A long podcast episode deserves a long title-- and my newest episode of We Defy Augury is my longest episode yet-- so I have titled it "Strange Winds: A Meditation on Contamination" and it also has a long sub-title . . . "Examining Our Fears of Infection, Infiltration, and Impurity . . . Ideological and Otherwise" and this epic piece of audio is based on a strange coincidence-- I read four books in a row that deal-- directly and indirectly-- with our everchanging fears and anxieties about impurity and contamination . . . these are the books which my thoughts are (loosely) based on: Nelson DeMille's Cold War spy novel The Charm School; Dean R. Koontz's 90s tech thriller Dark Rivers of the Heart; Jonathan Blitzer's stellar book on the border situation-- Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis-- and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's horror novel Mexican Gothic . . . and there are also plenty of special guests: Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, Dave Chapelle, John Cougar, Phil Connors, Bob Dylan, The Scorpions, Kansas, Sting, Long Duk Dong, General Ripper, General Turgidson, President Merkin Muffley, John Mulaney, Donald Trump, Marco Guttierez, Ivan Drago, and Tommy DeVito . . . so if you have a long car ride or you're training for a marathon, then give it a shot-- despite the length, I think it's got a fairly coherent argument.
No comments:
Post a Comment