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Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary

Marooned! on Mars with Matt and Hilary

By Matt Hauske & Hilary Strang

a kim stanley robinson read-along podcast with regular forays into utopia. hosted by some friends who are into communism, science fiction and other stuff
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Green Earth, Episode 4: Permaculture, the Commons, Destiny

Marooned! on Mars with Matt and HilaryMay 05, 2022

00:00
01:44:55
The World Soul Visits His Mummy: Napoleon

The World Soul Visits His Mummy: Napoleon

Our review of Ridley Scott's Napoleon.


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Music by Spirit of Space


Dec 19, 202301:15:19
Proof of Life, or, Hoping in One Hand

Proof of Life, or, Hoping in One Hand

We're still here! Grumpier than ever, complaining about things we probably shouldn't be, reading books, talking.


And you're still listening! Thank you. We've been away for a long time for...reasons. But we are momentarily back, and maybe we'll be back again soon to talk about Napoleon and Ridley Scott. But this time we chat about the impossibilities and injustices of the working day under capitalism, capitalist education (indoctrination) and entertainment (propaganda), and let you in on what we've been reading instead of KSR, namely:

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

LOTS of Philip K. Dick, especially Flow My Tears the Policeman Said, Dr. Futurity, and Clans of the Alphane Moon

the crime noir novels of Jean-Patrick Manchette

The Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon

Ursula K. Le Guin's short story "Direction of the Road"

Grapes of Wrath

and Bartolome de las Casas, just as a pick-me-up

You cannot hear a cat purring at around 37:40, college students are planning for a future they don't believe will arrive, and we're all wondering when our last hot shower will happen.

Happy Thanksgiving, and please to enjoy.

Nov 28, 202301:00:26
Obstructed Viewing (A Backdoor Pilot): SABOTAGE!

Obstructed Viewing (A Backdoor Pilot): SABOTAGE!

A very special episode of Marooned on Mars, a backdoor pilot, as they say in the biz, of Obstructed Viewing with friends of the pod returning-guest champion Bill and Dauphin Josh debuting their new movie podcast (has anyone ever done a podcast about movies before?).


The theme of the show today is sabotage and movies that feature it: The Train (John Frankenheimer, 1964) and Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977).


If possible, you should watch these movies before listening, just so you know what the heck we’re talking about.


What is sabotage, who does it and why? Is terrorism sabotage by another name? What level of complicity does a saboteur need to have with the object or process that is the target of their sabotage? Why do people commit sabotage? How does sabotage relate to self-sabotage? Is it a negative or positive action? Is there a dialectics of sabotage? What is the good of sabotage in and of itself? What is the temporality of sabotage?


But more importantly, how awesome are these movies, huh? Lots of stuff going on in them that’s sabotage, and perhaps even more that’s not sabotage!


We talk about money, the national question, art, culture, modernity, economics, labor, politics, all the classic Marooned topics our listeners have grown accustomed to love and expect.


With a special appearance by Slavoj Zizek.


Follow Obstructed Viewing on your podcast app of preference! Marooned will be back sooner or later with more of whatever it is we do.


Thanks for listening!


Find Obstructed Viewing at obstructedviewpod.com, here, or wherever you get your p'casts!


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Sep 03, 202302:09:44
Galileo's Dream, Episode 4: Dumb Verbal Tics, Foregone Conclusions, and the Undramatic Inevitability of Grief

Galileo's Dream, Episode 4: Dumb Verbal Tics, Foregone Conclusions, and the Undramatic Inevitability of Grief

In our final reckoning with GALILEO'S DREAM, we talk about our horrible voices and their dumb verbal tics, the trickiness of time travel narratives, anticlimactic moments, conspiratorial webs, the decentering of Event, crabbing sideways toward the good, rocking, the universal unity of grief, and Milton doing TikTok dances.

Thanks for listening! We'll be back later, probably with a movie episode or several. You can let us know what you'd like us to read next by emailing or tweeting. Stop donating to our podcast!


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Music by Spirit of Space

Mar 31, 202301:19:05
Galileo's Dream, Episode 3: No Lent on Callisto

Galileo's Dream, Episode 3: No Lent on Callisto

This episode we discuss the Jovian society, the way the novel posits the relationship between science and religion, the entwined logics of extraction and redemption, the astrological epistemology, ecstasy, the our own Thirty+ Years War, and whales.

Thanks for listening!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Mar 04, 202301:23:30
Galileo's Dream, Episode 2: Sneezing, Shitting, and Fucking in Space-Time, plus the Redemption of Human Folly

Galileo's Dream, Episode 2: Sneezing, Shitting, and Fucking in Space-Time, plus the Redemption of Human Folly

In probably our greatest episode ever, Matt and Ms. Partial Sentence talk about all the stuff we normally talk about, like Shark Tank, redemption, helmets, jazz, the Divine Comedy, and Constructivism. Plus Matt does drugs.

