the Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly film High Noon, the Clint Eastwood films Unforgiven and Pale Rider, and the John Wayne films True Grit and The Shootist. I explore the push/pull of the genre and the complicated relationship we have to it.
I hope you enjoy!
We all lose stuff, but where does it go? Is somebody finding it somewhere? In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I interrogate the lost and found game. Along with a reading of the Tom Waits song "Take It With Me," a Robert Earl Keen song, and novels by Frank Norris and Joseph Conrad, I offer some thoughts on what it means to possess an object.
Thanks friends!
Be well.
In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I offer some thoughts on the work of another great Mississippi native, the saxophone genius, template for all hipsters from then until now, the king of cool, Lester Willis Young, "Prez," born in Woodville Mississippi, August 27, 1909.
I explore Lester's musical relationships with Mary Lou Williams, Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Marie Bryant and mention his proficiency with profanity--a thing I admire, even while I refrain for the sake of the podcast.
Enjoy!
Keywords:
Lester Young
Milt Hinton
William "Count" Basie
Mary Lou Williams
Billie Holiday
Coleman Hawkins
Nat "King" Cole
Buddy Rich
Gjon Mili
"Jammin the Blues" (1944)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Ernest Hemingway
William Falkner
Humphrey Bogart
I this week's podcast, I tell the story of Marty Stuart taking inspiration from the The Dean of American Bassists, the great Milt Hinton. Marty discovered the photographs of the jazz great in the late 1970's and began his quest to do for country music what Milt was doing for jazz through his photography.
Eudora Welty
Milt Hinton
Marty Stuart
Lester Flatt
Earl Scruggs
Bill Monroe
Ella Fitzgerald
George Jones
Loretta Lynn
Steve Earle
Interesting Stuff: reflections on the American place with side trips into literature, art, music, culture and language. Otis Brown's Podcast is a weekly 20 minute monologue podcast often addressing current issues through the lens of personal anecdotes and American Art and Culture--think of it as a radio show you can listen to whenever you want. With free-ranging stories built around cultural figures from John Lewis to Dolores Huerta, musicians from Little Richard to Dolly Parton and painters from the cave painters of Chauvet to living artists like Wayne Thiebaud, Otis Brown's Podcast attempts to construct literary narratives that try and make sense of the beautiful American mess we walk with in the world.
If you haven't already, and you don't mind, please like, subscribe and follow wherever you listen to Otis Brown Podcast--and please, please share with your friends!
In this week's episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I discuss my chief pedagogical goal, my life as a teacher and my method that I call, "Let's pretend we're talking about a poem." It's not all me, though. I also discuss the great HBO show Treme, the new Pixar film Soul and a Billy Collins poem. I hope these reflections on what a teacher is and does are interesting to anyone who has ever tried to learn or teach anything--not just those of us who have lost our classrooms to the pandemic.
Thanks!
Keywords:
Billy Collins
David Simons
Jon Batiste
Stephen Colbert
Wendell Pierce
Pixar's Soul
HBO's Treme
Papa Celestin Marie Laveau"
The image is Eudora Welty's "Sideshow"
I love that a professor is one of the sideshow "freaks."
Hobo mythology permeates 20th century American culture. While not quite as pervasive or expansive as American western mythology, the myth of the American hobo enjoys a unique position in American culture in that it continues to live and evolve. In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore some hobo writing, briefly discuss the films The Wild One with Marlon Brando, Hobo, the 1992 John T. Davis documentary, and Who is Bozo Texino? the wonderful 2005 film by Bill Daniel. I offer some thoughts on hobo art and writing and consider the place of the hobo in the American mythos.
Hope you enjoy.
I turn now to the hallowed subject, Dogs Playing Poker. Who doesn't know the painting? It it possibly the most recognizable of all American Paintings? The "painting" is actually a group of sixteen paintings, bracketed on the ends by two additional paintings, all of which were completed as advertisements for the Brown and Bigelow cigar company by a former sign painter named Cassius Marcellus Coolidge--aka "Kash Koolidge." The paintings are generally quite famous--though two, "Poker Game" (1894) and "A Friend in Need" (1903) are by far the best known. And, they are going for real money on the auction block.
