Subtext: Conversations about Classic Books and Films

Wes Alwan and Erin O'Luanaigh
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Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.

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  1. Aug 24

    A Map-Like Imagination in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop (“The Moose,” Part 2)

    A poem about a map opens North and South, the first collection of the great twentieth century poet Elizabeth Bishop, and since, maps have been associated with her poetic vision—at once telescoping and binocular—and with the polarities and preoccupations of her work. The map’s privileged, sweeping, bird’s eye view of the earth is also hand-held, man-made, intimate. Depending on its level of minuteness or obsession, it can contain the tiniest details as well as, let’s say, the whole enchilada. And though it purports to be scientific and objective, it is representational and therefore subjective, particular, imaginative, and personal. For several episodes, Wes & Erin will be reading a selection of some of Bishop’s most anthologized poems, starting with “The Moose” as expressions of, among other things, her map-like imagination. Upcoming Episodes: Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey”; more Elizabeth Bishop poetry: “First Death in Nova Scotia,” “One Art.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Erin: Welcome to part two of our discussion of the poems of Elizabeth Bishop. We are currently about. Oh, I'm okay. I'm proud of us. We're just about halfway through the Moose. That's not bad compared to our usual record. We're not halfway through stanza one. We're going. You know, it's about a bus trip. It's encouraging us to pick up the pace a little bit and get to our next stop. So we were just going to pick up with the woman in stanza 13 climbing into the bus. 0:41 Wes: Before you say that, I just want to make one little observation. 0:44 Erin: Oh, sure. 0:45 Wes: Just that we get right as soon as the light goes out, it's then that we get the barking of a dog and the smell of salt. First it's the smell of salt hay and then it's the barking of a dog. So smell is introduced. And is that the first time sound is really introduced in any. You know, we get the bus starting and all that, but I think that's right. It's very visual up to that point, I think. And then as soon as we lose the light, we get these new sensory modalities. The collie just supervised this dog, gives us a nice bark, and presumably we can't even see him. We just hear him. So I just love that. I just. I love the transition into darkness. It's so. 1:26 Erin: Yeah. 1:26 Wes: I don't know how else to say it. 1:28 Erin: Yeah. 1:28 Wes: And it's then that we. This really is the midpoint of the poem because now we're going to make this transition into the world of the bus, I guess. As the woman climbs in, we have 1:41 Erin: the ship's port lantern, as you said, being an indication that it's now nearly or fully dark outside. 1:47 Wes: She says red light swims through the dark. 1:50 Erin: Yeah. I'm assuming that at this point a bus would have some form of illumination, at least for when it's stopped and the doors open for people getting on and off the bus. Right. It would. It would light up on the inside interior. Yeah. 2:03 Wes: Yeah. 2:03 Erin: Or at least maybe it would stop, certainly if it were stopping at a station or a little, you know, whatever those things are called. Those little. Yeah, there's a word for it. 2:14 Wes: We need something to see the freckles by. 2:16 Erin: Right. We need something. Exactly. But wherever they would be stopping would have some form of street light illumination or something of that order. Anyway. 2:26 Wes: But it's interesting you say this, because I didn't picture a bus station at any point in this. And I just imagine people along the side of the road. 2:34 Erin: Right. But if it were a course, it 2:38 Wes: couldn't be that way. 2:39 Erin: Well, I don't think it's a station. I think it would be a stop with a. You know, like a lean to. You know, what are those things that just. 2:44 Wes: Yeah, sure. 2:45 Erin: That just protect you from the elements. 2:47 Wes: Yeah. Bust down. 2:48 Erin: Right. 2:48 Wes: Yeah. 2:49 Erin: And that would probably have at least a street light. But anyway, then we get the moonlight. Maybe my favorite. Oh, it's so hard to say, but maybe my favorite image in the poem is the hairy, scratchy, splintery moonlight and mist caught in them like lambswool on bushes in a pasture. Just. There's nothing. There's no image greater than that. That's unbelievable. 3:13 Wes: There's kind of a more wildness to this. Right. The image now, the hairiness and scratchiness and splinteriness. It's a bit less Domesticated, I guess, than the previous part of the poem. 3:27 Erin: That's a really good point. I hadn't thought of that. Even a suggestion of danger, like the lamb running. 3:34 Wes: I just thought, this is where the hobbits are entering Fangorn Forest. 3:39 Erin: Yes. Yeah, yeah, the New Brunswick. 3:41 Wes: But you go a little bit more. It's a little wilder and more primal. I think once you. Even if you're on a bus, once you get into the woods, there's something different about it. 3:52 Erin: That's right. 3:53 Wes: But yeah, you're right. The idea that the moonlight could get caught in that. That's a great image. 3:59 Erin: Something giving chase to the lamb would cause it potentially to get a little ensnared in the chase. 4:06 Wes: It's as if Lambswool has, you know, a lamb is brushed up on the bramble or whatever and left its wool so that. So the moonlight, instead of making this cosmic journey and landing on articulating the environment, has been subordinated to the environment. Right. It's become. It's been captured by these hairy woods. It's caught on it and, you know, a piece of it has come off from being caught on something that's scratchy and splintery. So that. That. Yeah, this is the great reversal. And that's the place where you can really get some good sleeping. Yes, right. 4:44 Erin: Yes. And where dreamy things can happen. 4:47 Wes: Divagation. Yeah, wanderings. 4:51 Erin: I looked that up. Wandering, straying or digressing from a main course, path or topic. So like a digression as long as 4:59 Wes: the bus stays on track. 5:00 Erin: Yeah, that's right. 5:01 Wes: You do whatever you want with your mind. 5:02 Erin: That's right. And the night. I just looked on Google Maps while I was writing my little notes in the margins. And if you were to take a bus today from Great Village to Boston, it would take like 10 hours. So it definitely is a, yikes, full course of the night on this night bus. So I love what happens in stanza 16, which begins in the creakings and noises, an old conversation not concerning us, but recognizable somewhere back in the bus. So I really love that it's grandparents voices, she says, uninterrupted talking. This is where the I becomes an us. And this is a characteristic of a bishop. I think she's rather reluctant to use an I, capital I in a poem. She's more likely to use a we or an us. And here it's as if they're all part of the same family now in the bus and the adults. It's almost like everybody on the bus who isn't a grandparent is a child and the adults in the back are talking and we are all, oh, that doesn't concern us. Just go to sleep. It's none of your business. Just stop eavesdropping on us. Right, so there's some community that's been formed already by the people who are not the grandparents talking. Do you get that impression? 6:20 Wes: Yeah, it's a bit confusing. So, yeah, let's try to figure it out. Because it. So it begins. A dreamy divagation begins in the night. She doesn't say, I started dreaming or they started dreaming or we started dreaming. Although it seems almost like it's collective. Right. So that the bus is dreaming or everyone on the bus is dreaming together, which kind of lines up with the not concerning us later on, the gentle auditory slow hallucination. So that's a very interesting idea. Right. The dream is usually associated with subjectivity. Right. The cogito and Descartes. Right. The dream tells us that we might have trouble distinguishing reality from what's in our own minds. And we in our own minds are very potentially cut off from reality. But it's a. It's an alienated individual position here. The dream is. Seems to be collective. And perhaps it's collective because it's partly real. Right. Is that the conversation? I thought, okay, there's a conversation going on in the back of the bus and it is old people talking. But as you're lying back, you could sort of. You can't hear exactly what they're saying. And you might have that kind of half dream, Right. Where you're. The dream is kind of lined up with or intertwined with what's going on in reality. So she's hearing in the conversation of the old people, her grandparents voices. Is that the way you took this? Or. Or they, they're hearing the grandparents voices or. Yeah. How do we, how do we interpret this? 7:54 Erin: I interpreted it as, you know, people of the age of grandparents having a real conversation. But the idea that one could be having an auditory. I mean, we are given the word auditory slow hallucination. So the idea that there could be an auditory hallucination or kind of half dream of one's own grandparents having a conversation, or it may be superimposed on a real conversation kind of inaudible going on on the bus. I never noticed this before. The G in grandparents is capitalized. So it does seem to sit to suggest the speaker's particular grandparents rather than. 8:30 Wes: Oh, I was going to. I thought you were going to say archetypal grandp