Stay tuned to the very end to hear our next-level casting idea for who should play Galileo in the movie adaptation. The answer may shock and surprise you!


Thanks for listening!

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Feb 11, 202301:27:08
Galileo's Dream, Episode 1: Quantum Historical Fiction and the Messiness of the Future

Galileo's Dream, Episode 1: Quantum Historical Fiction and the Messiness of the Future

Buongiorno! We're back with another thrilling series of discussions, and back to our author of choice, Kim Stanley Robinson. This time around we're discussing his weird and wonderful 2009 novel Galileo's Dream!

Lots to talk about here, like history and who it's for, narrational voice, genre, science's relationship to religion, politics, money, power, and labor, and, of course, cats.

For this book our conversations will focus more on big themes rather than a narrative blow-by-blow. So: spoilers ahead! (Oh, and we also discuss the concept of spoilers with relation to this book.) This episode covers roughly the first hundred pages or so, though again our conversation is mostly conceptual and thematic. But it was a fun talk to have, hopefully a fun one to listen to, about a book that is super super fun!

Thanks for listening!

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Jan 26, 202301:06:00
Nothing for Nobody: STEALTH and the Nu Militarism

Nothing for Nobody: STEALTH and the Nu Militarism

This week, we apologize for discussing STEALTH, an extended Incubus music video/ American military propaganda directed by Rob Cohen.

Join us as we discuss the exploits of Ben "Big" Gannon (Talon 1, Josh "George" Lucas), Kara "Caraway" Wade (Talon 2, Jessica Biel), and Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx (Talon 3, "Henry"), as they face the threat of global terrorism and technological job precarity at the hands of EDI (Extreme Deep Invader), a VLO (Very Low Observable) UCAV (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle), call sign Tin Man. If that isn't enough names for you, please listen to us talk about this quasi-post-western of the GWOT era and wrestle with the moral conundrums surrounding the question of who, when, and where to drop bombs and "get these bastards." The answers may surprise you! (They are "the bad guys," "always," and "over there.")

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Dec 28, 202201:34:44
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072: Problems of Centrality and Narrative in a De-hierarchicalized Future

Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072: Problems of Centrality and Narrative in a De-hierarchicalized Future

This week we are reading a very special, wonderful book, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi from Common Notions.

Told as a series of interviews by two ageing ex-academics (because academia has been, thankfully, finally, abolished), Everything for Everyone depicts a future in which the central organizing force of human society is the Commune. Emerging unevenly, violently, and somewhat spontaneously around the world at various times and in various forms, the Commune is the form society takes when needs are met and the ubiquitous crises of everyday life under capitalism are addressed head-on. Ordinary people tell their own stories of bringing about and sustaining this post-capital, post-commodity, post-gender, post-state future.

Matt and Hilary discuss how this book makes a problem of narrative itself, as well as many of the beautiful features of the world depicted. Care and community are the focus of everyday life, but the book also acknowledges that "care" and "community" are not, and have never been, static concepts. Rather, they are always changing, and the project of human living-together is precisely the work required to meet those ever-changing needs. We see characters bringing about the new ways of life by doing them, by living them. At the same time, the future depicted is not without pain, trauma, or struggle. Rather, trauma--in all its forms--take center stage as the thing to be addressed, worked on, overcome, and healed in a social organization worthy of the name. The Commune here is not a form yet to come, but rather something that's constantly being built. 

We talk about crisis, the myth of property, technology, nostalgia, commitment to a social whole, gestation, and writing a future for ourselves, that includes ourselves. We also find potential parallels to KSR, William Morris, Octavia Butler, and Marge Piercy.

Buy this book! And get an extra copy for a friend, family member, or enemy, and make them read it and talk to you about it!

Thanks for listening!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Dec 11, 202201:21:11
Tomorrow's Parties: Life in the Anthropocene

Tomorrow's Parties: Life in the Anthropocene

WARNING: This podcast is a paid advertisement, for a book. The payment for the advertisement that this podcast is was the book that this podcast is advertising. So, it’s not really “paid,” in the sense that the IRS should not worry about this.

In this very special episode of Marooned on Mars, we discuss the recently released anthology Tomorrow's Parties: Life in the Anthropocene, edited by Jonathan Strahan and published by MIT Press.

