‘funny,’ not funny Jim Infantino and Lionel Cassin

We start by talking about what we like and don’t like about the band Cheekface. It’s mostly like. Then we talk about the novel Heavy Weather by P.G. Woodhouse. We talk about the line through Red Dwarf from that author and style of writing. We go on to discuss The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Nighttime by Mark Haddon and we discuss what we find dark and light about that novel. Lionel felt a lot of the influence of the band XTC in the story, which takes place in Swindon.
We move on to discuss Charade and somehow find ourselves comparing movies in the 1960s landing on the hit musical Singing In The Rain, which Lionel has not seen but will watch in the future.
We make plans to talk with film maker Andrew Silver to compare 3 treatments of the J. Robert Oppenheimer story.
We try to end by slamming 2010: The Year We Make Contact but discuss a book retelling the making of the original film, The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stephanie Schwam.
Jim says he started reading The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. and we agree to discuss in a future episode.
Lionel says what he wants to do is complete a reading of Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. The conversation devolves into two old men kvetching about various health concerns and this episode croaks.

Julia Tenney joins us for what we are pretty sure is the 100th episode of our obscure podcast. Depending on how you count, considering that Jim forgot to press record on episode 2 of Season 1 (so, not counted) and there were some encore episodes (so, not counted) this one should be the actual 100th.
We start by talking about Jim’s new apple watch and then veer perpendicularly headlong into Pokémon Go. Then we discuss the recent eclipse and all of our various vantage points. Julia says that she thinks the dawn of science must have coincided with experiences of eclipses, which is an opinion shared by PBS.
We discuss The Midnight Library (referenced in a previous episode), as recommended by Julia, and the Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (to be referenced in a future episode), which was also recommended by Julia, which links back to our eclipse discussion. Lionel mentions The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (which we will discuss in the very next episode). We talk about the TV show Resident Alien, and the refreshing way the show deals with Native American communities and characters.
Julia talks about work she is doing for the Independent Film Festival, processing images for their website.
Of the movies that are coming to the festival, Julia is most excited about Janet Planet, which is playing at the same time as The Road to Ruane, about a person that Jim says he saw all around the Boston rock scene of the 90s. Janet Planet triggers Julia’s memory of ushering for the Boston production of Sleep No More, and we talk about that for a good long while before Jim and Julia bash out the details surrounding Jim’s band playing on Julia’s porch for PorchFest in Somerville, MA, May 11 at 2pm.
As if our conversation couldn’t get more self-involved, we shift deftly to discuss the merits of ice cream and beer. Then we hit again upon { feuilleton } and Johnathan Coulthart. In this way, we land on the topic of Optima, and other typefaces. We are reminded of the old press-type kits called Letraset, and long lost art of manual layout. At this point, over an hour in, we find our theme and play the intro music. Then we quibble and mumble on about waxers and typography until our 100th episode expends its final fuel and collapses in on itself.

This week we talk about The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Suggested by Julia Tenney, this book deals with regrets we've felt throughout life and wishing we could go back and fix things. Lionel contrasts this book with The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. The conversation turns to a book Jim wants to write about acceptance and meditation. We finish up by talking about the recent total eclipse, and our two vantage points, and how unlikely and precious our earth and universe is. Short description this time, but this pretty much covers our conversation this week.

This week, we welcomed Bing Broderick as our guest.
Bing Broderick comes to justBook-ish after years in marketing, community organizing, and nonprofit management. Early in his career, he marketed and sold music into niche outlets across the country (including bookstores) as Director of Special Marketing for the Cambridge-based record label, Rounder Records. Mid-career, Broderick shifted his focus to food justice, arriving at the Boston-based nonprofit Haley House to manage the newly launched social enterprise Haley House Bakery Café. Located in Nubian Square, Roxbury, the Café; provided hearty heathy food, a vital community space, and a workplace for men and women who faced significant barriers to employment. In December 2013, Broderick succeeded Haley House‘s founder as Executive Director of the non-profit organization, stewarding (in addition to the cafe) its soup kitchen, food pantry, housing, farm and educational programs. Bing transitioned out of this role in April 2022, having welcomed Haley House‘s new Executive Director, Reggie Jean. He will be opening justBook-ish in Dorchester with co-founder, Porsha Olayiwola, in Summer 2024.
We talk about his past and present projects, the history of Haley House, poetry slams, the business of running a bookstore, and his experience at Rounder Records.
For books, we discuss Bing’s reading of Morgenthau: Power, Privilege, and the Rise of an American Dynasty by Andrew Meier.
Lionel talks about reading Ulysses S. Grant: A Biography by Robert P. Broadwater and The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss by Edmund de Waal
We touch on Oppenheimer and Maestro, which Lionel asserts are variations on the same movie.
Bing says he read In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson.
In our discussion of Rounder Records, we mention a startup called Hear Music. The Wikipedia article omits most of its early history, but it was originally a music catalog that was eventually bought out by Starbucks.
During his time at Rounder, Bing met Iris Dement who was on the label for a number of years.
We end with a discussion of the summertime opening of justBook-ish in Fields Corner in Dorchester, MA.

Lionel talks about The Three Body Problem, both the novels by Liu Cixin and the Netflix series. We contrast the style of this series with our recent reads. Lionel contrasts the tv show with Red Queen on Prime. Back to The 3 Body Problem again, we discuss the ideas of Alastair Reynolds (not Ian) and killer alien traps.
We then launch into an enervating discussion of doing taxes and finding a general practitioner. This only lasts 12 minutes, so you might want to fast forward.
We talk about the different styles of writing in Science Fiction and the origins in pulp fiction started by writers like Asimov and evolving to present day fiction.

Dar joins the pod to tell us about her experience writing What I Found In A Thousand Towns, her songwriting and creative process, her experience in Beacon New York with Roger Ailes, the remarkable Jaimie Raskin, our relationship to art, the environment, and each other, Active Citizenship, and so much more.
I could not find the live performance of The Mark Rothko song. If someone knows where it is, please send an email so I can post it here.
Dar's Website
Writing A Song That Matters (her retreat)

References
All song clips included with permission from Dar Williams.