    A Map-Like Imagination in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop (“The Moose,” Part 2)

  2. Aug 17

    A Map-Like Imagination in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop (“The Moose”)

    A poem about a map opens North and South, the first collection of the great twentieth century poet Elizabeth Bishop, and since, maps have been associated with her poetic vision—at once telescoping and binocular—and with the polarities and preoccupations of her work. The map’s privileged, sweeping, bird’s eye view of the earth is also hand-held, man-made, intimate. Depending on its level of minuteness or obsession, it can contain the tiniest details as well as, let’s say, the whole enchilada. And though it purports to be scientific and objective, it is representational and therefore subjective, particular, imaginative, and personal. For several episodes, Wes & Erin will be reading a selection of some of Bishop’s most anthologized poems, starting with “The Moose” as expressions of, among other things, her map-like imagination. Upcoming Episodes: Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey”; more Elizabeth Bishop poetry: “First Death in Nova Scotia,” “One Art.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Erin: A poem about a map opens north and south, the first collection of the great 20th century poet Elizabeth Bishop. And since maps have been associated with her poetic vision, at once telescoping and binocular, and with the polarities and preoccupations of her work. The map's privileged, sweeping, bird's eye view of the earth is also handheld, man made intimate. Depending on its level of minuteness or obsession, it can contain the tiniest details as well as, let's say, the whole enchilada. And though it purports to be scientific and objective, it is representational and therefore subjective, particular, imaginative and personal. Over the next few episodes, we'll be reading a selection of some of Bishop's most anthologized poems, starting with the moose as expressions of, among other things, her map, like imagination. This is Erin O'Luanaigh. And this is Wes Alwan, and you're listening to Subtext. Wes, have you ever seen a moose in the wild? 1:12 Wes: I have not, but I have seen Instagram videos of them and people getting too close, and I've heard that they actually are quite dangerous. 1:23 Erin: Oh, perfectly harmless. 1:24 Wes: As cute as they look. So not safe as houses. Which is a very surprising line, unless you think that houses maybe aren't as safe as they seem or ought to be. But that's something we'll talk about later. How about you? 1:38 Erin: I have not. And I actually, it's become a running joke among certain friends of mine that I haven't seen a moose because I long to see a moose in the wild. This is my dearest wish. 1:52 Wes: Is that the first time anyone said that in history? I long to see. 1:56 Erin: I don't know. 1:57 Wes: It's a good first line for a poem, actually. Why do you long. Long to see a moose in the wild? 2:03 Erin: Really? Maybe because of the poem. I don't know. I just really want to, but I. Maybe this will become significant without getting too personal or maybe with getting too personal. With apologies to the listeners. Ten years ago now, when my grandfather passed that summer, my grandmother wanted to go up to Maine and revisit certain places that she had been with him. And we ended up going to Acadia. And I was so excited to see. Am just. I got it into my head that I had to go to Acadia and see a moose. And I even bought a sweatshirt. I'm not wearing it right now. I looked down to see if I was wearing it. It's the same size and shape as this one. This is a Yankees, 1996 World Series sweatshirt. 2:42 Wes: It's not a Rocky and Bullwinkle sweatshirt, is it? 2:45 Erin: No, no, no. It's an acadia and it has a. It has a moose on it. And so I bought it the first day that I was there and I was like, this is my sweatshirt and it has a moose on it. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna see a moose. And I did not see a moose. And then I. I bought a moose sweatshirt in, I think Grand Teton, and I was like, I'm gonna see a moose. And I did not see a moose. And then I lived obviously many years in Utah, and things would happen. Everybody knew I wanted to see a moose. And I would go to these trails where you could see moose. And I would like be going up a trail and someone would be coming down saying, there are moose up there. We just saw a moose. You just saw baby moose. I'd get all excited and I would. I would run up and it was gone and people would taunt me. 3:32 Wes: So you don't want to see like a magic white hart or something like that? 3:38 Erin: No, no, I just want to see him. Even the garden variety moose? No, no. Just a humble moose will hide itself from me when. When it knows that I am after it. 3:49 Wes: Because they are a goofy, right? Are they majestic? Are they goofy looking? Are they both? 3:55 Erin: I think they're both. And I think that kind of qual quality is really well captured in the poem. No, I mean that quality of if not being then looking safe as houses or being a gargantuan size, and yet having. I know this is a female moose, which I believe is called a cow, as opposed to a bull. Right. But the bulls, even their horns have that hand like quality to them. You know, it looks kind of like an outstretched hand. 4:22 Wes: Interesting. 4:24 Erin: Yeah. They're not majestic. 4:25 Wes: Yeah, I think that's important to the poem. It's not some obviously majestic creature, although it is large and there is majesty in it in the poem, but it's not the typical majesty that you can just get from, oh, look at this beautiful animal. 4:41 Erin: Yeah. And this is kind of why I brought up my grandfather. There was some connection for me as I think there is something quite personal going on with the moose at the end, other than the shared experience of everybody in the bus, all of that. Like there's something bigger than us, more than us, and yet familiar in a way. And it's magical in a sense, because to see it is kind of a rare thing. Yet it also comes out of the landscape that she's that she's grown up in and that she's part of. I think there's a. Yeah. A lot of interesting dualities going on. 5:17 Wes: Okay. So maybe you can read the whole thing and then you could give a little bit. Or we could give a little bit of the biographical background because this is a bus trip she actually took. Right. 5:26 Erin: Yeah. 5:27 Wes: The significance of Nova Scotia, which is where she's departing from in the poem and all of that stuff. But. Yeah. Do you want to start by reading? 5:35 Erin: Sure. The moose from narrow provinces of fish and bread and tea, home of the long tides, where the bay leaves the sea twice a day and takes the herrings long rides where if the river enters or retreats in a wall of brown foam depends on if it meets the bay. Coming in the bay, not at home, where silted red sometimes the sun sets facing a red sea and others veins the flats. Lavender rich mud and burning rivulets. On red gravelly roads, down rows of sugar maples, past clapboard farmhouses and neat clapboard churches, bleached ridged as clam shells, past twin silver birches through late afternoon a bus journeys west, the windshield flashing pink, pink glancing off of metal, brushing the dented flank of blue beat up enamel, down hollows, uprises and waits patient, while a lone traveler gives kisses and embraces to seven relatives and the collie supervises goodbye to the elms, to the farm, to the dog. The bus starts. The light grows richer. The fog shifting, salty, thin, comes closing in. Its cold round crystals form and slide and settle in the white hen's feathers in gray glazed cabbages on the cabbage roses and lupins like apostles. The sweet peas cling to their wet white string on the whitewashed fences. Bumblebees creep inside the foxgloves and evening commences. One stop at Bass river, then the economies, lower middle, upper five islands. Five houses where a woman shakes a tablecloth out after supper. A pale flickering gone the Tantramar marshes and the smell of salt hay. An iron bridge trembles and a loose plank rattles but doesn't give way. On the left a red light swims through the dark. A ship's port lantern. Two rubber boots show illuminated, solemn. A dog gives one bark. A woman climbs in with two market bags. Brisk, freckled, elderly. A grand night. Yes, sir. All the way to Boston. She regards us amicably. Moonlight as we enter the New Brunswick woods. Hairy, scratchy, splintery moonlight and mist caught in them like lamb's wool. On bushes in a pasture the passengers lie back, snores some long sighs. A dreamy divagation begins in the night, a gentle auditory slow hallucination in the creakings and noises, an old conversation not concerning us but recognizable somewhere back in the bus, grandparents, voices uninterruptedly talking in eternity, names being mentioned. Things cleared up finally. What he said, what she said, who got pensioned. Deaths, deaths and sicknesses. The year he remarried, the year something happened, she died in childbirth. That was the son lost when the schooner foundered. He took to drink. Yes, she went to the bad when Amos began to pray, even in the store and finally the family had to put him away. Yes, that peculiar affirmative. Yes, a sharp indrawn breath, half groan, half acceptance. That means life's like that, we know it. Also death talking the way they talked in the old featherbed, peacefully on and on, dim lamplight in the hall, down in the kitchen, the dog tucked in her shawl. Now it'