Hope you enjoy the podcast.
Dr. Otis Brown
Keywords:
Cash Coolidge (Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, Kash Koolidge)
Edourd Manet
Claude Monet
Titian
Diego Velazquez
Ovid
Dogs Playing Poker
"A Friend in Need"
"Poker Game"
"The Rape of Europa"
"Las Hilanderas" (The Spinners, The Fable of Arachne)
This week, I'm finally feeling emotionally ready to deal with the death of a great American poet: John Prine. As most of you probably know, we lost this enormously influential American songwriter to Covid last April, early in this ordeal. Having survived cancer at least twice, and soldiered on through all manner of adversity, John rode that old body to the scene of the crash and gave us some truly remarkable songs. In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I share some remembrances and attempt to break down a few aspects of Prine's poetry that I hope will make him more interesting to listeners.
Fair warning, I also play and sing several of the songs directly into the microphone without edits.
Thanks, be well.
Keywords:
John Prine
Bob Dylan
Bonnie Raitt
Sturgill Simpson
Jim James
Nathaniel Rateliff
Keb Mo
Shemekia Copeland
John Garfield
Sabu Dastagir
Nobel Prize for Literature
"Linda Goes to Mars"
"One Red Rose"
"Bruised Orange: Chain of Sorrow"
"Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone"
"That's the Way the World goes Round"
"Angel From Montgomery"
"Speed of the Sound of Lonliness"
"The Late John Garfield Blues"
"Lake Marie"
"Sweet Revenge"
All right boys--you done seen the rest, now I'm gonna show you the best. In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I comment on the new Netflix film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, staring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman and situate it, August Wilson's play of the same name and the HBO film Bessie in a conversation about female classic blues singers of the period between 1925 and 1930.
Keywords:
Bessie Smith
Ma Rainey
Louis Armstrong
Thomas "Fatz" Waller
"Honeysuckle Rose"
August Wilson
Viola Davis
Chadwick Bosman
Queen Latifah
Mo'nique
LaWanda Page
Shemika Copeland
Brittany Howard
American women, stand up and be counted! Somewhere around 1 in 100 American women have a Doctorate of some kind. Using the title lights the way for others so get off Dr. Jill Biden's back.
In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I tackle the "Dr. Jill Biden controversy" and offer some thoughts on my experience with my own titles and honoraria.
Thanks friends! Share the podcast with friends if you would.
Wishing Wayne Thiebaud a belated happy birthday.
Also, a plug for Erica Mailman's excellent Smithsonian Magazine article on Thiebaud:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/getting-taste-wayne-thiebaud-180976339/
And, too, a "call to action" in support of Otis Brown Podcast
I don't know what the Cormac McCarthy quotation has to do with the podcast, but I like it.
In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I muse on bar culture and the function of the bar in American life.
Keywords:
e.e. cummings "I was sitting in McSorley's" (1923)
John Sloan McSorley's Bar (1912), McSorley's Cats (1929)
Edward Hopper Sunday, 1926
"The Eight"
The Ashcan School
The Anti-Saloon League
Charles Bukowski "The Suicide Kid"
Tom Waits
Charley Frank Pride: Sledge, Mississippi March 18, 1934 - Dallas, Texas December 12, 2020.
In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I explore the African American folk tradition through versions of John Henry and reflect on what they have to say about labor. Through a reading of Mississippi John Hurt's 1928 "Spike Driver Blues," and Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series of paintings (stopping along the way with Elizabeth Cotton, Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison), I try and get beneath the surface of the John Henry myth.
I hope you enjoy this podcast.
Thanks so much for the support!