We manage to touch on every story in the collection, at least in passing! And in this episode we try our best to minimize spoilers, considering the format of the texts we’re reading and their recent publication. Featuring stories by Meg Elison, Tade Thompson, Daryl Gregory, Greg Egan, Sarah Gailey, Justina Robson, Chen Quifan, Malka Older, Saad Z. Hossain, and James Bradley, artwork by Sean Bodley, and an interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, Tomorrow's Parties touches on many themes that that should be familiar to our listeners: political economy and ecology, trying to make history while living with the legacies of the past, the weirdness of being burdened with a body, capitalism and wage labor. Described by Strahan in the introduction as neither hopepunk nor material for doomscrolling, the stories here are imaginative and engaging, and well worth checking out (if you're into that kind of thing).

Next up we'll be doing a deep-ish dive into Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, published by Common Notions. There will be spoilers, so buy it and read it! (You won't be sorry!)

Thanks for listening!

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Nov 10, 202201:15:05
Last Survivors of the Covenant, 2: ALIEN: COVENANT, Automythopoesis, Empire, Kinship, and Shower Sex

Last Survivors of the Covenant, 2: ALIEN: COVENANT, Automythopoesis, Empire, Kinship, and Shower Sex

In the thrilling conclusion to our conversation about ALIEN: COVENANT, the final (so far) installment of the ALIEN franchise, Matt, Hilary, and Bill talk about Walter, David, and robots that (mis)quote poetry and Ridley Scott's placement of himself in a line of artists stretching from Milton to Shelley to David Lean. More on empire and settler colonialism, automythopoesis and Old Hollywood, the "perfect" organism, love and disappointment, the diversity of forms and difference, good and bad Christians, science vs. luck, and rudely interrupted shower sex.

We'll be back eventually to cover ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, and soon to talk about some books!

Thanks for listening!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Oct 30, 202201:13:26
Last Survivors of the Covenant, Part 1: ALIEN: COVENANT, Wheat, Cults, History, and Couples

Last Survivors of the Covenant, Part 1: ALIEN: COVENANT, Wheat, Cults, History, and Couples

Part 1 of 2!

In our final episode of our miniseries exploring the Alien franchise, Matt and Hilary, joined by the inimitable Bill, discuss Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott's second non-prequel, released in 2017. We like this installment quite a bit, and have a lot of fun picking it apart. We talk wheat (the grain!), xenomorph kitty kats (to protect the grain!), and interstellar neoliberal postmodern settler colonialism (to grow the grain! and build a cabin!).

Also pregnancy, reproduction, embryos, history and/ of/ by prequels, robots with accents, and kinship.

Back very soon with part 2!

Thanks for listening!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Oct 27, 202201:07:33
The Last Survivors of the PROMETHEUS: Universal Dumbness, the Victory of Postmodernism, and the Intersection of Desire

The Last Survivors of the PROMETHEUS: Universal Dumbness, the Victory of Postmodernism, and the Intersection of Desire

The fifth and penultimate episode in our ALIEN Franchise series. Joined once again by Bill, we discuss Ridley Scott's return with Prometheus (2012), starring Noomi Rapace (pronounce as you will), Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, and that guy from UPGRADE (a really good sci-fi action movie). 

We spend a lot of this episode making fun of this movie instead of properly analyzing it. You can blame Matt for that. We even skip over most of its imagination of reproduction—which we will address in the next episode!

What we do talk about is puffy humanoid aliens who might be related to Jesus, the way corporations express love, TED Talks, vulgar Nietzscheanism, Frankenstein, Lawrence of Arabia, the Tower of Babel, intelligent design, and Armond White.

Thanks for listening!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Oct 04, 202201:48:10
Last Survivors of the Betty: ALIEN: RESURRECTION, the Inexplicable Film, Boots, Whiskey, Sex-Gender Panic, and $11 million

Last Survivors of the Betty: ALIEN: RESURRECTION, the Inexplicable Film, Boots, Whiskey, Sex-Gender Panic, and $11 million

We're back, with our discussion of a serious piece of shit, Alien: Resurrection, the Joss Whedon-scripted, Jean-Pierre Jeunet-directed, 1997 mess that concludes the Ripley arc of the Alien franchise. We hate this movie, and unfortunately for you, we talk about it for an hour and a half! If you've never seen it, you might have to suffer through it just to understand what the hell we're talking about, so: our apologies.

This disasterpiece is full of anxiety about sex, panic about gender, and downright hatred of women. It's an abysmal example of what Matt terms late-1990s Hollywood Baroque, containing no ideas and making no sense. The phrase "it raises more questions than it answers" could be used here, but only in the worst way, because Alien: Resurrection isn't even interested in the questions it raises in the first place, let alone answering them. Why, for instance, does whiskey come in solid cubes? Why does the Ripley clone know how to fly a spaceship but not how to work a fork? Why doesn't Christie just shake his foot to free himself from the grip of a dead xenomorph? Is that fingernail polish or are her nails actually that color? (And by the way, if you know the name of the popular late-90s nail polish that Hilary references, please let us know)? The answers: stop thinking about it, pigs! Just eat your popcorn and shut up!