    A Map-Like Imagination in the Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop (“The Moose”)

  3. Aug 3

    Curses and Colonizers in “The Mummy” (1999) – Part 2

    The very apparatus of the mummy’s tomb—his body locked in box upon box, his organs apportioned to canopic jars, hieroglyphic inscriptions on every surface—suggest the complexity of the undertaking. What might these two strands of the mummy’s DNA—in Shakespearean terms, part-Antony, part-Cleopatra—reveal about the relationship between colonizer and colonized, and about our own desires, fears, and guilt? Wes & Erin continue their discussion of the 1999 film, “The Mummy.” Upcoming Episodes: Elizabeth Bishop poetry, including “The Moose” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:12 Erin: Welcome to part two of our discussion of the 1999 masterpiece, The Mummy, directed by Stephen Sommers, who is obviously, you know, the Orson Welles of the 90s 0:25 Wes: and also known for such movies as Van Helsing. 0:29 Erin: That's also a movie. 0:30 Wes: I like the Mummy Returns and Odd Thomas and GI Joe. 0:38 Erin: Oh, there it is. 0:39 Wes: Rise of Cobra. 0:41 Erin: There it is. Yeah. That's probably the greatest. That's probably his Magnificent Ambersons. Just to say a little bit more. Also in defense of this film, I think it's just fun. Right. You had fun watching this, I'm assuming. Yeah. There's something about it, to me that. Not just because we're talking about origins and stuff like that, that is a kind of, er, movie or the ultimate movie in terms of the fact that movies are just. There's something about them that is fundamentally silly and they're in a certain respect, like the silliest art form. And of course that makes me want to say something also about mummies as the ultimate representations of film itself, which has, I think, been a point made by people like André Bazin and, you know, all sorts of. Susan Sontag in On Photography talks about this. Right. Just the idea of the photographic image as the preservation of dead people is. Is often the case. 1:35 Wes: And it's. You know, the chemical processing of film is like embalming. 1:40 Erin: Yeah, exactly. 1:41 Wes: Lots of parallels. 1:43 Erin: I'm just. I'm trying very slowly to construct a justification for why we are covering this on subtext. No, but I. But also. And I should. I should have said this at the beginning of the last one. This is my Gimme. My. My summer fun. In the same spirit of doing Elf at. At Christmas, I think I wanted to do a silly summer blockbuster. And of course they're also doing another. Another Mummy film soon with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Finally. She'll be back. So it's also in honor of the resurrection of the career of Brendan Fraser. 2:16 Wes: He's going to be £300 in this one. 2:18 Erin: That'll be great. 2:19 Wes: Rachel. Rachel Weisz has to roll him around. I'm sorry. 2:23 Erin: So mean. That would. That would still be fine with me. 2:28 Wes: I just going to be called Beached. 2:35 Erin: So mean. 2:36 Wes: The I love the whale. 2:38 Erin: Yeah. 2:38 Wes: I cried, like, audibly at a theater. 2:44 Erin: He's so great. 2:45 Wes: Yeah, he's great. 2:46 Erin: But anyway, back to the conversation here about what? Did I say something about Picnic at Hanging Rock. Oh, this film is kind of like the inverse of Picnic at Hanging Rock. I thought in that Picnic is about the victory of the colonized over the colonizer that you eventually get destroyed by or defeated by the forces that you try to control. You get defeated in your attempts to fashion a narrative. Yeah. What is unknowable overtakes you and destroys your efforts at a kind of mental containment. 3:19 Wes: And again, it's contact with, like, a primal origin. 3:23 Erin: Exactly. 3:24 Wes: So in a way, it's the origin of your high level of consciousness, in a way. But it's primal. And so it can defeat that. 3:30 Erin: Yeah. And this is why the Mummy is. It's almost like a fantasy that you can feel secure as a colonizer, that you will eventually figure it out, that there is something to be figured out, that ultimately all of this has a logic that you can solve the puzzle. In fact, solve it twice over. 3:47 Wes: Right. 3:48 Erin: Because you have the first. The puzzle is about bringing the mummy to life, even though it can sometimes be accidental. There's an effort of piecing something together when the mummy comes to life. And then one has to also finish solving the puzzle or solve a second puzzle in order to then kill the mummy or send it back to the underworld or whatever the. The explanation is. And along the way, one also has to at least avoid, if not defeat, the fallout of the curse. So, yeah, so it's a fantasy about overcoming all of that. And I think the idea that makes this very psychologically suggestive is just that this, the mummy, is the puzzle that comes with its own kind of solution, in the way that Picnic at a Hanging Rock is the opposite of that, in that it's stubborn and it can't be solved. And I think the Evelyn character seems to embody this herself in that she has this maternal figure who's Egyptian, her father is English. So whatever drama is taking place with the mummy is also internalized somehow. Again, this is played with more in the Mummy Returns, which makes it stupid and weird. It turns out that Evelyn is actually the reincarnation of the pharaoh's daughter. So there's this whole Elektra dynamic thing that ends up going on. It's really, really, really ridiculous. But the female figure in the original 1932 Boris Karloff mummy, as I already said, she also has this dual heritage, this dual nature. And so the implication of that seems to me to be the idea that we have the desire to understand our own origins. So she's both puzzle and puzzle solver, and we want to figure ourselves out in order to resolve something that in us is unresolved. I think the curse, too, operates on the same logic in a way. Like I was thinking about how the curse is kind of like a conspiracy theory. You know way more about this than I do. I know this is an interest of yours, but you're applying a kind of faulty abduction to what you think is the fallout of something that has, rather than a sort of conspiratorial, systematic explanation, it has a magical explanation. So this idea of logic and mystery, or logic and magic, or the known and the unknown being sort of right next to each other for the purposes of one solving the other and therefore making you feel at peace and no longer cursed, no longer suffering under some lack of knowledge or understanding. 6:13 Wes: Right. 6:13 Erin: You figured it out. You've defeated these forces in yourself. That seems to be the kind of psychological underpinning in talking about abduction, which 6:21 Wes: I'm actually reading about right now. We're doing the philosopher Peirce on our show. So inference to the best explanation. You're making me think about her first reading of the spell. Is it a spell? That we would call it. Right. She's a curious seeker of knowledge, really. Really. She's not trying to give a theory of anything literally. Right. She's just out of curiosity, reading what's in the book. But if you were to make a comparison to abduction, it's almost like it produces its own theory in reality. And the theory is the. Is the backstory. So what it does is it raises something from the dead. It's almost like breathing life into some theoretical entity that comes back to haunt you or something like that, that attacks me. And in the case of the conspiracy theory, Right, the theorized entity is a intelligent designer of a sort, but a malicious one, a persecutory one. And you get that in this case, right? There's a persecutory entity is aroused by one's curiosity. 7:25 Erin: Yeah. Just another complication to this is the fact that the mummy has been cursed to go after whoever awakens it by some sort of overarch. I mean, in this film, it's the idea that Imhotep has violated the pharaoh's mistress and he's sentenced to the Hom-Dai and all that stuff. But the mummy itself wants to be found. So that's why this is like a perfect little puzzle box for a colonizer's self Exoneration, because the mummy wants to come back to life. So it's a curse that wants you to trip the tripwire and it wants to play itself out. So it almost has this self fulfilling prophecy or self determinism element to it as well. 8:06 Wes: Right. 8:07 Erin: It's just another way I think of twisting such a thing. I mean, it's an angle that, that the films get at which the actual Curse of the Pharaohs, as it was publicized in the 20s, that angle wasn't there. But it seems like this is the further twist to get it to make Americans and, and British people and all that like, feel, feel like they're not responsible somehow or that this has some, some will to get a toehold in the human world again, that you're almost being used as a pawn in their scheme. 8:36 Wes: It's interesting that Imhotep, he's sentenced to the worst possible punishment, but there's a real like escape clause to that, which is if you're resurrected, you get to have. Be all powerful and destroy the world and get your girlfriend back. Is that the deal? 8:54 Erin: Because you got your girlfriend? 8:55 Wes: Maybe it's worth, maybe it's worth a try. Okay, I'll take that bargain. 9:03 Erin: Right. 9:03 Wes: It's an odd sort of curse and it's an odd sort of risk to take. And it speaks to the perils of vengeance. Right. If vengeance goes too far, it can, can come back at you with a vengeance. Sorry, tha

