Sponge: Recent Episodes

View Details

“Perhaps the most crucial choice that we make is whether to struggle or not. And if and when one chooses to stop struggling, the struggle stops. Rationalization, intellectualization, as well as reasoning cease to matter. Instead, what matters begins to matter.”

🧘‍♀️🌌🧘‍♂️

Resources for this episode

• “True Meditation”
• Adyashanti
• Alan Watts

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/038-to-suffer-or-not-to-suffer-that-is-the-question/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“Perhaps I should live my life the way I write fiction, especially the way I write fiction with so-called restrictions.”

🎲🎲🎲

Resources for this episode

• “Random Word Grotesqueries”
• “Agora Phantasmagoria”
• “Watermelon Love Song”
• Dean Wesley Smith
• Klein bottle

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/037-the-universe-trickles-into-out-of-me-via-the-klein-bottle/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“If there is something to be found in emptiness, can such an emptiness be truly empty? What does it even mean for something to be empty?”

🤚✋👊

Resources for this episode

• “La jeune fille sans mains (The Girl Without Hands)”
• “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)”
• Studio Ghibli
• 007 ⌨️ By showing its true colors, a story unfolds.
• “Noir Urbanisms”
• Animated wonder
• “Sin City”
• “300”
• 035_The present vanished into the past in the future.
• Why Physics Says You Can Never Actually Touch Anything

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/036-full-emptiness-empty-fullness/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“In the present, the past has vanished and the future has not yet materialized. Thus, the past is a figment of the imagination and so is the future. Moreover, in the future, the present will become the past, and in the past, the present was the future, so this very present moment either will be a figment of the imagination or used to be one. Given this, what is the desire to be in the past, the future, or the present? Moreover, what does it mean to be in the past, the future, or the present?”

⏰⏰⏰

Resources for this episode

• “Now Wait for Last Year”
• The Butterfly Dream
• 022_You walk in the forest.

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/035-the-present-vanished-into-the-past-in-the-future/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“The playful obsession with one’s state of being, independent of artificial constructs, is a fundamental element in finding a creative well that never dries up.”

🎹🎹🎹

Resources for this episode

• “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda”
• Donald Glover
• “Her”
• “Beef”
• Yellow Magic Orchestra
• Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
• From “The Revenant”

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/034-merry-nostalgia-mr-sakamoto/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“In articulating a message, delivering it by using the stories the recipient is accustomed to is highly effective.”

💌💌💌

Resources for this episode

• "The Wonder"
• "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind"
• Joseph Murphy
• "The Secret"
• Hoʻoponopono

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/033-message-received/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“One cannot give what one hasn’t unveiled in oneself; moreover, one cannot receive what one hasn’t unveiled in oneself. So it is with unconditional love.”

🌌🌌🌌

Resources for this episode

• “Joe Bell” directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green
• The Youtube video from a Korean spirituality channel where I heard the phrase “conditional love is like hatred.”

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/032-to-a-world-of-unconditional-love/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“Opposing extremes coexist in a person, and an experience that allows a person to see that in a short period of time can have a freeing effect.”

💈💈💈

Resources for this episode

• “V for Vendetta”
• Ithaka’s Blog

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/031-mother-daughter-head-shaver/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“Humor makes the most gruesome horror bearable—even enjoyable.”

😂🔪😂

Resources for this episode

• “Manitou Blood” by Graham Masterton

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/030-laughing-my-way-out-of-horror/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“Shock value is underrated, especially the value of sustained shock, considering that it is an excellent way to veil other sustained emotions that may not be as immediately appealing as shock.”

⚡️⚡️⚡️

Resources for this episode

• “Snuff” by Chuck Palahniuk
• Episode 18, “Freeze-blue glaciers for your burning-hot wound.”
• Shock Value
• Episode 28, “The path of least resistance to the core.”

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/029-shock/

Everything I do is organized here

⁠https://ithakaonmymind.com/⁠

View Details

“The biggest step toward taking the path of least resistance is deciding to acknowledge what that path is for oneself at a given moment, without automatically accepting the norms of one’s surroundings.”

👣👣👣

Chapters

• 00:00:00 --- Opening
• 00:21:52 --- Zeitgeist reflector
• 00:36:36 --- Lazy adoption of mainstream paradigms
• 00:52:07 --- The (new) path of least resistance
• 01:17:13 --- Body work

👣👣👣

Resources for this episode

• “The Burnout Society” by Han Byung-Chul
• Han Byung-Chul
• Philosopher, Culture Theorist Byung-Chul Han's Commencement Speech
• Ep. 18, “Freeze-blue glaciers for your burning-hot wound.”
• from Aim Dreaming: [Ep. 41] 피로사회: 그 너머의, 숨 쉬듯 하는 사랑
• “How technology changes the way we understand ourselves.”
• NPC
• Path of least resistance
• My Buy Me a Coffee page
• Episode 25, “Every-other-Thursday’s child has far to go.”
• Episode 26, “She is the air he breaths.”

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/028-the-path-of-least-resistance-to-the-core/

Everything I do is organized here

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

View Details

“Until we find a way to safely and reliably break down the barriers of what we have come to call “the five senses,” the easiest way to see something that can’t be seen, taste something that can’t be tasted, touch something that can’t be touched, smell something that can’t be smelled, and hear something that can’t be heard is through writing.”

🎹🎹🎹

Chapters

• 00:00:00 --- Opening
• 00:05:53 --- The futility of counting senses
• 00:14:25 --- AIs and barriers of senses
• 00:22:24 --- Mushrooms
• 00:26:33 --- Writing, the smoothest barrier-breaker + audiophile
• 00:56:05 --- Finally, some Chopin + how Zach died
• 01:39:03 --- Other renditions of the sonata

🎹🎹🎹

Resources for this episode

• “Final Fugue” by Ithaka O.
• “Humans have a lot more than five senses—here are 18”
• “The Doors of Perception” and “Heaven and Hell” by Aldous Huxley
• Synesthesia
• “Arrival”
• “High Dose SHROOMS Trip Simulation (POV)”
• “Fantastic Fungi”
• “Fantastic Fungi” post from June 13, 2022
• Hotel Between Worlds series
• “Undoing Cycles” by Ithaka O.
• Episode 22, “You walk in the forest.”
• Ithaka On My Mind on Spotify (for the story playlists)
• “Agora Phantasmagoria” by Ithaka O.
• “Your Ears Can Actually Tell The Difference Between Hot And Cold water”
• 고막사람gomaksaram
• “The History of Plumbing in New York City”
• The Piano Sonata No. 2 in B♭ minor, Op. 35
• The Piano Sonata No. 2 in B♭ minor, Op. 35 played by Josef Hofmann (Publisher info: Everest LP, 1929.)
• Evgeny Kissin's play
• Cho Seong-Jin's play

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/027-no-one-way-to-hear-the-music/

Everything I do is organized here

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

View Details

“When we’re presented with the option to find meaning through play, meaning that solely comes from stability swiftly loses ground.”

🌊🌊🌊

Chapters

Not exactly three hours, but this episode is still pretty long. So, it has chapters.