Keywords:
John Henry
Paul Bunyan
Johnny Appleseed
Piedmont Blues
Mississippi John Hurt
Elizabeth Cotton
Blind Lemmon Jefferson
Pete Seeger
Ma Rainey
Bessie Smith
Ida Cox
Zora Neale Hurston Mules and Men
Toni Morrison Beloved
Eldridge Cleaver Soul on Ice
Sterling Allen Brown
Jacob Lawrence
Tom Hoskins
Sherman James “John Henryism”
Jimmy Reed "Big Boss Man"
"Blackjack County Chains"
"Spikedriver Blues"
In this week's episode, I reflect on some famous American literary hoaxes--where the "hoaxer" always calls the truth a hoax--and I wonder what if anything they have to do with our current use of the term "hoax." I examine Edgar Allan Poe's "The Balloon Hoax," Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter and Ben Franklin's (as Poor Richard Saunders) prediction that his rival Titan Leeds will suddenly fall dead at the exact moment he predicts.
I also offer some brief, but sincere concern for the millions suffering right now.
Thanks
Keywords:
Kimmy Schmidt
Edgar Allen Poe “The Balloon Hoax”
Monck Mason
Harrison Ainsworth
Asa Carter The Education of Little Tree
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlett Letter
H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds
Orson Wells The War of the Worlds
William Kennedy Ironweed
Titan Leeds
Daniel Leeds
The Jersey Devil
Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanack
Hey y'all, a little plug for the upcoming podcast on literary hoaxes along with a recommendation for a really interesting article on newly-discovered cave paintings in Columbia--apropos of my earlier podcast "Maybe We Could Make."
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/29/sistine-chapel-of-the-ancients-rock-art-discovered-in-remote-amazon-forest
Happy Anniversary! I couldn't have done it without you. In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I celebrate six months of the podcast, express deep and sincere gratitude for the support of my listeners and, hopefully, offer a few insights into the work of culture and the way the podcast attempts to come to terms with it all.
I hope you enjoy the podcast. Tell your friends. Thank you and I truly feel blessed that you keep listening.
With whom are you allowed to share a photograph? Who owns the image of Molotov Man? What peaches what penumbras! The conversation about consent and representation in photography is far older than Cindy Sherman photographing herself in the 1970's or academics writing about it in the 2000's and the link between surveillance and consumerism is older than the Ginsberg poem alluded to above. It all just feels so acutely relevant right now-- especially for those of us who are putting in several hours a day on zoom.
In this episode, I attempt to work through some feelings about my past experiences with visual culture and I think about the way our mandatory zoom time during covid has collided with that.
I hope you enjoy.
S1 E23: Who’s Zoomin Whom
Some of the cultural references made in this episode:
Aretha Franklin. “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?
Cindy Sherman
Allen Ginsberg. “A Supermarket in California”
Walker Evans
Dorothea Lange. “Migrant Mother”
Eudora Welty
Milt Hinton
Louis Armstrong
Marty Stuart
Johnny Cash
Margaret Walker
Duke Ellington
In a last minute substitution, I decided to make a new podcast. Sorry for the switcho-chango, but "Who's Zoomin Whom" will be available next week (11/18). My thoughts have been with friends, colleagues and students who served in military lately so I wanted to express some of that here and on Veteran's Day. In this episode, I pay homage to some of the women and men I have known who served in the military. I also include a discussion of the Winslow Homer painting A Veteran in a New Field and my favorite heartbreaking Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke.
Enjoy.
Some of the cultural references made in this episode:
Tom Russell: “Veteran’s Day”
John Prine. “Sam Stone”
Swamp Dog. “Sam Stone”
Johnny Cash. “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”
Stuart Rosenberg/Paul Newman. Cool Hand Luke
Homer. The Iliad
Winslow Homer. “A Veteran in a New Field”
Trailer for 11/11 Podcast. Thanks. Please like follow subscribe tell a friend and all that.