    Curses and Colonizers in “The Mummy” (1999) – Part 2

  4. Jul 29

    Curses and Colonizers in “The Mummy” (1999)

    As a cinematic monster, the mummy seems less an embodiment of revenge against colonial forces than a figure invented by colonialism itself. On the one hand, the mummy represents mystery, romance, magic, and the East. His wrappings suggest to the imagination that he’s not just dead, but wounded—ripped from a lost time and a broken narrative. Conveniently for the colonizer’s psyche, the mummy actually longs for someone to violate his tomb and wake him—not least so that his curse can lay systematic waste to its victims. And that brings us to the other hand: the mummy as a scientific and historical artifact, an ancient puzzle which requires anthropological, archeological, and linguistic knowledge to solve. The very apparatus of the mummy’s tomb—his body locked in box upon box, his organs apportioned to canopic jars, hieroglyphic inscriptions on every surface—suggest the complexity of the undertaking. What might these two strands of the mummy’s DNA—in Shakespearean terms, part-Antony, part-Cleopatra—reveal about the relationship between colonizer and colonized, and about our own desires, fears, and guilt? Wes & Erin discuss the 1999 film, “The Mummy.” Upcoming Episodes: Elizabeth Bishop poetry, including “The Moose” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Erin: As a cinematic monster, the Mummy seems less an embodiment of revenge against colonial forces than a figure invented by colonialism itself. On the one hand, the Mummy represents mystery, romance, magic, and the East. His wrappings suggest to the imagination that he's not just dead, but wounded. Ripped from a lost time and a broken narrative, conveniently for the colonizer's psyche, the Mummy actually longs for someone to violate his tomb and wake him, not least so that his curse can lay systematic waste to its victims. And that brings us to the other hand, the Mummy as a scientific and historical artifact, an ancient puzzle which requires anthropological, archaeological and linguistic knowledge to solve. The very apparatus of the mummy's tomb, his body locked in box upon box, his organs apportioned to canopic jars, hieroglyphic inscriptions on every surface suggest the complexity of the undertaking. What might these two strands of the Mummy's DNA, in Shakespearean terms, part Antony, part Cleopatra, reveal about the relationship between colonizer and colonized and about our own desires, fears, and guilt? Today, we're discussing the 1999 film the Mummy. This is Erin O'Luanaigh. This is Wes Alwan, and you're listening to Subtext. So, Wes, I have two questions to start us off today. The first is, is this the silliest thing we've covered on the podcast to date, or was elf sillier? 1:41 Wes: That's a good question. It depends on what you mean by silly. Elf is sillier, but this is the most frivolous choice we've made. 1:54 Erin: I'm trying to figure out if you're mad at me for selecting this or if our listeners are going to be mad at me. 2:00 Wes: I hadn't seen it, except it might have been on in the background when I met my father when I was around 22, and he had hundreds and hundreds of VHS tapes of various movies that he had pirated. And there was always a movie on in the background when I was hanging out with my siblings. And I vaguely remember scenes from this because they were on in the background, but I had never actually seen the movie, and it didn't. I like mummy film. Horror films in general don't appeal to me, but mummy films especially, for some reason. 2:28 Erin: Oh, no. 2:30 Wes: So, yeah, it's not the kind of thing I would end up watching on my own, but it's an interesting. I could see, you know, I started. I saw immediately why it would be up your alley. Because of, like, screwball ish comedy. Right. It operates in two dimensions, so that was interesting. 2:45 Erin: This came out when I was 8 years old. We had this local video store that I used to go to to rent movies. When you walked in the door, there was a huge cardboard. I guess the technical term for it is a standee. You know, those big cardboard displays that they'll have in movie theaters or wherever to publicize a film? There was a huge display of the Mummy with different characters and right when you came in. So to me, it's sort of the ultimate summer blockbuster film because that was the thing you saw whenever you came in. And more often than not, you know, I was suggestible enough to think, oh, I could go for watching the Mummy again. Super fun to watch at a sleepover or on a summer night. So I love this film. I mean, I'm gonna try to expand our conversation to talk about the mummy in general, which I do think is kind of an interesting concept. And maybe we could talk about why you find mummies particularly uninteresting. But that leads me to my second question. 3:41 Wes: You can analyze me a little bit. 3:43 Erin: Leads me to my second question, which is, are mummies scary? And maybe this is why you don't like them. Because I think I have an answer to this, and I think yours is going to be the same. I don't know. 3:53 Wes: Yeah, I don't know. I was thinking about this film in relation to other horror films, including Alien, because we did that one. And. And I think it's a great film. And also the Exorcist, which I think is a great film. I was thinking, well, I'm not entirely opposed to horror. I'm not into horror films, but I'm not entirely opposed to it. And those two films have, like, a solid thematic essence to them involving relationships like, you know, Regan on the verge of puberty and an absent father and then an alien. The relationships between the ship members kind of alienated. And then this lack of a paternal authority. Just. Just like there is in the Exorcist and the ship computer called Mother. There's always a mother thing going on. It's hard not to think of that with the Mummy as well. But. So I was thinking. I'm not into jump scare films. I don't get. Although, you know, I guess I went to see it. Is that what it's called? The Clown? 4:52 Erin: Yeah. 4:53 Wes: Terrifying movie. And I actually did enjoy the. You know, because the audience would jump and then we'd all laugh at being kind of taken in. So. So maybe I do. You know, this is not. It's not very. A very fruitful analysis. We're conducting here. I'm too conflicted. But. But mummies in particular. Let's get to the point. Are mummies in particular scary? I don't think so. Horror movies used to scare me as a kid, big time. The Exorcist scared the crap out of me because even though I wasn't religious at that point, part of me believed in the devil just, just in sanctuary and I couldn't deal with it. And then other horror films, it like got into my bones in a way they just can't do as an adult. So in general, I don't think I can be scared in the deeper way that I used to be scared when I was a kid. And then this, you know, because this is also romantic comedy, I find it hard to be. To find any of it scary. Exactly. So, yeah, say more what you mean about scary and whether mummies are scary. 5:48 Erin: I just don't think they're scary. And that's one of the reasons why I like this movie. Right. Is because it's not scary. I mean, I don't like horror movies either. Right. But I like that. I like the Mummy as a concept. It's interesting to think of it in the Universal monster movie context and the Mummy as a monster. You could approach that from a lot of different angles. It's, you know, it's a dead body come to life. I mean, I think there's elements of the zombie in the Mummy. There's elements of the vampire and the Mummy in certain ways much, much closer to the vampire. But maybe we could tweeze that out a bit. I think the Mummy as a monster figure is scary, if you really think about it, which is a way of saying that it's not scary. So that's why you need, you know, the accompanying curse. Though maybe you can't really separate the Mummy from the curse, but you know, the Mummy that can unhinge its jaws and become sand and at some point Imhotep's little mummy army is climbing on the walls. That becomes a bigger part of the Mummy Returns, which is a truly bad film. I love it, but it's a truly bad film. So I didn't make us do that. Peeling the flesh off of people's bones and then also you have to throw in the scarabs. So you basically need this entire cast of supporting scary things, I think, in order to make the Mummy work as a horror film. I don't quite think of this as a horror film. I mean, part of it is also just the way that the CGI has aged Technically, of course, it has horror tropes, but it's just not that scary to me. Maybe what's kind of scary about it, in a thinky way, is related to the main reading of mummies that I'm interested in exploring, which are. Which is something like the mummy as a colonial fantasy. The colonizer goes into a place that doesn't belong to them, and then they start literally and metaphorically exhuming the culture that they've entered, either to leech off of it or destroy it. And then there's this curse idea. So they awaken this curse, which it seems anti colonial, like it's payback for disturbing the mummy. But in fact, it really kind of serves the colonizer in a way, because the mummy actually wants to come back to life. It actually wants you to disturb it. It wants you to fall into the trap of the curse. So the colonizer is kind of, in that sense, exonerated from the act of meddl