• 00:00:00 --- Opening
• 00:07:10 --- Stability without the charm of meaning
• 00:22:54 --- Marriage and affairs
• 00:35:30 --- Humans, suckers for meaning
• 00:44:33 --- Edited puzzles
• 00:54:33 --- The Other Woman
• 00:59:09 --- Co-puzzling
• 01:06:50 --- Foreign language pattern matching and being in sync
• 01:31:10 --- Insomnia and the meaning of life
• 01:55:43 --- Old puzzle, new puzzle, and the final scene
• 02:14:14 --- Some lines from a poem

🌊🌊🌊

Resources for this episode

• “Decision to Leave,” directed by Park Chan-wook
• MUBI
• “Oldboy,” directed by Park Chan-wook
• Episode 24: To live long and prosper.
• Episode 25: Every-other-Thursday’s child has far to go.
• “Thirst,” directed by Park Chan-wook
• “Thérèse Raquin” by Émile Zola
• From Unmarried Equality, about hospital rights
• “The Handmaiden,” directed by Park Chan-wook
• My blog post on “Decision to Leave,” from January 2023
• The Great Gatsby Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/026-she-is-the-air-he-breathes/

Everything I do is organized here

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

View Details

“No amount of information does any good, if not acted upon, and the best way to act upon anything is to form a steady, healthy, and supportive long-term relationship.”

🧒🧒🧒

Resources for this episode


• Burnout Society (Müdigkeitsgesellschaft)
• Monday’s Child
• The meaning of Thursday’s child
• Decision to Leave (헤어질 결심)

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/025-every-other-thursdays-child-has-far-to-go/

Everything I do is organized here

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

View Details

“Within a given life, longevity trumps almost everything else.”

🧵🧵🧵

Resources for this episode

• Coil
• Payhip
• MacMillan buys Pronoun (2016.5.26.)
• MacMillan shuts down Pronoun (2017.11.9.)
• Draft2Digital
• Streetlib
• Publishdrive
• Sponge sustainability thoughts (From February 2023)
• A post that I read a long time ago. (From January 2023)
• soulless labor by “Stories. Not a blog.”
• My Buy Me a Coffee page
• BTC love: bc1qcna5ufd8gdxm6zkll8nxmskp0cx2nsw6lrzm5u
• Episode 3, "I have an excellent example of a monopoly that must die."

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/024-to-live-long-and-prosper/

Everything I do is organized here

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

View Details

"The belief that the acceptance of the existence of the unknowable contradicts reason and logic is one of the most unreasonable and illogical beliefs to cling to. "

🕍🛕⛪️

Resources for this episode

• "Dark Covenant" by Peter Luther [affiliate link]
• On the author’s website (prologue and first two chapters are linked here)

Full transcript and links

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/023-we-dont-know-what-we-dont-know-but-we-can-know-we-dont-know/

Everything I do is organized here

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/022-you-walk-in-the-forest/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🌲🌳🌱

The terror of not knowing what is going to happen next is one of the most freeing feelings for some creators. That is what I absorbed when I wrote “Undoing Cycles.”

Yes. My dear fellow absorbers. I still do not have an opening statement. Thus, we have, once more, jumped right into the topic of this episode. However, there is something new going on, which is that this time, my absorption did not happen from the works of other creators of this world. Nay, this time, my absorption happened from my own writing. It happened as I was writing one of my books, titled, Undoing Cycles.

Yes. One new thing at a time, folks. One new thing at a time. Maybe there will be an opening statement in the next episode. I don’t know. But for now, us talking about Undoing Cycles is the new thing. Ithaka talking about her own writing process is the new thing that we’re going to tackle in this particular episode.

It is the year 2023. It has been that for some time now, already. Can you believe it? It’s already been a month since it’s been 2023. And by using this transition of one calendar year to another—which is, quite random, if you think about it, but nevertheless also quite useful—I am trying to incorporate some ideas that you guys have given me, and also, just do what seems to make sense.

The short story is that some folks were curious about how I write. And Sponge is at the stage, right now in early 2023, where the number of absorbers isn’t substantial. So, when you guys make suggestions, and I agree it’s a good idea, and also I am capable of doing what you suggest, then I am able to change directions quite quickly.

And added to that, it seems that—just from observing Youtubeland and other podcasts—in the end, humans listen to other humans. And it seems that one of the things that makes humans convey themselves more like humans to other humans is that… the human who wants to do the conveying simply shares what goes on in their human life, without much filtering, especially unnecessary filtering that has existed in the previous decades due to various gatekeepers or perceived cultural common sense that wasn’t very sensible.

By gatekeeping or perceived cultural common sense, I mean something like this. In the traditional spheres such as academia or mass media, I think it is still the norm to do either or. Either you create primary works or secondary works.

By primary works, I mean works that become the starting points of discussions. For example, a painting, a book, or a movie.

By secondary works, I mean works created around such primary works. Youtube reaction videos and podcasts like Sponge are such secondary creations.

And I’m saying, in the recent decade, more and more people have been actively sharing both their primary works and secondary works. These days, it doesn’t seem to matter as much that a person is doing both. One doesn’t need to pick one or the other. Not anymore. Some of you have pointed that out to me. Even so, doing both primary work and secondary work still does seem to happen less frequently than doing one of the two, perhaps now more due to reasons of personal preference than gatekeeping or a false cultural common sense.

Anyway, some folks were curious about how I write. Maybe to those folks, what makes me human is that I do both primary work and secondary work, and not only that, that I could do secondary work around my own primary work by talking about my own fiction. Maybe that is why you’re listening to me.

…

..

.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sssponge/support

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/021-what-does-ithaka-sound-like-in-german-and-korean/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🇰🇷🇩🇪🇺🇸

A listener who shall remain anonymous asked me if I could record something in German and Korean, because this listener wondered what I sound like in those languages.

And I thought, that is definitely the sort of wondering that I can provide answers to.

I also thought, well, Sponge, by design, is about what I absorbed. I absorbed this listener’s question. So, instead of creating some other channel where I would talk about what I absorbed from this listener’s question, I am just putting the answer right here on this feed. Also, as I do that, I will react to some other questions and/or suggestions that I have received from the lovely listeners of Sponge.

Now, first, what do I sound like in Korean? Well, there is a whole podcast that I do in Korean. I will link to that on the transcript page, but also, I will read a short passage from a letter I wrote my dear friend, Hyewon, who is an exhibition curator.This letter is public. It’s on my blog and I will link to that in the transcript page as well.

...

..

.

--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/sssponge/support

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/020-to-fall-in-love-with-pain-leads-to-no-gain/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🤒🤕😭

Pain might be an inevitable part of our lives. But even so, pain is, on its own, utterly meaningless beyond the fact that the word means pain. That is what I absorbed from the book, “Repetitive Strain Injury: A Computer User’s Guide” by Emil Pascarelli and Deborah Quilter.

Before I continue, apologies for my voice. If it sounds weird, it is because I have a cold. I was going to wait until I completely recovered, but then, I was… I was so bored. I have been so bored for almost a week now, supposedly recovering from this cold, sleeping a lot, and being bored to tears. I cannot just sleep and do nothing any longer.

Yes, boredom. I want to emphasize that I am recording now, instead of a week from now, out of boredom. It is not because I feel like I must power through the pain. It is not like my boss tells me that I must suffer through pain, otherwise I’m a bad, bad employee. Not at all. It is the opposite. There is no boss and presently, I make zero direct money from this podcast, although, I don’t know, maybe people find me through the podcast, so in that regard, maybe there is some money in Sponge. The effect of individual channels through which I reach the world is highly difficult to measure. How do people find me? I do not know.

The point is, what I do know is that I dislike pain. I want to avoid pain. And the pain of boredom is unbearable. That is why I am recording now, hoping that you don’t mind this state of my voice too much.

Just wanted to emphasize this, since today’s topic is pain.

So. Back to “Repetitive Strain Injury: A Computer User’s Guide” by Emil Pascarelli and Deborah Quilter.

This is quite an old book. The copyright is for 1994. So, the book is almost 30 years old. But, since not much has changed in the anatomy of the overall human population, if at all, I believe a lot of the information here still holds true today.