I'll be back next week with a full episode of Otis Brown Podcast. I couldn't imagine the world I would be speaking to tomorrow, so I sent a simple message from the past. If you are feeling nostalgic for old Otis Brown, check out a past episode you missed.
Thank you so very much, as usual!
In this last episode before the election, I reflect on, and take comfort in, what I know about American elections in the 19th century. I offer some thoughts on why Edgar Allan Poe was calling out for Jeremiah Reynolds on his deathbed, I discuss writers and artists like Herman Melville, George Caleb Bingham, Rebecca Harding Davis, Sojourner Truth and I even sing a little bit of a Bobby Bare song.
Enjoy and be well!
Booze Fueled Bar Fights
Some of the cultural references made in this episode:
Edgar Allan Poe. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
Rebecca Harding Davis. Life in the Iron Mills.
George Caleb Bingham. “The County Election”
Sojourner Truth. “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Jeremiah N. Reynolds. Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific
Herman Melville. Moby-Dick; or, the Whale
John Cleve Symmes Jr.
Richard Henry Dana. Two Years Before the Mast
Bobby Bare/Gram Parsons. “Streets of Baltimore”
“Drunk History” Baltimore
John Winthrop
Andrew Jackson
In this episode of Otis Brown Podcast, I recall a street preacher of some renowned and my evening commute with him on the train. I also think about Thomas Hart Benton, Jackson Pollock and the general impulse of American Art.
I hope you enjoy it.
The title for this week's podcast is an allusion to the Adam Carroll's song, "Black Flag Blues." Carroll is, in my opinion, a criminally under-appreciated songwriter--check him out!
Rattlesnake Preachers and Doomsday Signs
Some of the cultural references made in this episode:
Adam Carroll. “Black Flag Blues”
Thomas Hart Benton. A Social History of Indiana. Arts of Life in America
NAACP. “An Art Commentary on Lynching”
Grant Wood. American Gothic
Jackson Pollock. Blue Poles
Mark Rothko
William Faulkner
Eudora Welty
“Ralph the Wolf and Sam the Sheepdog”
Otis Brown Podcast has a Youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq3QmEfVtP2qkLCO21zT0hw
If the added visual element to the podcast interests you, please like, follow and subscribe and I will continue to use Youtube--because a day without Youtube is like a day without air! Thanks.
Added bonus: I play a little guitar on the intro, plus pretty pictures of the guide-boat.
Are we more inclined to believe a lie we have made about someone than a truth we hear from that someone, even when the stakes are incredibly low? As a companion to last week's episode, I think about the cultural narratives we default to when we don't have or don't want a story about the people we see around us in our world--people we used to call neighbors, which literally means "near dwellers."
The Elderberry Man
Some of the cultural references made in this episode:
Tom Waits. “What’s He Building” “9th and Hennepin”
Harry Partch
In this week's episode, I reflect on Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior and discuss seeing an old friend whom I'm never met--and think, literally, about what it might mean to walk a mile in his shoes. What do we call relationships with people we see all the time but do not know? How do we describe or define feelings of affection for strangers? How and where do we read the signs of our existence in particular places? I don't know if I actually unravel any of these mysteries, but I give it a shot in this podcast.
Thanks for listening!
My Twin
Some of the cultural references made in this episode:
Maxine Hong Kingston. The Woman Warrior
Sandra Cisneros. The House on Mango Street
James Joyce. Ulysses
Edgar Allan Poe. “William Wilson”
Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching
Roger Miller. “My Uncle Used to Love Me But She Died”
In the "Cetology" chapter of Moby-Dick, Melville explores the relationship between whales and books. But, what about you guitars you ask? I'll answer that in this episode. I'll also explore what it means to not make difficult career choices.
Chasing That Thing
Some of the cultural references made in this episode:
Coen Brothers. O Brother, Where Art Thou
William Cumpiano. Guitar Making Tradition and Technology
Fred Neil. “Everybody’s Talkin”
John Schlesinger. Midnight Cowboy
Herman Melville. Moby-Dick. “Cetology”
Pepe Romero/Pepe Romero Jr.