    Curses and Colonizers in “The Mummy” (1999)

  5. Jun 29

    Existence and Expectancy in “Waiting for Godot” (Part 2)

    Who is Godot? Whether God, objet a, or an abstraction from any object that is supposed to resolve dramatic suspense, it is clear that Vladimir and Estragon imagine him to be an agent of salvation (even if they can’t remember exactly what it is that needs saving). Perhaps the name is meant to satirize any states of expectancy—aspirational, libidinal, political, or religious—insofar they seem to be a means to a kind of spiritual completion that is impossible. Except, arguably, in the imagination, including its refinements in the products of the arts. If Samuel Beckett is too cool to provide us with ordinary entertainment and edification, does he mean to bore us, berate us, or do nothing at all? Erin & Wes pass time by discussing “Waiting for Godot,” and whether frustrating expectations is sometimes better than either violating or gratifying them. Upcoming Episodes: The Mummy Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Wes: Okay. Welcome to part two of our discussion of Waiting for Godot. Erin, you wanted to say something about the typical characterization of them as tramps. 0:24 Erin: Yeah. Do you think they're as characters gaining a little bit from the association with, you know, as I've already talked about Laurel and Hardy, but also maybe Chaplin. 0:34 Wes: Yeah, I think that's meant to be an association. Yeah. Beckett actually talked about them. Right. As tramps, even though it's not referenced in the play itself. But he was involved in the production where he. I think. I think he gave some guidance on this, on their appearance and what they were supposed to be. But. 0:53 Erin: Yeah, I see. Yeah. I mean, again, I want to just argue that the comedy read is really the best way I've found to understand this is the trajectory of the Tramp. Often is this sort of dilation of time and funny business. I mean, you have in the figure of the Tramp the idea of someone who is always going, always moving and yet going nowhere. The ending, such as it is, you know, the famous idea that Godot never comes or that nothing, nothing amounts to anything in the end, is actually predicted in the Tramp trope, in which Tramp trope. 1:35 Wes: I was going to get a tramp stamp, but I decided on getting a tramp stamp. 1:38 Erin: I decided on the Tramp trope. But at the end of these little escapades, you know, these little serial adventures in the life of the Tramp, what happens? Nothing. Right. He might have a delusion of grandeur. Something might happen to him. You know, there'll be a little bit of a plot for the 20 minute silent film or whatever that he's engaged in. And then usually at the end, disappointment, back on the road, back where he began. No salvation, no social climb, no actual progress, but just movement. So movement without progress is kind of the life of the Tramp. 2:16 Wes: So at this point, right, they've just talked about, had an absurd conversation about whether to commit suicide and who should go first, you know, depending on so that the branch doesn't break for the second one and then leave them alone. And Estragon says, don't let's do anything. It's safer. And then Vladimir says, let's wait and see what he says. As if Godot is going to tell them whether they should commit suicide, or in what order they should commit suicide. Or maybe whether that there's some reason not to commit suicide. Estragon. Says who? Godot. Estragon. Good idea. Let's wait till we know exactly how we stand, says Vladimir. Do you want to go back and forth for a second here? 3:00 Erin: Sure. On the other hand, it might be better to strike the iron before it freezes. 3:05 Wes: I'm curious to hear what he has to offer. Then we'll take it or leave it. 3:09 Erin: What exactly did we ask him for? 3:11 Wes: Were you not there? 3:12 Erin: I can't have been listening. 3:14 Wes: Oh, nothing very definite. 3:16 Erin: A kind of prayer. 3:19 Wes: Precisely. 3:20 Erin: A vague supplication. 3:23 Wes: Exactly. 3:25 Erin: This is funny. And what did he reply? That he'd see that he couldn't promise anything. 3:32 Wes: That he'd have to think it over 3:34 Erin: in the quiet of his home, consult 3:36 Wes: his family, his friends, his agents, his 3:41 Erin: correspondence, his books, his bank account, before taking a decision. It's the normal thing, is it not? I think it is. 3:52 Wes: I think so too. All right, so that's fun. 3:58 Erin: These are really, really fun to read out loud. 4:01 Wes: Yeah. So strike. Yeah. So you can see all the comedy in here. Strike the iron before freezes instead of while it's hot. 4:11 Erin: The anticipation of the end. 4:15 Wes: Yeah. What did we ask him for? Nothing very definite. A kind of prayer. Precisely. 4:22 Erin: Right. 4:22 Wes: So it's not definite, but it's precise. It's vague, but exactly. 4:28 Erin: Will he come tomorrow, Surely. 4:31 Wes: Yeah. That he couldn't promise anything. But anyway, so we. We get the idea that they don't know what exactly they're waiting on. What's. It's. It's very vague. And they. They even use the word vague. And the word prayer is used. And other times the word save is used. And savior. So there's some religious association here as well. 4:51 Erin: What's funny too, is in the middle of all this, it strikes me, on page 11, Vladimir says, your worship wishes to assert his prerogatives. And prior to this, I think on the very first page. 5:02 Wes: Yeah. Where did your worship sleep tonight? Or something like that. 5:05 Erin: Right, your highness? Yeah. And because of what happens with the stickiness of language with Vladimir, he starts calling even before they decide to play at Pozzo and Lucky on day two, or in the second act, he has already started calling estragon pig, a use of the term that Pozzo uses for lucky. So one wonders if, you know, the day before this they were. Vladimir was contaged by someone who was calling someone else your highness and your worship in a. In a sort of sarcastic way or something like that. 5:41 Wes: Interesting. Yeah. 5:42 Erin: We intuit in Act 2 that he picks up on some turns of phrase from Pozzo, but. Yeah, but it's funny that it comes up in the midst of this theological conversation which doesn't occur in Act 2. So those words, I think, aren't used at all in Act 2. But maybe from the beginning, Vladimir has come into this conversation already ruminating on this idea of the thieves being saved. And that's what suggests the sarcastic your worship phrase to his mind, rather than some other characters that we haven't seen in act minus one. 6:16 Wes: It seems to me to sort of reverse their roles a bit, because Vladimir is actually the one more in charge. And he has a name which is more. There's more half to it. Right. There's actually been princes, Russian princes named Vladimir and Estragon. Again, it's a name of an herb. Yeah. You get a sense Vladimir is more in charge. So it's a weird inversion to. Suggests that Estragon is in charge. But of course, you know, there is a sense in which the person who doesn't seem to be in charge is in charge. And in fact. Right. The diminutives that they have for each other. Gogo and Dee Dee. Right. Estragon, Gogo. And of course he wants to go all the time, but he can't, because they're waiting for Godot, which is almost like a combination of their names. Go and D. Go DD sounds like D almost sounds like this. It's like this, this, or here. Here versus Go. Go. Stasis versus motion and what Freud would call secondary process, and the kind of fixing something in one's attention and rational thought and planning, which certainly Vladimir has, versus just impulse, which is what Estragon seems to have. So to sort of say your highness or your worship is to raise the question of who's in charge. Is it executive function that's in charge, or is it impulse and instinct that's in charge? 7:42 Erin: To give maybe credence to your idea that Estragon is maybe secretly the one in control or in charge. Pozzo's name is confused with Godot. And Gogo certainly sounds more like Godot than Didi does. Though I like your idea that the name kind of combines the two in a way so that we could say that, you know, Pozzo is the more obviously dominant one of that pair. Godot, say in the pair that he's A part of. With the boy is certainly the dominant. And then Gogo, Estragon would be along that axis. Though, of course, these dynamics shift in Act 2. I mean. Yeah. From the beginning, Vladimir is saving Estragon, or trying to save Estragon from these people that apparently beat him up all night. 8:25 Wes: Right. 8:26 Erin: Which is, like, really sad, but also 8:28 Wes: really funny because he transgresses in some way. Vladimir suggests he's doing something to. 8:33 Erin: To antagonize them. 8:34 Wes: Yeah. So the idea that there's something impulsive about Estragon that gets a natural response. So what happens when Pozzo and Lucky arrive? Well, it's kind of a relief. Okay. You know, it's like, okay, something interesting is going to happen in this play. And it's kind of a traveling vaudeville act. It's more pronounced than the vaudeville act that we've already been witnessing and more extreme. And in a way, Pozzo and Lucky seem to be exaggerated versions of Vladimir and Estragon. So, Right. There's a kind of a bit of a master slave dynamic, maybe with Vladimir and Estragon, but it's very pronounced with Pozzo and Lucky. Lucky is literally his slav