And interestingly, what also still holds true today because not much has changed is the non-physical aspect—the psychological and social aspects of the condition called RSI. As in, the aspects that you’d think might have changed dramatically, because they’re intangible and therefore perhaps more malleable than physical and anatomical elements… well, such intangible elements have changed, I believe, so it’s not that the psychological and social aspects remained static. However, the psychological and social aspects haven’t changed that much.

Thus, what still holds true today, after nearly 30 years, is how some people react to they themselves displaying symptoms of RSI and/or how they react to other people displaying such symptoms. Even more, extra specifically, how some people, sometimes, deny the very existence of such a thing as RSI.

...

..

.

View Details

🚨Please Note🚨

This episode was prepared in late November/early December 2022. I learned in mid-December that Google Play Books now allows for multiple narrators in their AI narration tool. (The tool lets you set a "Default narrator" and "Additional characters," with different voices.) Please keep that in mind as you listen to this episode.

x x x

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/019-let-it-be-known-that-i-do-not-object-to-the-machine-overlords/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🤖🤖🤖

To worry about the demise of human translation due to AI is to both underestimate and overestimate translations. And, perhaps, by extension, to worry about the demise of human narration due to AI is to both underestimate and overestimate narrations. These are some things I absorbed from the recent developments in AI translation and narration.

And by “recent,” I mean the year 2022, in general. But, here is a date that is more specific. In May 2022, Google Books came out with a tool that writers could use to have their ebooks on Google Books narrated by AIs. I have tried using this tool, although I have not published with this tool. At this time, all my books are fiction, and the tool is not yet suited for fiction narration. However, it was and is amazingly, oh, amazingly impressive for nonfiction narration where, within the text itself, there is only one character, the narrator of the nonfiction story.

That said, Google is absolutely going to add to their AI the ability to act different voices. So, I can imagine a near future where for fiction books, the writer will be able to tag each character with some sort of metadata, say, “Character A, female, age 20, American English accent,” and then the AI will act that.

It might even soon be possible for specific contexts to be edited, to add nuance. Maybe Character A is sick, or she is excited, or she is sad. Even more impressively, perhaps AIs will soon become more like actual AIs, as in, artificial beings with something resembling intelligence, and be able to read the context. As in, maybe the AI will be able to “understand,” in air quotes, the context of a story and act accordingly. Now, that would be something.

But such things aren’t possible, yet. On the translation end, there is DeepL. I think that’s how they say their name. Deep-L. But it might be DeepL. I don’t know.

Anyway, DeepL has been mentioned in various circles as the company that offers better translations than Google Translate, because, let’s be honest. Google Translate sucks, especially for language pairs that aren’t very popular. Google Translate for Korean to English is outright laughable. It’s like vomit. English to Korean is slightly better, but still in no shape or form entirely reliable.

DeepL does not have the Korean English language pair yet, at the time of this recording, which is December 2022. But I have tried it for English to German some time ago. My German speaking and writing skills are poor, but I have lived in Germany for six years as a child and I can read and understand—at least enough to know that a translation is completely wrong. So, although I am not equipped to be a German translator, I am in a position to see if a translation software completely sucks or is quite great. DeepL’s software is quite great. However, it cannot read the context.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/018-freeze-blue-glaciers-for-your-burning-hot-wound/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🧊🔥🧊

To eliminate suffering altogether is to eliminate too fundamental an element from life. Besides, sometimes, suffering is the path to beauty. That is something I absorbed from “Dopamine Nation” by Dr. Anna Lembke.

“Dopamine Nation” is a nonfiction book about addictions, why they happen, and how to overcome them. I listened to the audiobook version, which was narrated by the author herself, and I believe that this, her self-narrating her own book, added to my reading experience.

Reading. Listening. With audiobooks, it can get unclear which word to use. I just use reading and listening interchangeably when it comes to audiobooks. There are some theories about how many written books are fundamentally just like audiobooks anyway, in that the core of their narrative is something akin to a raconteur telling a verbal story. Such theories say that even while reading, we’re thinking about the sounds. In fact, I don’t recall where exactly I read this, but there are studies about how… something like… if you don’t know how a word is pronounced, you have a harder time reading the word? Something like that. Yeah, don’t quote me on that.

Point being: audiobook, written book, I barely distinguish them anymore. Especially with nonfiction books like “Dopamine Nation,” where the focus wasn’t visual material such as photographs or graphs, can be perfectly enjoyable in both written and audio formats, in my opinion.

x x x

So, suffering. My impression is that in mainstream American society, suffering is greatly underrated, and even hated. There exists this broad, umbrella sentiment of “the pursuit of happiness” in the United States, which is unsurprising, because the Declaration of Independence contains this sentence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Quite literally, Americans see the pursuit of happiness as an unalienable right of theirs. And for the record, I’m an American, on paper, so when I say Americans are this or Americans are that, I’m talking about a group where I guess, for bureaucratic and statistical purposes, I am part of.

Anyway, this pursuit of happiness. Or happiness itself. I don’t think they’re problems in and of themselves. I think few things are problems in and of themselves. Even violence, I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem. Simply put, I should hope I will be able to use violence when the need arises to protect myself or someone I love. In fact, I frequently wish I had greater capacity for violence in such situations. But alas, I am not particularly tall or heavy or speedy or flexible. So I deal with my limited capacity to inflict physical wounds.

But we weren’t talking about violence. We were talking about happiness. Happiness, or the pursuit thereof—there is nothing wrong with them. But, like many good things in life, when they become an obsession, an addiction; when they become the expected norm, so that there is unspoken social pressure to live up to that standard, even though by no means is that standard realistic or even desirable—that is when they become detrimental.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/017-hey-sister-hey-mister-am-i-your-type-was-will-be/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🧪🧪🧪

Personality tests cannot help but be accurate representations of the present, but they cannot predict the future. That is what I absorbed from my recent re-taking of the MBTI test.

Yes, fellow absorbers. I heard recently that there was a new version of the MBTI test, which stands for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Some of my friends retook it for fun, so I figured, I’d do the same. Now, that said, I did not retake this test from the official MBTI website, because I didn’t feel like paying for it again. So I’m actually not entirely sure if the version I retook is the official new version or not. In fact, I don’t think I saw anywhere where the information indicated anything about a new version.

But, for the purposes of this episode, the newness of the test doesn’t matter, because, well, the result is different from before. I will link in the transcript to the site where I took the test. It’s called truity.com. If you find this episode interesting, you might wanna go there and take the test yourself. It’s not that long. Might take you about fifteen minutes or so. For the full report, you have to pay, but you can see the results, you know, the four-letter MBTI results, without paying. That was enough for me.

And it was enough for me because I could kind of predict that the test result would be different from many years ago. And this is where today’s theme comes in. Personality tests cannot help but be accurate representations of the present, but they cannot predict the future.

x x x

The way the MBTI test works, and many other similar personality tests work, is that they ask you a bunch of questions about how you are already behaving. For example, on the test I took, they might give you a statement like this: “Being around lots of people energizes me.” And then you choose between Very inaccurate, inaccurate, neutral, accurate, very accurate.

So, given this structure, I think it’s actually quite impossible for a test like this to be completely inaccurate. I mean, this is a very basic voting machine.

At this point, I will tell you how the test results are labeled for MBTI, specifically. MBTI is sometimes called something along the lines of “the sixteen personality test,” because, according to Wikipedia, quote, “The test attempts to assign a value to each of four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. One letter from each category is taken to produce a four-letter test result, such as "INTJ" or "ESFP”.” End quote.

So for the first letter it’s I or E for introversion or extraversion.

For the second letter, it’s N or S for intuition or sensing.

For the third letter, it’s T or F for thinking or feeling.

