Quite Useless

Greg Beam
  • 5.0 (8)
  • ARTS
  • UPDATED BIMONTHLY

A podcast about art and its role in our lives. Artist and armchair aesthetic philosopher Greg Beam probes various topics in the arts, asking how art both reflects and shapes our perceptions of the world.

  1. 09/22/2023

    Need To Know

    Not knowing can be painful... but knowledge may come at a hefty price.

    41 min

  2. 02/05/2021

    Platonic Irony | The Republic, Part IV

    What if everything you thought you knew about Plato's Republic... was wrong?

    28 min

  3. 11/10/2020

    Another Name for Chaos (The Republic, Part III)

    An exploration of the art of philosophy, starring Plato, Simone de Beauvoir, Zhuang Zhou, Soren Kierkegaard, Diogenes of Sinope, Audre Lorde, and more! This is the third in a four-part series inspired by Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Scroll through the past episodes to find the first two parts, "Raising the Curtain, Lifting the Veil" and "Madmen."

    41 min

  4. 08/31/2020

    American Myths

    Joseph Campbell was a proponent of the power of myth in framing human life. But in America in the 21st Century, what myths do we have to live by? Well... there's always Star Wars...

    41 min

  5. 11/26/2019

    Madmen | The Republic, Part II

    Antonin Artaud was a self-described 'madman' and persistent failure in the theatre... He was also one of the great artistic geniuses of the 20th Century.

    38 min

  6. 09/23/2019

    Raising the Curtain, Lifting the Veil | The Republic, Part I

    Bertolt Brecht was the force behind some of the most popular and influential theater of the 20th Century. But he didn't make plays to entertain. He made them to wake people up to the insanity around them. This episode delves into Brecht's background and work, his philosophy and his legacy... and leads to some surprising places. This is the first in a sequence inspired by the Allegory of the Cave, from Plato's Republic.

    49 min

  7. 03/10/2019

    Angels & Demons

    What lies at the intersection of art and commerce? Is it possible for these two categories of human endeavor to get along, or are they like cats and dogs, fated to engage in an endless struggle for dominance? (Okay, not really like cats and dogs, but you get the idea...) This episode features insights from Alan Watts, Tom Waits, Samuel Johnson, David Foster Wallace, and someone's psychic grandmother (seriously).

    42 min
  8. The Use of the Useless

    02/09/2019

    The Use of the Useless

    For the first episode of season two, I examine what the experience of creating and contemplating art does for us at the deepest level. A dip into the philosophy of art with some help from Tao master Zhuangzi, Thomas Merton, Simon Armitage, Duke Ellington, and Haruki Marukami.

    29 min
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5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

A podcast about art and its role in our lives. Artist and armchair aesthetic philosopher Greg Beam probes various topics in the arts, asking how art both reflects and shapes our perceptions of the world.

Information

  • Creator
    Greg Beam
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2023
  • Episodes
    19
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2021 Gregory Beam
  • Show Website
    Quite Useless