    Existence and Expectancy in “Waiting for Godot” (Part 2)

  6. Jun 23

    Existence and Expectancy in “Waiting for Godot”

    Who is Godot? Whether God, objet a, or an abstraction from any object that is supposed to resolve dramatic suspense, it is clear that Vladimir and Estragon imagine him to be an agent of salvation (even if they can’t remember exactly what it is that needs saving). Perhaps the name is meant to satirize any states of expectancy—aspirational, libidinal, political, or religious—insofar they seem to be a means to a kind of spiritual completion that is impossible. Except, arguably, in the imagination, including its refinements in the products of the arts. If Samuel Beckett is too cool to provide us with ordinary entertainment and edification, does he mean to bore us, berate us, or do nothing at all? Erin & Wes pass time by discussing “Waiting for Godot,” and whether frustrating expectations is sometimes better than either violating or gratifying them. Upcoming Episodes: The Mummy Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Wes: Who is Godot? Whether God objet a or an abstraction from any object that is supposed to resolve dramatic suspense, it is clear that Vladimir and Estragon imagine him to be an agent of salvation, even if they can't remember exactly what it is that needs saving. Perhaps the name is meant to satirize any states of expectancy, aspirational, libidinal, political or religious, insofar as they seem to be a means to a kind of spiritual completion that is impossible, except arguably, in the imagination, including its refinements in the products of the arts. If Samuel Beckett is too cool to provide us with ordinary entertainment and edification, does he mean to bore us, berate us, or do nothing at all? Today we pass time by discussing waiting for Godot and whether frustrating expectations is sometimes better than either violating or gratifying them. This is Wes Alwan. And this is Erin O'Luanaigh, and you're listening to Subtext. So, Erin, I had suggested this just because I thought it might pair with Withnail and I, which we just did. I didn't think about it very carefully. It was just an association. And then I thought, well, also, it's something we should do, because my mom wrote her master's thesis on this at Trinity in Ireland, and for some reason she was fascinated with Beckett. I've always been afraid of doing it. Just vague associations of the avant garde and boredom. You didn't sound super excited to do it. What's your experience with the play? 1:51 Erin: I didn't like it when I was younger, I'll admit. I was recalling the other day that I was taking a class. It must have been on 20th century lit. And the final was a, you know, Blue Book exam. And we had covered a bunch of plays, and the question required us to choose one of three plays to analyze. We had to pick one and then write about it. And after the exam, just in talking with people, you know, when you're all kind of staggering out of a room, I discovered I was the only one who didn't choose Beckett. 2:28 Wes: So is that because it's. Yeah. Why is that? 2:33 Erin: I think I thought in my ignorance, or maybe in my perceptiveness, I thought it was both too easy and too difficult to write about, because I think that probably what everybody else did was they were smart to choose Beckett, and. And they did an allegorical reading which was maybe a little bit more straightforward. Is that the right way to go in terms of a really deep understanding of the play? Probably not. Was it the smart thing to do in a three hour Blue Book exam. Probably I wasn't perceptive enough to see the comedy in it. And I think the extent to which this is played for humor, I think really determines the extent to which I'm going to appreciate an adaptation of it. So the version available online from 2001 I find to have some moments of greatness, of course, and the performances are great, but mostly dour and really difficult to get through and really bleak. And the little glimpses that I've seen from the Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen Broadway adaptation from 2013, and I think they also did an earlier one. That one seems to me like a version of Godot that I would really enjoy because I think ultimately it is sort of a black comedy version of Laurel and Hardy or Chaplin, and the humor makes it work. So probably when I was in college, I didn't understand how funny it was or how funny it could be. 4:00 Wes: Yeah. And so this 2001 version, this was Barry McGovern and Johnny Murphy and Alan Stanford, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. And was it BBC? Is that. 4:12 Erin: Yeah, I think so. 4:14 Wes: Yeah. So, yeah, I really like that. It's, it's. I thought it was very good. You know, Rainn Wilson was recently in a. They did a production in la. There's no video. 4:23 Erin: Yeah, yeah, I heard that. 4:25 Wes: But they have some little teaser videos that are really interesting. 4:29 Erin: Did you take a look at any of the videos from the McKellen Stewart? 4:33 Wes: No, no, I wish I had. I didn't know about it. I didn't really didn't look at. I looked at the, you know, the one BBC one, but I didn't do a lot of research into different productions because I spent so much time with the play, which I think benefits a lot from being produced. It's not the most satisfying reading experience. I know you've taken an acting class because I know you've done some acting, right? And you can get. You do an acting class and they give you an exercise and they say, say one word over and over again, but with different emotions. You can do a lot with little. I was going to say Beckett's giving us very little, but that's not true. Famously, they say it's the play where nothing happens twice. Right. Because everything is repeated in the second half. But quite a bit does happen. It's just that a lot of it is verbal and it's wordplay and it's unclear. I don't know. How do you capture this? How do you capture this quality of the play? 5:37 Erin: It's routine based it's like vaudeville act. That's why I think comedy works for it. 5:43 Wes: It's like who's on first for the whole. 5:45 Erin: Yes. I mean, very much so. Very much so. It's Abbott and Costello, it's Laurel and Hardy. I mean, there's also quite a lot physically that is done in the play. Physical routines, the hat, the boots, falling down, trying to hold themselves up, falling down again. You know, there's a lot of business, comedy, business. Anyway, I ultimately, I think in spending a lot of time with the play, I came to a much greater appreciation of it than I had expected. And I also found it far funnier than I was expecting to find it primed, as I was sort of halfway through by looking up some of those clips from the McKellen Stewart adaptation which people said was too funny. You know, they were making it too funny and it should have been sadder or bleaker or something. That seemed to be at least one wing of the critical consensus about that adaptation. But I started to think, really, unless you want to be punished severely in your theater going experience, really, this should be, I think, done in a comedic way. And that seemed to be the heart of it. 6:48 Wes: Absolutely. There's plenty in the wordplay and stage directions to suggest that, yeah, you should play it up. Do a lot of this with humor. Yeah. And play it up. And you can do, you know, with much of the dialogue, you can make decisions that play it up even further. And I would say, yeah, I agree with you. The way to go is to play it up and try to breathe some life into what is otherwise potentially very sparse. Right. Put a few leaves on that tree, so to speak. In a way, it is a. It does enact desolation. Right. And it enacts timelessness and placelessness. Perhaps you can read it. Perhaps it's just allegory, which means the characters are, in a way just ciphers for something else, which is another form of desolation. There's not enough plot for the average person and there's not enough investment. You're not induced to enough investment in the characters to have some strong emotional reaction for them or to be induced by them. Right. So there's a lack of pathos, maybe, is the way to put it, Unless you go for the comedic element. But it's interesting. Yeah. Is it an allegory? 8:05 Erin: I hope not. I hate allegory. 8:08 Wes: Why do you hate allegory? 8:10 Erin: I don't know. A one to one relationship doesn't interest me. Or the allegorical reading has infected so much of art. There's this idea, I think, that people have increasingly, with, I don't know, maybe we're contributing to it with the podcast. I hope not. But people are out there trying to retrieve information easily. The CliffsNotes version of something. They want to know, what is this really about? And this is particularly pernicious in. In poetry, you know, what is the poem really about? As though everything is just these two levels. There's the veneer and then there's whatever is underneath it. And that's the level that you have to access. And you can ignore the veneer entirely and just sort of capture the meaning underneath. And that's the way that you have of rather, that's the way in which you can master the material. So suddenly you figured it out. You have the secret knowledge. And I think increasingly, no matter how complex or interesting or multivarious the potential interpretations of a work of art, people are looking for that sort of snappy way to get their arms around something. So people are trying to boil things down to a sort