For the fourth letter, it’s J or P for judging or perceiving.

So, going back to the voting machine idea: you raise your hand for extroversion and you get the E letter. You raise your hand for introversion and you get the I letter. Thus I think a test like this isn’t just useless categorizing if you’re trying to examine your current personality. Your current behavior. Your current state of mind.

However, does this test predict the future? Absolutely not. And I am living proof of this, because my personality, according to this test, changed within a period of, oh, I don’t know. Three or five years or so.

Let me tell you what I used to be.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/016-darling-destroy-me-for-youre-beautiful/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

💣💣💣

The possibility of destruction is the most seducing element of beauty. That is something I absorbed from a Youtube video titled, “Why Were The Nazis So Stylish? // Secret History Revealed” by a channel called “Real Men Real Style.”

Yes, fellow absorbers, we’re going to talk about Nazi uniforms, very briefly but nonetheless importantly. Those uniforms are the seeds that inspired this episode, from which we will sprout in various directions.

But first I want to talk about why I enjoyed this video so much, beyond the fact that it helped me create another episode of Sponge. I think a lot of topics with value judgments attached to them are simply put aside in fear of offending someone. Now, people are free to get offended, but should that stop anybody from talking about whatever they want to talk about? I don’t think so. Especially in the online world, where, as I always say, you can block, mute, unfollow, and downvote. In the online world, more or less, you don’t have to see what you don’t want to see. It puzzles me greatly that some people, instead of just not seeing what they don’t want to see, choose to try to stop others from talking.

Now, that didn’t happen with this specific video, as far as I can tell, but I’m talking about the general sentiment of 2022 here. I think it is a grand waste of time to try to stop other people from talking, and even immoral. To anyone who thinks that stopping other people from using words that convey ideologies different from theirs is their moral right, I suggest that they try to focus on their own storytelling. I’m serious. Tell your own story and make it more effective. If people aren’t buying your story—not necessarily monetarily not buying, but I mean, not being convinced—then maybe other people expressing opposing views isn’t the problem. Maybe you should just learn to tell your stories better.

Anyway, this is why I enjoy watching videos like this, where a person can find some things to learn about the Nazis. Yes, I just said that. No matter what you believe in, there is something to be learned from an entity that was as powerful and popular as the Nazis. Let’s not fool ourselves—they were great at something and that was why they were so powerful and popular. Otherwise, the word Nazi wouldn’t even exist. The concept wouldn’t even exist.

It is very easy to treat everyone who, at first glance, doesn’t believe in what you believe in, as idiots. I do it, too, on a regular basis. But at the same time, at least occasionally I try to look at things that don’t make sense and dissect it so that I can collect weapons and shields that will serve me. If there is a serial killer with a knife, I don’t have to agree with the killer on killing other people to be able to use the knife. I can take the knife and cook, instead of killing people. In fact, the serial killer may be a great cook and killer. So, why not learn some things from the killer?

It’s like this. If it looks like your enemies are winning, it’s most likely because they’re better than you at one or several things. Better learn from them.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/015-the-most-time-consuming-kink-ever/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🚫🚫🚫

Some kinks cannot be satisfied with a simple, honest erotica story. That is something I absorbed from my recent research into the world of eroticas.

This episode is a bit different from the others. Number one, because it’s about how I could not find what I was looking for, most references are, really, references as in… research references. They aren’t what this episode is about. They didn’t exactly inspire this episode. But they helped me see how I will probably never write “erotica” eroticas, official eroticas. And I will elaborate on this point more in the main part of the episode.

And it is also a bit different from the other episodes in that, number two, it is marked explicit. So, children, go away. I mean, I don’t think anyone under 18 has ever listened to this podcast, at least according to the Spotify statistics I get from Anchor, but hey, you never know. Maybe children have been listening to this podcast through the Apple podcast app or Google podcast app or a browser.

But children, you cannot listen to this particular episode because it is now marked explicit. Why? Well, I personally have nothing against children learning about the completely natural and even desirable existence of sex and some of the more, how should I put this, approachable kinks. But you know what I am terrified of? Parents. Children, I am terrified of your parents and parents in general. So, do not, I repeat, do not listen to this episode. Okay? Go hunt candies tonight. It’s Halloween. Come back to this when you turn eighteen, or whatever is the legal age for accessing all kinds of porn in your place of residence.

That said, this episode isn’t porn, it isn’t erotica, and it isn’t even erotic, I think. This is a study on how some kinks cannot be satisfied with a simple, honest erotica story. Actually, it’s my study on my particular kink. Yes, apparently I do have a kink. For the longest time, I wondered about people’s very specific, very strong kinks and why I didn’t have them, or why it seemed like I didn’t have them. But I think I now know why.

So, with all this out of the way, let us begin.

x x x

My interest in the erotica genre is nothing new. I have always thought that at some point, I would write eroticas, for three main reasons.

One. All kinds of writers that I know of have all done it. Writing smut sells. And yeah, artists, including writers, need money. And not just any kind of money—because, if any kind of money had satisfied our needs, I would’ve just kept my corporate job and I think all these writers would’ve gotten better-paying jobs as well. But I didn’t do it, and they didn’t do it. Why? Because making money from writing is key, I think. Selling writing gives me a degree of pleasure that no other high-paying job could possibly give me. If all these writers are anything like me, it makes complete sense why they wrote smut instead of getting another part-time job. It is a great feeling when someone buys what you wrote. It doesn’t matter what the writing is about.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/014-we-need-to-talk-about-love-at-actually-not-first-sight/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

💙💙💙

Love at first sight isn’t as first as it might appear at first sight. That is something I absorbed from “Superluminal” and “Dreamsnake,” both written by Vonda N. McIntyre.

Spoiler alert. Not many, but there are some spoiler elements in this episode. If you’re going to read “Superluminal” and “Dreamsnake,” written by Vonda N. McIntyre, and want to avoid spoilers, do not listen to this episode.

Yes, dear fellow absorbers. We’re going to talk about love. We need to talk about love, because it’s gonna be Halloween soon, and what better occasion to talk about love than when we’re remembering the dead? Death and love go hand-in-hand. I believe if we had been immortals, the concept of love would have been an extremely weak one. Perhaps we might have treated love as something as frivolous as pompoms. Because, in that which is fleeting, there is tragedy. And if there is no tragedy, or at least the possibility of tragedy, there is no love.

But, my kind of love aside, let’s see what Vonda N. McIntyre has to say about love. Both “Superluminal” and “Dreamsnake” are science fiction books. Science fiction isn’t usually the genre that people associate with love, which, in my opinion, is intensely odd. I think science fiction is the genre where various more practical scenarios of speculative love can be dealt with, especially because technology in our real world is shifting so quickly, and what is depicted in science fiction might very well become a reality in ten years. Science fiction, in that regard, is different from fantasy—although, if you subscribe to the Clarktech line of philosophy… can I call that philosophy? If you believe that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” then fantasy material could be considered a broader realm of science fiction. Eventually, fantasy, just like science fiction, might count as reality. Meaning, in a way, science fiction stories are the closer future scenarios, but fantasy stories don’t exist on a separate spectrum; they’re just the future scenarios that are farther away.

That said, “Superluminal.” “Dreamsnake.” Both have romantic elements in them, but love isn’t the main plot and hence it’s science fiction and not category romance. In fact, these books aren’t romantic science fiction either. Romance is in the background—which was actually why it stood out, in both books.

Another reason the romance stood out in these two books is that they don’t just deal with any random love, they specifically deal with love at first sight, although nobody in the books calls it that. On top of that, it was love at first sight of an even more specific kind, which made me wonder about this episode’s theme: Love at first sight isn’t as first as it might appear at first sight.

x x x

Now, I am going to introduce four people, two from each of these two books. To be more specific, I’m gonna introduce two couples.