Antonio De Torres
Trailer for this week's episode on whales, books, guitars and where we store all the extraneous stuff beneath the surface of our cluttered minds!
Having a hard time making it through the months? Try it an hour at a time. In this episode, I reflect on my (brief) experience with clock making and repair and remind myself to use these troubled times to go inward, to use my hours with intention and to try and serve an apprenticeship to a better future.
In this week's episode, Dolly Parton stands her ground against Elvis' gangster Colonel Tom Parker and writes the greatest song of all time--"I Will Always Love You."
In this week's podcast, I tell the story of the epic standoff between the queen (Dolly) and the king's man (Elvis' Colonel Tom Parker). Also, the playlist for this week is pretty great (I think). So here's a link. Be sure to like, follow and subscribe and thank you so much for the support and encouragement!
Playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5N8HHyKxHQQ3BltHRsw9Tr
What is a mentor? Are there any good ones? If so, how do they act? In this week's podcast, I think about people who have influenced me and whom I might call a mentor--but, as usual, I want to challenge the category a little bit. I hope you enjoy this.
What does a redneck say before he dies? Find out in this week's podcast.
In this episode, I reflect on the relationship between physical and social, emotional and artistic risk. I also give a brief reading of a Nick Flynn poem and discuss the village blacksmith tradition of shooting the anvil.
What is language? How long has it been around? In this episode, I explore the relationship between words and things. We hear all the time that words are tools, but I want us to consider, at least as a thought experiment, that tools are also words--and they predate the estimate for the advent of language by millions of years.
In this week's episode, I reflect on lessons I learned from my old buddy Pigeye and the banjo savant Roscoe Holcomb. I hope you enjoy listening and, as always, I really appreciate the support and encouragement. Please don't forget to like and subscribe--it really helps me promote the podcast. Don't forget to check Spotify for the playlist, it's a good one this week if you love the banjo!
This week, I reflect on maritime art and the depiction of work, what Melville calls "less erroneous pictures of whales," and byegone professions. I also wonder if the depiction is the art or if the work is the art; is a Remington painting of a Comanche buffalo hunter the art or is the painting just how we captured it? It's not all abstract, I tell some regular old stories too.
Hope you enjoy. Thanks, as always, for supporting the podcast!
This week, I share some thoughts on the Adirondack guide-boat I have been rebuilding and the process by which I originally built it 25 years ago. I guess I'm continuing to try and work out the extent to which we make objects and the extent to which they make us. I hope you enjoy! Thanks again for all of the support.
Some thoughts on Ralph Waldo Emerson, statues and other public monuments with an appeal to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge after the late John Lewis.
In this week's episode, I explore wood screws, successes in heavier than air flight, motorcycle speed records and our failed response to this pandemic.
Some reflections on my love of music and the basic human impulse to generate pleasing sounds, along with some thoughts on the risk v. reward analysis we conduct if we want to be people who do stuff.
Reflecting on the nature of work, the differences between visible and invisible and physical and intellectual labor and the authentic working-class literary tradition of the American song.
Some thoughts on Rosie the Riveter, Dolores Huerta, Judith Baca and my experiences with the WWII generation.
This week's podcast is named after a honky tonk song by the great Nashville guitar slinger Kenny Vaughan. I hope you enjoy it, whether you love country music or not.
A little teaser for my next podcast. The photo is of a banjo I made; it figures in the next podcast where I (don't quite) tell a story about a picture where Bela Fleck plays my banjo.
Our house is full of hand-made objects. Our children, our selves, our friends and the former owners of our home have all left their mark on our space and our lives. Why do we make? What is the record of your labor worth? I explore the topic in this podcast--which I guess I also made. Enjoy.
A discussion about Wayne Thiebaud, the town of Locke, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, sloping docks, bowed buildings, sinking ships and the re-plumbing of the great state of California. Enjoy.