    Existence and Expectancy in “Waiting for Godot”

  7. May 18

    The Romance of Self-Destruction in “Withnail and I” (1987) – Part 2

    Wes & Erin continue their discussion of the cult classic “Withnail and I,” and whether our capacity for sublimation suffers less from the crisis of modernity than from our attempts to transcend it. Upcoming Episodes: Waiting for Godot, The Mummy Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Wes: Welcome to part two of our discussion of Withnail and I. We just got done discussing Danny and some of his commentary and the parallel between the end of the friendship between Withnail and Marwood and the end of the 60s thought we'd move on to the character of Monty and ultimately to a little bit what I want to discuss about romanticism and the urban versus the rural divide. But I thought maybe we should just start with Monty, since he's such a great character. They go, so Monty's with Nail's uncle and they go to his place to get the key to the cottage. Their solution? They're going to solve everything by going out into the country. Little do we know, but behind the scenes, Withnail has actually kind of sold marwood to the uncle, who's promised him some action if they can get the key, which sets up Monty's coming out to the countryside to intrude on them. Yeah, every scene with Monty in it is just fabulous. And some of the dialogue, his pomposity and then, as you mentioned before, double entendre. So, for instance, do you like vegetables? I've always been fond of root crops, but I only started to grow last summer. I happen to think the cauliflower more beautiful than the rose. Withnail mentions geraniums. Monty says, little traitors. I think the carrot infinitely more fascinating than the geranium. The carrot has mystery. Flowers are essentially tarts, prostitutes for the bees. There is, you will agree, a certain je ne sais quoi, something very special about a firm young carrot do help you anyway. 1:55 Erin: Yeah, what I love about his place is you look around the room and you realize that there's cauliflower in a vase rather than flowers, and then other vegetables are decorating the room in various places. 2:07 Wes: So. 2:07 Erin: Yeah, and it's very old fashioned English looking. So it sort of combines the brocade and the tapestries and the medieval looking England with gardening and having all these vegetables around and stuff. So he's sort of a synthesis of these wonderful English cultural touchstones in this one room. I think that when he says little traitors to Withnail's idea that he grows geraniums, I think he's calling Withnail a traitor for growing flowers. 2:39 Wes: Oh, I thought he was calling the geraniums traitors. 2:42 Erin: I wasn't sure about that. Yeah, the way that he said it, I thought it could be that. That they're traitors for growing geraniums. So there's something traitorous to one's sex about being interested in women. 2:54 Wes: Oh, yeah. 2:55 Erin: You know, that was the symbolic implication I took. 2:58 Wes: No, I think that's a good surmise. 3:01 Erin: One Withnail is going to be a pimp of Marwood just as he's a pimp, you know, over his geranium patch. Or whatever. But there's a lot about root vegetable. You know, I was thinking there's a lot about peeing in the film. There's a lot about time. We've covered all the. All the other drugs and stuff like that. But then there's a good bit about carrots. There will even be a marijuana carrot of sorts. Yeah. And he's cooking onions. He ends up killing the rats with onions. So more root vegetables. 3:29 Wes: Didn't think of that. Yeah. So when Monty comes out to the country, Right. So initially they hear him outside and they're afraid because they're worried about the poacher at this point, little do they know Monty is, at least for Marwood, the one that they should actually be afraid of. And then, of course, the, you know, they find out it's Monty ultimately. And then the next morning, our sense of what the cottage is, is transformed. I think it is almost like a rebirth because when they first get to the cottage, they've come from their squalid flat in London, Camden Town. And of course, they're telling everyone they're, you know, in the. And the boondocks that they're not. It's not the boondocks. That's not the right term for it. But anyway, in the countryside that they're not actually Londoners, so that they won't be hated for being Londoners. But what I think they would get, thought they would get out of that has turned out to be very disappointing. You get some scenes where Marwood can appreciate the countryside, but that's a very small part of it. They end up at a cottage that there's no heat and there's no water and they're burning fire furniture to get by and they don't have any food. And ultimately the farmer brings them a chicken they have to kill and then cook in the oven seated in a seated position. 4:48 Erin: But like unaccommodated man. 4:50 Wes: Yeah. 4:51 Erin: Poor bare forked animal. 4:54 Wes: Yeah. 4:55 Erin: This is. Again, they're a little shrunken down person. They can deal with it seems they could strangle a chicken. 5:01 Wes: Right. Although Withnail fantasizes about having shot it and then is very fond of the gun while they're there and they go out fishing to shoot fish. It sort of becomes a right. Survival's once again at stake. You get the sense in the beginning of the film it's desperate and their very survival is at stake because of the condition of the flat and the fact that they have no money. And then they get to the countryside and it's the same thing. Although the contrast with how things go once Monty's there. Making them breakfast in the morning gives you the impression that, okay, this is self imposed. They just bring the squalor and the deprivation with them. They're at a perfectly fine cottage. It is what it is. It's in the countryside. But the sense of it having been so dire is really about them. So in the morning, there's Monty making up a really nice breakfast. And they, of course, could have just gone, I guess, grocery shopping at any time. 6:00 Erin: Well, that's. That's the one thing. Yes, definitely, and certainly they could do much better. But I also wondered how much of it had to do with the lack of money and preparation, not understanding what was in the cottage or what wasn't in the cottage. Monty's come up with a bunch of things in the car, it seems, but, yeah, they're just. They're just sort of hopeless when Monty's there. Just immediately becomes really cozy and lovely and. Yeah. And I think there's something too, about. As I mentioned, Monty's apartment in London is. Or his house in London, I guess, is a fantasy of Englishness. And then they come up to the cottage and the cottage has portraits of George V and Mary of Teck on either side of the fireplace. So there's a. It's an older England that they've gone into. They go into the Crow and Crown, I think it is. It's the pub where they meet the. The poacher and the old English army man, who himself is, you know, very much a type similar to the. The guy I love in the Brendan Fraser Mummy, the 1999 mummy, which we should cover on the podcast at some point. It's one of my favorites. You know, the old guy, the old military man who's living out this fantasy, still believing that he's engaged in a war or something like that, who lies 7:12 Wes: about having been in the military. 7:14 Erin: Withnail with nail. Yeah. 7:16 Wes: And he says, oh, yeah, I could tell. And then, yeah. Asks where he's stationed. He's like, Ireland. He's like, oh, crack at the Mick. 7:24 Erin: Crack at the Mick. Which I take to be, you know, there's, you know, Withnail's stories, which he repeatedly invents, do show tremendous aptitude as an actor. He's always playing a role or putting on a kind of a disguise. But then also, the way that Withnail sort of advances the plot or the improvised plot twists that he comes up with do seem very associative. I took that to mean that he or I took the Ireland idea as being Adopted from the Irish guy that had confronted them in the pub in Camden. So that he's getting back at the Irish somehow by imagining this military past where he used to just. Right. So there's a wish fulfillment element to all of his little improvisations, no matter how ridiculous they are. He also says he's currently a journalist and that they're doing a story on the. On the town and small town life. 8:20 Wes: Right, right. 8:20 Erin: And then later he says that they're going to set a movie there, which is, you know, kind of more on the nose wish fulfillment. 8:26 Wes: But we are multi millionaires. 8:29 Erin: We're multimillionaires. Right. Which maybe Withnail is. He just can't access any of the money because his father's alive, withholding it from him. 8:38 Wes: Yeah. We get the sense that he's going to end up all right financially if he's still alive. And in a way, like his uncle. Right. His uncle had aspirations as well when younger and now he's fine, he's gotten his money from somewhere, but. 8:51 Erin: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah. So maybe Monty is more psychologically, perhaps, just as threatening to Withnail as to Marwood. Not quite, but almost. Oh, yeah. So in the crow and crown, there are pictures of Elizabeth and Philip on the walls and there's an image of her coronation garb. So that would be the 50s. It is like they've stepped back in time. So there's something. If they're flat is the 60s and they have to escape the flat in order to find someplace that hasn