In “Dreamsnake,” the protagonist’s name is Snake. She is named thusly because, in this post-apocalyptic, somewhat dystopian world, she uses snakes to heal people, and the name Snake is given to a remarkably skilled healer. Her romantic interest is named Arevin. He is a member of a nomadic clan. It seems that his people don’t believe in our modern concept of a job. His people travel with the seasons, from the desert to the pastures, with their animals.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/013-criminals-and-sinners-but-never-everywhere-to-everyone/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🧛‍♀️🧛‍♀️🧛‍♀️

There are always worse crimes than a given crime, and worse sins than a given sin, in one person’s eyes or another. That is something I absorbed from “The Radleys” by Matt Haig.

Spoiler alert, my dear fellow absorbers, spoiler alert. Everything on this podcast is on spoiler alert—the alert is on the website’s front page, on the individual transcript pages, and in the description fields of the podcast platforms.

But, since “The Radleys” is a fiction story, and we’re not only talking about the initial premise but also about the plot points that occur deeper into the story, I thought I would give you another, extra, crystal-clear spoiler alert.

Do not listen to this episode if you plan to read “The Radleys” by Matt Haig and are concerned about spoilers.

With all that warning out of the way, let me reiterate. There are always worse crimes than a given crime, and worse sins than a given sin, in one person’s eyes or another. I think this is the theme of this book.

At first I picked it up because it had vampires in them. Yes. I like vampires. I like vampire stories. I even enjoyed Twilight the book, although I didn’t enjoy Twilight the movie, but that’s not because of the vampires, and more because of how much the movie emphasized the supposed sexiness aspect of vampires.

See, I’m not interested in vampires because they’re sexy. They could be sexy, but so can be humans. Sexiness does not make vampires special.

What does make vampires special is the time aspect. Whenever I think about vampires, I associate them more with rocks than the somewhat sadomasochistic sexiness resulting from their fangs, which in turn is tied to all the blood and power and so on and so forth. These creatures are closer to fossils, basically. They may be enveloped in flesh, bones, and blood like us, but at heart, they’re completely different beings from us—if they have a heart, which isn’t always a given. It could depend on the story. I mean, these are supernatural creatures from our imagination, so there may be a kind of loose canon around vampires, but there are no requirements; there are no officially set rules on what they can be like. Hey, there could even be robot vampires. You know, like space witches. Warlock aliens. All that stuff, where the supernatural meets science fiction.

So, robot vampires. Entirely possible.

But whatever kind of vampire they are, there is one canon that is always abided by, and that is that they live wayyyy longer than humans. They either live forever or close to forever. They, compared to humans who can die of any number of diseases before they reach their tenth birthday, are like rocks. Minerals. Mountains. They’re so bulletproof, sometimes it seems to me that there’s absolutely no way they could be sexy.

All this, of course, is personal taste. Clearly, I associate some amount of vulnerability with sexiness. I find rocks… patently unsexy.

Still, when the vampires themselves realize this aspect of themselves, or if the story deals with this rock-like eternality of vampires in general, then I tend to be fascinated, because that’s also a kind of vulnerability. And thus, unless a vampire story is purely about the surface-level sadomasochistic power play, I tend to pick it up. Usually you can tell, from the book cover, from the poster, or whichever other promotional material that the story uses as its… bait.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/012-let-me-feel-your-flesh-blood-and-bones/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

❤️❤️❤️

Practicing what you preach while preaching is totally possible, and to do that, you just gotta do some things yourself. This is something I absorbed from The Iconist by Jamie Mustard and a Youtube video about deadmau5 by Alex Berman.

So, first, the book. The Iconist by Jamie Mustard. This is a nonfiction book about… I guess it could be categorized as marketing, but I think it’s very useful for anything in life, including but not limited to various forms of art and relationships.

I will read you part of the blurb.

With the rise of digital media and advertising, a constant barrage of information makes it nearly impossible to be seen and heard. In The Iconist, branding and design strategist Jamie Mustard shows you how individuals, organizations, and brands can break through the noise.

I listened to this in audiobook format, and wow, what a meta way to put his writing out there. Mr. Jamie Mustard truly practiced what he preached, while preaching, by doing some things himself, and it’s because one of the things he emphasizes is authenticity.

In that spirit, the entire book was read by Mr. Mustard himself. I loved this. These days, when it’s a nonfiction book, I almost expect the author to read the book. This is especially the case with books that are in marketing, or otherwise involve a lot more personal opinion rather than facts.

For example, I understand if a biologist doesn’t want to read their seven-hundred-page book on the gene mutations in lung cancer, because the topic is science. The very foundation of science is that anybody should be able to approach the same experiment and get the same result. So I don’t mind if a professional narrator reads the book.

Whereas, with marketing? Marketing isn’t a science. Some claim that it is, but if that were the case, a given method would have to give the same results for everyone—which isn’t the case. Now, this doesn’t mean that marketing is a mythical, illogical thing. Not at all. In my previous life, I used to work in digital marketing, and marketing is very much… how should I put this? It’s about consistency, planning, and measuring. Digital marketing, especially, because consistent planning and measuring is possible. Paid advertising. SEO. It doesn’t have much to do with myths or pure luck.

But. I think it would be a great exaggeration to say that marketing is a science. It just… it isn’t, in my opinion.

That is why I much prefer marketing books that are narrated by the authors themselves. The very reason there are so many marketing books is that everybody has their own ideas. One of the ways in which I decide which marketing book to read is to see if the author is actually standing behind their ideas. And I thought, Mr. Mustard so totally did.

I could hear everything in this audiobook. Sometimes he smacked his lips very softly. There were pauses. There were little parts where he sounded more tired than in other parts, and his voice sounded slightly different as if he had a cup of water just now.

And I liked all of that. It wasn’t sterile at all, which sometimes happens in nonfiction books. Jamie Mustard sounded like a person in this audiobook.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/011-will-you-burn-my-evil-books-please/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

📕📕📕

To have my books burned would be an honor. This is what I absorbed from the last episode’s talk about exorcism and its relationship to a given entity’s face and name.

Book burning is very similar to exorcism. Well, no, let me correct that. Book burning is a form of exorcism. The slight difference is that, in most cases of exorcisms, the devil is inside a human being, whereas in book burning, the devil that is being exorcised resides within a book.

A long while ago, I heard about some religious groups that burned Harry Potter books, claiming that they’re the books of the devil. They thought the story in the book was evil because it promoted Satanism. And so they felt the need to burn a bunch of those books.

I find this infinitely amusing and laughable.

And before continuing, I would like to make a statement regarding my position on religions.

You can believe whatever you want. But when you start doing things in the name of your God or gods that destroys what other people have done, then you don’t deserve respect.

I believe there is some sort of higher force that is beyond my control. But I will never again partake in an established religion. I find it extremely offensive when someone claims that their god, especially their One God, is more important than the absence of other people’s gods.

Sometimes I think I should just call my belief system a religion, because the leeway given to religions is utterly nonsensical. Such auto respect toward religions is how countless literal murders were committed in their names, and I despise that.

So, I will laugh at nonsensical behavior like book burning, committed by some religious groups, as I please. I have zero respect for them. Why should I respect them, when they destroyed one of the manifestations of something that is as close to a religion as it gets for me, which is storytelling?

Anyway, my lack of respect for these people doesn’t stop me from finding it insanely fascinating that various religions, throughout the millennia, have attempted to trap something so shapeless and formless as a story into a shape and form, specifically in order to destroy that shape and form. I guess, just as a typical exorcist would attempt to make the devil manifest within a victim’s body, and then demand that it say its name, the book burners thought they would have power over the book once they knew the title and could see the cover, and physically destroyed them.

But unlike in the case of the devil, which seems to latch onto a physical body, which is why it tries to possess people, a story doesn’t need to latch onto anything physical. If any latching is happening, then it’s the physical that is latching onto the story, not the story latching onto the physical.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/010-begone-devil-for-you-dont-know-my-name-and-face/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

📓📓📓

There is a part of us that wants to believe that the knowledge of an opponent’s face and name holds power. That is something I absorbed from “Death Note,” a manga series written by Ohba Tsugumi and illustrated by Obata Takeshi.

“Death Note” is a story where the premise is this: ‘If you know someone’s face and their name, and you write that person’s name and the cause of death on this notebook called Death Note, that person will end up dying according to the cause of death that you wrote down.”

Spooky, eh?

I read this series more than a decade ago. And I had so. much. fun. I thought it was such a cool idea. I mean, can you imagine, the power to kill someone the way you want, just by knowing their face and name? How many people’s faces and names do you know? If you’ve had a pretty average life of attending schools and joining the workforce, you probably know at least several hundred people, at any given time. Heck, even if you didn’t go to school and never worked, you probably know a celebrity or politician or two. Imagine how crazy dangerous it would be to use Tiktok in such a world. Totally crazy.

Anyway, at the time of reading the series, I didn’t think about why I was so fascinated by the premise, beyond the superficial fact that yes, it was extremely cathartic to follow this main character with the ability to kill people in such an elegant manner.

And on a side note, by “elegant,” I mean… Well, I am a storyteller. I write fiction stories. If any government agency were to look into my search results, they’d think I was a serial killer with a track record of killing a dozen people. Or a mass murderer planning to unleash a bomb in a shopping mall. The stuff I look up and write about is hypothetical and theoretical, but still it can be misinterpreted as criminal.

When I say “elegantly killing people,” I mean that this main character from Death Note is killing people without even worrying about his fingerprints getting anywhere. There might be blood, depending on what cause of death he chose for a specific victim, but it’s not like the police will find a strand of his hair in the pool of blood. And that seems extremely elegant, story-wise.

This is an amazing superpower. The only other superpower that I know of, that rivals this superpower, is the power of the culling song, from “Lullaby,” by Chuck Palahniuk.

But, for now, let’s stick to “Death Note.”

A few months back, I wondered for the first time: Why does this premise make sense to me? Why didn’t I immediately say No to this idea that a real name and someone’s face can have enough power to kill someone?

Isn’t it strange?

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/009-i-dream-of-a-flying-home/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🦋🦋🦋

A flying castle might be too much, but a flying house would be ideal. That is something I absorbed from the movie version of “Howl’s Moving Castle.”

This is a beautiful animated film. It’s one of my favorite animated films. And the major reason that this is so is because of the very idea of a flying abode.

Personally, I don’t think I could handle a whole castle. That sounds like an awful lot of cleaning. And I’m not sure if I would feel comfortable outsourcing it. I’m not sure if I want another person around in my personal space, and home is my personal space. So, a flying castle might be too much, but a flying house would be ideal. Say, a three-bedroom house. I can handle that.

Although, it’s entirely possible that by the time flying homes become actually available, we might be able to purchase small humanoid robots that can take care of some aspects of cleaning. But even then I wouldn’t be sure if I can trust the bot. I don’t even have an Alexa where I live, and I don’t plan to have one. I don’t even use voice commands on my phone, although I’m pretty sure that my phone is listening all the time anyway.

But enough with the dystopian worries. Regardless of the possibility of a robot uprising, I would like a flying home.

And I am not joking. Neither am I speaking hypothetically. I am dead serious. I think this is something that will become completely possible in my lifetime—if not legally, then at least technologically.

So far, I have lived more than a quarter of a century, and less than half a century on this planet. If I don’t get into some freak accident, I think it’s safe to assume that I still have three decades left on this planet, at the very least. So I’m thinking, a flying home, in my lifetime—why not?

Even with current technology, a very small, rudimentary version of this seems to be possible, just as it is possible to have a flying-car version of Uber. The issues seem to be more in the laws and regulations, less in technology.

Anyway, I imagine it would be gorgeous to float above the oceans. And when the sun rises above the Pacific near Los Angeles, I’ll call my friend on the other side of the Pacific and tell her how it compares to the sun over there, and she’ll do the same for me, and vice versa.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/008-you-think-you-know-her-but-really-you-dont/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🧊🧊🧊

Anything can be a mirror. That is something I absorbed from "The Mirror and the Palette" by Jennifer Higgie.

This will be the last episode about that book. It inspires me in so many ways, but other sources also inspire me. So, I am determined that this will be the last episode for “The Mirror and the Palette.”

It is a book about female self-portraiture. And one of the reasons it is titled thusly is that once upon a time, women weren’t allowed to join life drawing sessions, where you could see living, breathing human models. So, if women wanted to depict humans from life, they had no choice but to use themselves as models. They used a mirror to observe themselves, and to draw and paint themselves, creating self-portraits.

So, without mirrors, their artworks may never have existed. The mirrors reflected their world.

But I also think that a different kind of mirroring was happening, simultaneously. Not only did the mirrors reflect the world, but also the artworks mirrored the world as well, and not merely because the artist portrayed what was in the mirror onto the canvas. Rather, it was because once something went through the artist, the world couldn’t be the same. When these women were portraying themselves from their mirror reflections, they put their world, something that isn’t universal outside of themselves, into that work.

In that regard, a particular artwork itself is a mirror that only a particular artist can create.

But more broadly, I think anything can be a mirror of anything else. It’s because we always see ourselves in other things. Art or otherwise, mirror or otherwise. Our self determines what we see.

That is why I doubt that there are two people in the world who look at a painting and absorb the exact same thing, or listen to a song and absorb the exact same thing. In fact, I doubt that the same person would absorb the exact same thing in the morning and in the evening. Because the person changes, and so, what they see mirrored changes, no matter what the mirroring mechanism entails.

Anything can be a mirror.

And of all those many things that can be a mirror, I want to talk about the written format. Because of the nature of writing, writers witness this mirroring phenomenon in many more random ways than those who use other media. And by “writers”, here, I not only mean the novelists and journalists and poets who make a living from writing, but also, any office worker who writes an email or any blogger or anyone who uses a Twitter account. In this day and age, there are more literate humans than ever before. Many people write.

So, I’m saying, all of us have probably experienced before, to varying degrees, just how random this mirroring process can get.

This degree of random mirroring is possible with writing, because it exists nearly completely detached from the writer. This is a unique trait, when you think about it.

Writings are different from paintings.

...

..

.

View Details

Full written segment and links: https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/written/007-by-showing-its-true-colors-a-story-unfolds/ Everything I do is organized here: https://ithakaonmymind.com/ 🎨🎨🎨 Hello, audio consumers of Sponge. Did you know that there is a written segment of Sponge? This includes all the transcripts of the audio episodes, but also, blog posts that were written entries by birth. This is because some things are just too visual. And for that reason, episode 7 will be a written one. Because I’m gonna be talking about the visual aspect of “Destination Earth,” the ideology of which we covered in the previous episode. So, click on the link in the show notes, and I will see you there. Bye.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/006-the-pursuit-of-the-one-story-is-futile/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

💍💍💍

Every era and every place has its romanticized ideology. That is something I absorbed from “Destination Earth” produced by John Sutherland Studios in 1956.