    The Romance of Self-Destruction in “Withnail and I” (1987) – Part 2

  8. May 10

    The Romance of Self-Destruction in “Withnail and I” (1987)

    It’s 1969, and as drug guru Danny tells us, “the greatest decade in the history of mankind is over.” There will, he says, be many refugees, and the film’s implication is that Withnail—who combines self-importance and lofty ambition with substance abuse and urban squalor—will not be one of them. Marwood, by contrast, has seen the writing on the wall, in the form of the salacious tabloid stories that, while they threaten to outcompete the world’s attention for the arts, ultimately can’t be used to excuse the pair’s failure to find work as actors. Countering this attentional collapse perhaps requires getting serious: leaving bohemian pretensions behind—and along with them, as Marwood finds out in their jaunt to the countryside—a backward-looking romanticism that can be used as a cover not just for artistic paralysis but upper class predations, both economic and sexual. Wes & Erin discuss the cult classic “Withnail and I,” and whether our capacity for sublimation suffers less from the crisis of modernity than from our attempts to transcend it. Upcoming Episodes: Waiting for Godot, The Mummy Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Wes: It's 1969, and as drug guru Danny tells us, the greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. There will, he says, be many refugees. And the film's implication is that Withnail, who combines self importance and lofty ambition with substance abuse and urban squalor, will not be one of them. Marwood, by contrast, has seen the writing on the wall in the form of the salacious tabloid stories that while they threaten to out compete the world's attention for the arts, ultimately can't be used to excuse the pair's failure to find work as actors. Countering this attentional collapse perhaps requires getting serious, leaving bohemian pretensions behind. And along with them, as Marwood finds out on their jaunt to the countryside, a backward looking romanticism that can be used as a cover not just for artistic paralysis, but upper class predations, both economic and sexual. Today we discuss the cult classic Withnail and I, and whether our capacity for sublimation suffers less from the crisis of modernity than from our attempts to transcend it. This is Wes Alwan. And this is Erin Olonick, and you're listening to Subtext. Okay, Erin, I didn't ask you before I suggested this movie whether you had seen it or not, and I was curious about whether you'd seen it and whether you liked it, but I thought I'd wait until the podcast to learn that. So, yeah. So what's the answer to that? 1:46 Erin: I was trying to figure out if I had seen it before and my memory. I don't think I'm making this up. I think I tried to watch it and got repulsed and stopped watching it because of the whole matter in the sink thing. But I really liked it and I thought it was hilarious. As long as you don't eat anything while you're watching it, I think it's okay. But the curve at the beginning was just getting over the few gross things going on, which all kind of happen at the beginning of the film. But did you see this, like, around the time that it came out, or what's your experience with it? 2:19 Wes: I saw this in the 90s. My friend John Lebec showed it to me. I think we should dedicate this episode to John Lebeck, who liked the character that Withnail is based on, passed away young, and I think in some ways there are situations. I lived with Lebeck and he was my best friend for a long time. There were times in my life where I think we didn't quite reach the level of Withnail and Marwood in terms of squalor and dissolution. But I think we were trying. We were trying to get there. And I think there's a kind of romance in that or there's a romanticization of that, and maybe that has something to do with its association with being a down and out artist. It's much more romantic if you can make the artist part of that work. But otherwise it just becomes, well, what is it they're feeling in the beginning of the movie? You know, terror, I think at least Mara would nail is more angry, I think. But anyway, this kind of story, yeah, it does have an appeal to me. I'm a big fan of Orwell's down and out in Paris and London, for instance. I don't know if you've read that there's another book called Keep the Aspidistras Flying by Orwell, which is the same sort of quality. The down and out story, it's not quite like this, but Bukowski, I think we talked about this before and you're not a fan, but his stories can be very much like this. They're autobiographical and it's about him being a boozer and trying to be a writer. 3:56 Erin: But. 3:56 Wes: Yeah, so I think part of the thing I was trying to think about rewatching this was. And it has been a long time, I think I saw it in the 90s and I saw it again at some point. I think this is the third time, but it's probably more than a decade since I've seen it. But I was trying to think, what is it that's so appealing about a story like this, if it is appealing to people? And then what is it that can appeal to people about putting themselves in this state, in this position? And then the larger question of how this is related to 60s counterculture, because, of course, it's set in 1969 and they've come to an end of an era. And the final stages of this relationship, I think, in a way are meant to represent the end of the 60s and everything, the good and bad of it. 4:44 Erin: Well, what I find appealing about it is just the dialogue. There are just so many funny lines. The hysterical moment where the police officer screams, get in the van. 4:54 Wes: Yeah. That is. 4:59 Erin: I had to pause it because I was laughing so hard. 5:02 Wes: Just completely loses it. 5:04 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 5:05 Wes: In the shrillest. Yeah, the shrillest possible voice. Completely loses control of himself. 5:13 Erin: Good cop, crazy cop or bad cop, crazy cop. I don't know what. What they're doing there, but for me, the film seemed to be less about this idea of what it means to be an artist per se, and instead this hopelessness about becoming a man, that there was no route to maturity, that the future had been foreclosed for Marwood and Withnail in some way. And I think their particular artistic endeavor. So acting is about that same process. It's also about adopting another identity. Of course, they're male actors, so it's a male identity putting on another man or another life or another role, and therefore, perhaps training oneself in what it means to be that other man or in what it means to be a man in general. And then that's played upon, it seems, with these gay jokes that pervade the film with the idea of being maybe subject to other men or under the influence of other men, or even this actorly idea of putting on another man becomes this kind of joke in which they're putting on Monty. Monty himself is a former actor, I suppose. I don't know. Maybe. As I say that, I'm thinking, well, that really is about the artist's life. What probably just characterizes it more than anything is that one is subject to outside approval regard. Very little is under one's control when one is an artist. So. But I was more interested in this idea of manhood, masculinity and feeling like everybody wants to, yeah, screw you over and what that might mean. And kind of turning that into a joke about all the meanings of that phrase, which I'm putting politely, more politely than the film does. 6:58 Wes: Yeah. I think there's something there about the way in which a certain kind of aesthetic relationship to the aesthetic and to artistic ambitions leaves one vulnerable. Right. They get called a ponce. That's a big deal. By the Irishman in the bar. What's the name of the pub again? 7:17 Erin: There are so many great pub names. There's the King Henry, the one with the two Cs. 7:23 Wes: It's the mother black cap. They're called ponces at that point. Jake the poacher says to Marwood that he's a prancing tit and that he wants working on. Although the poacher turns out to be a bit more benevolent than they thought and ends up bringing them a rabbit in the end. So there's a certain amount of paranoia. I mean, there's a lot of paranoia in this, but there's the realistic, what turns out to be persecution by Monty, or at least towards Marwood. Monty turns out, really is after him sexually, even if it's going to mean burglary, as he puts it, which is great. But I Think there's two components there. One is being a bit more upper class. And so being a ponce. That sort of slur is not just about sexuality, although it is. It's about being a limousine liberal. That's actually a very poor way to put it. Or maybe it's more after the times, actually, at least the times in which the movie was made, that sort of accusation. But it's about being effete and not manly. So I think that's the relationship. That's the sort of position that being actors puts them in. It's not a manly thing to do. It's more feminine. I think that's the idea. Part of the movie is about the dangers of the romanticization of that sort of aspiration. You know, when we see Monty in the countryside, he has all these romance, right. The countryside itself, when they take that trip, there's supposed to be something romantic about it, right. In the larger sense, it's getting into the countryside and into a rural scene. Wordsworth and Keats and all that. And Monty himself has all this flowery tal

    The Romance of Self-Destruction in “Withnail and I” (1987)
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Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.

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