This 14-minute short film is where I got the cover image for Episode 3 from. The episode was titled “I have an excellent example of a monopoly that must die.” And on the cover of that episode, someone’s cartoon hand is holding a book. On the book cover, the title says “Competition.” And under that, the subtitle reads, “More for all.”

For those of you who use the Spotify app, you can see this cover image directly in the episode feed.

If you use other apps, it’s likely that the feed does not show the episode-specific covers. However, you can click on the link in the show notes, which will direct you to the website for Sponge, and there, I have all the transcripts for all the episodes, as well as the cover image for each episode.

So. I thought it would be interesting to talk about this short animated film, because it is so blatantly optimistic about the ideologies that were worshipped in its particular place and time. Moreover, those particular ideologies seem to have lost their absolute appeal in our times, so it’s doubly fascinating. We, as the people who live in the here and now, can look back to the past, and easily notice how blind their optimism was.

According to the page on “The Public Domain Review,” where I found this film, it was, quote, “produced at the height of the Cold War, and made at the behest of the American Petroleum Institute. … [This] great little promotional film … champions not only the wonders of oil as might be expected, but also free-market capitalism.”

The cartoon, quote, “tells the story of how the suspiciously Stalin-like leader of Mars, named Ogg, sends a rather calamity-prone citizen to Earth to find a better power source for his poorly-running ‘state limousine.’ The exploring Martian, of course, lands in the United States and soon discovers the many and myriad delights of petroleum and that, in contrast to his home planet, competition between companies is rife. His take-home lesson (and one drilled into the viewer on numerous occasions) is that ‘competing for the customer’s dollar’ is key to the success of the oil industry, and, of course, the thriving country as a whole.”

So this cute film—cute because these cartoon characters do look adorable—is an overt ideology piece. Its purpose wasn’t to amuse or to appeal to the eyes—it was to convince. It was to convert.

Number one, toward an economy based on competition.

Number two, toward the usage of petroleum.

Since episode 3 was about the fact that Bowker is maintaining its ridiculous monopoly in the present day and my present place, which is the year 2022 in the USA, the message about an economy based on competition sounded plenty appealing.

Of course, we, who live anywhere in 2022, know from decades of global experience that market-driven economies aren’t all rainbows and unicorns. But at the same time, I strongly believe that some competition is indeed better than no competition at all. Hence my usage of a scene from this short film, for episode 3, with that cartoon character holding up that book, which says “Competition” on its front cover.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/005-between-grotesque-complexity-and-smooth-oneness-we-chew

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

🦷🦷🦷

The more complicated an organism’s features, the more repulsive they get for other organisms. That is something I absorbed from the last episode’s musings.

We were talking about teeth and smiles in the last episode. We also talked about the definition of the word grotesque, and how I interpret that word. So, with all that as the background info: teeth are, in many ways, grotesque things.

If you think about human teeth, you might not get that sense very much. That’s because you, the person listening to this podcast, are probably human. But think about little fish teeth. Or big fish teeth, like shark teeth. And then consider how some sharks have multiple layers of teeth. You know, teeth that can shred you into pieces.

Now, imagine how they would see themselves. To them, such teeth are completely normal. Maybe they think our teeth are ugly.

It’s the unknown and unknowable manifoldness. The multi-dimensionality. The processing power it takes for us to digest information that is all those many teeth that aren’t ours. That’s what makes something grotesque to a being, not an absloute property that a structure has.

Here’s another example: the legs of a centipede.

For the centipedes, their legs are a perfectly normal, desirable tool. But urgh. As I typed that word, I shivered. And as I edited the podcast outline, I shivered again. And while I am recording this episode, I am shivering again. I will probably shiver again while I’m editing the audio, and again while I upload it to Anchor and do a final listen-through. That is the kind of impact a centipede’s legs have on me. There are simply too many.

This repulsion, by the way, is totally programmed into me, I think. I don’t think it was nurtured into me. I think I was born this way to be scared and/or repulsed by newness, at least initially, and then, once I realize that the newness is not only new but also just too complicated and complex to very frequently remain repulsed.

There are a bunch of studies saying one way or another. You know, the ones that say that we’re evolutionarily programmed to dislike certain insects because we associate them with diseases. And then there are the ones that say, if we teach children that they don’t need to be scared of and be repulsed by these insects, then they won’t be scared or repulsed.

There was a study… I saw this a long time ago, so I don’t remember which study it was, but there was a study on how to encourage the next generation to consume insects as food. Because, they’re a great source of protein, and there aren’t enough resources to raise all the meat-producing animals in the future.

Insect protein isn’t necessarily unhygienic. These insects would be raised in clean environments, probably much cleaner than the average cage for poultry or mammals, simply because of how much tinier insects are and therefore how little space they take up and how much more affordable it is to raise them.

Some researchers thought that if you expose kids to insect protein from an early age, they won’t dislike it so much. And immediately, I thought of The Lion King. The scene where Simba sees Timon and Pumbaa eat those insects from under the tree trunk and he grimaces at first, but doesn’t anymore, later.

Anyway. Insects. The biggest obstacle to eating them and liking them, in my opinion, is that they have more limbs than us.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/004-a-smile-harbors-grotesqueries/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

👄👄👄

Too much power makes a person powerless. That is something I absorbed from "The Mirror and the Palette" by Jennifer Higgie.

Once again, “The Mirror and the Palette” is a book about female self-portraiture. And I thought about the grotesque irony of power when I read this part:

“In seventeenth-century Holland, a love of both morality tales and jokes resulted in a robust trade in paintings of people drinking and laughing, but in France, smiling – and in particular a smile that revealed the teeth – was sternly frowned upon. Of course, this might have had something to do with the fact that King Louis XIV had no teeth left by the time he was forty and it wasn’t done to gloat.”

I have heard before that in some cultures, people think it’s improper to show their teeth. So that wasn’t the part that felt so grotesque to me. The grotesque part was that the reason it was recommended that people don’t show their teeth might have been because of Louis XIV.

It seems that it’s not for certain whether Louis XIV demanded that people stop showing their gorgeous healthy teeth, or if he implied that he was too sad from seeing people smile openly, or if he did nothing of the sort, but people just assumed.

Whatever the actual situation might have been, the possibility is there, isn’t it? The possibility of a king compelling people to stop smiling while showing their teeth. I mean, a king! No teeth! So everyone around him might have just stopped showing their teeth while smiling. And that, somehow, could have turned into some kind of a… fashion statement? Or some kind of… a way to show how high-class you were?

As in, Hey, if you hang out with Louis, it becomes so normal for you to hide your teeth while you laugh or smile, so anybody who shows their teeth must be total peasants.

It is so bizarre, but you know what? I don’t have that difficult a time believing that something like this could happen. And that is so grotesque, for a king to just… let this happen.

If I had been a king who needed to show who was boss, as soon as I noticed that people weren’t laughing around me with an open mouth anymore, I would have either explicitly ordered them to resume smiling normally, or, alternatively, I might have actually explicitly illegalized laughing while showing your teeth. Basically, anything but the passive-agressive way.

And this wasn’t a timeplace where kings and royals in general were in any shape or form equal to other people, so I’m excluding that equality strategy from this discussion. Like, if I were Louis the Sun King, I wasn’t gonna suddenly advocate democracy because of my toothlessness.

So I might have yelled at the court to stop with the foolishness. In fact, since I am the king, I might have ordered them to laugh. Immediately!

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links: https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/003-i-have-an-excellent-example-of-a-monopoly-that-must-die Everything I do is organized here: https://ithakaonmymind.com/ ☠️☠️☠️ This, I absorbed from my recent review of the costs I have accrued in the past three years for my writing and publishing business: Bowker’s  existence is a disgrace to American capitalism and along with Bowker,  all monopolies should die. I am talking about this topic now, because I thought it might be nice to change things up instead of doing all the “Mirror and the Palette” episodes in a row. Bowker operates in the United States of America. Among many other overpriced nonsense products, it also sells ISBNs. Sells, instead of giving them out for free. ISBNs—which stands for International Standard Book Number. Number. Just a simple number that does its existing on its own—as in, without humans needing to create them. Nevertheless, Bowker sells these. To this, you might say, “Well, Bowker needs to keep itself afloat somehow. It is a business.” I would agree with you, if the price that Bowker charges for a single ISBN is anything close to fair. In my world, the maximum you could  possibly, possibly charge for a single string of number, in a  fair manner, is maybe, generously speaking, ten dollars. Okay? Ten  dollars. And that’s not because numbers are exspensive, but because  Bowker needs to take care of the hosting, the customer service (which it doesn’t really have, but I’m speaking of hypotheticals here), and maybe it just wants to save up. You know, have a financial reserve. Because,  indeed, Bowker is a business. But it isn’t just any business. That is the problem. It is a monopoly. It is the only agency that sells ISBN numbers in the United States. Thus, at this time, Bowker is able to sell a single ISBN, which is, again, literally a string of numbers, for… …one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Yes. You heard that right. One hundred and twenty-five dollars for a single string of numbers. The existence of a business like this is a disgrace to American capitalism and along with Bowker, all monopolies should die. This is an example of something that seems to clearly  violate the right to free speech in this country. But surprisingly, I’ve heard no one talk about it in that context. The fact that unless you  can pay $125 per single number, or unless you’re willing to pay even  more for the bulk option, you cannot publish a print book yourself—how  does this not violate the right to free speech? Although you do not necessarily need an ISBN for an ebook, you very  much need an ISBN for a print book that is sold at regular stores. This  situation means that if I were a political activist who wants to publish a print book and make it available at regular stores, online or  offline, I may not be able to, unless I work with a publisher, which may or may not have a favorable contract for me. Thus, the US government’s  total indifference to the existence of a monopoly such as Bowker can  very well force some people to make decisions that go against free speech. They might have to make edits that they don’t want to make. Or, because they cannot buy a new ISBN for a new edition, maybe they might  not be able to make the edits that they want to make. Worst, they might need to wait around to get published instead of publishing. In America. Of all countries. ... .. .

View Details

Full transcript and links:

https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/002-i-shall-draw-from-the-body-of-legendary-wheels/

Everything I do is organized here:

https://ithakaonmymind.com/

⛵️⛵️⛵️

This, I absorbed from "The Mirror and the Palette" by Jennifer Higgie: originality is overrated; to make something richly meaningful, don’t reinvent the wheel, just draw from the body of legendary wheels.

Yes, this is the second time I’m referencing the book “The Mirror and the Palette.” We will probably get at least five episodes out of this book, because it inspires in me so many different directions.

So. This is a book about female self-portraiture. And as an extension of the previous episode, I thought about the fact that referencing existing work is not only easier, but also more effective.

Once again, the artist at the center of the discussion will be Judith Leyster. As mentioned in the previous episode, she used a distinctive monogram. It was J, followed by an l, with a little star next to it. “Jl*.”

But this monogram wasn’t just important due to its function as a clear brand. It was doubly important because of the cultural references it drew from. According to the book, this monogram was, quote, “a play on her surname: ‘leidstar’ ”… or ‘leidstar’? I’m not sure. Whatever the correct Dutch pronunciation is, this word, “translates as lodestar – like the one that shone so brightly over Bethlehem – a star that guides.”

Making something richly meaningful—it is an act that is easier said than done. And so, ancient mythology, biblical stories, and historical references can act as excellent tools for adding meaning. They do things that so-called “completely original” stories cannot possibly do, which is, pulling from pre-existing stories that add layers and depth without any overt explanation by the user of those myths and legends.

Consider Judith Leyster’s lodestar reference. Now that I’ve heard that story in conjunction with her monogram, I cannot separate her from the image of a visionary. A star seer. A star guide. How cool is that?

Imagine how powerful that must have been, in a timeplace in which a lot of people were familiar with this religious reference. Also imagine how difficult it might have been for Judith Leyster, if she’d instead tried to invent a whole new story to surround herself with.

By using the lodestar reference and literally embedding it into her work in the form of the monogram, Judith put herself as part of a map, a vast map of stories. She is but one star in the sky, but by no means lonely and by no means detached. She is at once alone and together. This is brilliant.

When you consider the fact that there is no such thing as total originality anyway, her strategy is even more brilliant. Everything draws from something. Nothing is born out of nothing.

Originality is overrated. Sometimes, the people who chase so-called originality never get anything done, because, well, a human tends to have a history. So far, at least, with the technology available to us, humans have what’s called a place they come from, called a mother’s womb. So, to deny that every person inevitably comes from a source, and to attempt to become something that one cannot possibly be, is… I think it is a way to spend efforts on a futile task.

To make something richly meaningful, don’t reinvent the wheel, just draw from the body of legendary wheels.

Here are some other examples.

...

..

.

View Details

Full transcript and links: https://sponge.ithakaonmymind.com/audio/i-do-it-for-love-the-market-decides/ Everything I do is organized here: https://ithakaonmymind.com/ ✨✨✨ This, I absorbed from "The Mirror and the Palette" by Jennifer Higgie: there was no past in the history of humanity that can be glorified for the separation between art and the market. “The Mirror and the Palette” is a book about female self-portraiture. And I thought about the inevitable symbiosis between art and the market when the author mentioned the Dutch artist Judith Leyster. I got this pronunciation for her name from an article titled, “How to Pronounce the Names of Some Dutch Painting Masters.” I hope I’m saying it correctly. In the book, well before Judith Leyster is mentioned by name, Jennifer Higgie talks about how difficult it is to attribute a painting to the correct artist. Wars happen. Mishandling happens. And sometimes, everyone does their job and destroys nothing, and yet through the simple passing of time, the roots and sources of artwork get… blurry. Considering this tendency toward art being separated from the artist, what Judith Leyster did was genius. She had a distinctive monogram. It was J, followed by an l, with a little star next to it. “Jl*.” Isn’t this so wonderful? Isn’t it great that an artist made her pride in her work perfectly clear by branding it for the market? Yes. I think Judith Leyster had the market in mind. This seems to be an early example of branding, not only for the sake of putting a name tag on something, but specifically for the market, for others to see and recognize. Why was it that other artists didn’t always do something similar? There could be many reasons. First of all, many markets back then might have been so personal, so person-to-person, that a written, visible brand wasn’t needed unless you were particularly ambitious—say, if you were someone who dreamed of having their work be known on the opposite side of the continent. Otherwise, you might have known everyone involved in your particular local market. You knew the baker, the butcher, the seamstress, and so on. And they knew you. So, a separate brand that is distinguishable from your face might not have been necessary, in most cases. Another explanation is that maybe, not signing a work might have been interpreted as humility. Whatever the reason is, our current inability to connect past works to all their creators is sad. And taking these examples from the past, I look at the present. In some modern circles, there seems to be the misconception that before the capitalist domination of society, or before globalization, or before the arrival of electricity and widely-available technology—basically, before everything that characterizes the modern world—there used to be an idyllic dream period in which artists could make art, free from the market, and therefore didn’t need to do any branding or marketing or sales or any such thing. I believe this is just that: a misconception. Before the aforementioned elements of modernity appeared, the biggest market in the Western world was the Church. It was what bought art. If the Church-dominated times seemed to preclude branding, marketing, and sales, then it was because it controlled the market to such an extent that such efforts were futile. ... .. .