This movie made us so mad we didn't even notice the distinct and fatal absence of cats.

So, again, sorry, but it's not our fault this movie exists. At least Prometheus will be pretty to look at.

Thanks for listening, and sorry!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Sep 05, 202201:25:40
The Last Survivors of Fury 161: ALIEN CUBED, End of History Bafflement, Postmodern Genre Mishmash, Rumor Control and Religion

The Last Survivors of Fury 161: ALIEN CUBED, End of History Bafflement, Postmodern Genre Mishmash, Rumor Control and Religion

We’re watching the Assembly Cut (an extra 30 minutes!) of Alien3 for our latest foray into the Alien franchise.

This one takes place on a forced-labor penal colony inhabited by a strange religious sect of hyper-violent, hyper-male murderers, rapists, and scoundrels. But Ripley’s not worried because Charles Dance, who’s not at all creepy, is there.

We struggle to make some kind of synthetic sense of this film, which has an extremely circuitous production history (which we discuss) making for a confusing but nevertheless fun viewing experience, and an even more fun talking experience.

Never mind the names of the characters: they all look alike except for Charles S. Dutton and Ripley. One probably smells like garlic but he can’t help it, and besides he’s crazy.

Thanks for listening!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Aug 09, 202201:33:17
Last Survivors of the Sulaco: ALIEN$, Reproduction, Settler Colonialism, and the Military Turducken

Last Survivors of the Sulaco: ALIEN$, Reproduction, Settler Colonialism, and the Military Turducken

We're back with Bill, tracing the adventures of new mom Ellen Ripley through the vast reaches of space as she returns to LV-426, now a colony (in every sense of the word) being terraformed by the Weyland-Yutani company. Jones has been left behind to... guard the grain. OK.

James Cameron's 1986 entry in the Alien franchise takes the form of a war film, but Matt argues it's more like a western. The series from this point begins to focus on reproduction, and we begin to try to make sense of how that fits in with the settler colonial discourse, with a plot that's initiated by an attack on a nuclear family from an indigenous population. A question we end with is, if survival and survivability are so important to the corporation, or to the xenomorph, why would reproduction be necessary at all? This seems to be a contradiction, and we try to resolve it.

Along the way we note the film's move into 80s-style militarism, a la Schwarzenegger and Stallone (Ripley goes full Rambo on the Queen), compare Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver along the badassery vs. everygirlness spectra, explore the Biehn line, complain about kids in films, definitively assert that Aliens is better than T2, and explore the supposed universality of motherhood. And more!

GAME OVER, MAN!

Thanks for listening!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Jul 31, 202201:20:60
Last Survivors of the Nostromo Episode One: ALIEN, Labor, Robots, and, of course Cats

Last Survivors of the Nostromo Episode One: ALIEN, Labor, Robots, and, of course Cats

Hop a ride on your nearest commercial towing vehicle and set a course for the stars!

We're back with a special series on the ALIEN movie franchise. Joined by our friend and one-and-only guest Bill (who joins us from a fishbowl), we will be discussing all 6 films in the series in order of their release: Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien3 (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997), Prometheus (2012), and Alien: Covenant (2017) (and Matt just wrote all those, in order, with the correct years, without having to look them up--so off to a good start!).

"Modern classic" is an over-used phrase, but Alien, directed by the not unattractive Ridley Scott, actually fits the description. Combining horror and science fiction in a new way, the film raises fascinating questions about both biological and social reproduction, as well as class, gender, and the status of labor. What does it mean to be a survivor, and why is that important for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation? How does the figure of the robot compare to the xenomorph, and what meaning can we make by putting them next to each other? Is Jonesy jealous that the alien gets to kill all those humans? And where are all the mice?

These questions and more will be answered DEFINITIVELY. We'll be back soon with Episode 2 on Aliens.

Thanks for listening, and above all: Don't Panic!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Jul 26, 202201:20:28
Green Earth, Episode 8: "Terraforming Earth," "The Dominoes Fall," and "You Get What You Get": Unintelligibility, the Everyday, and Climate Politics

Green Earth, Episode 8: "Terraforming Earth," "The Dominoes Fall," and "You Get What You Get": Unintelligibility, the Everyday, and Climate Politics

In this FINAL episode of our discussion of Green Earth, Matt and Hilary talk about the themes of unintelligibility throughout the novel(s) and think about the ways the novel(s) insert climate change into both the political and the everyday lived realities of people who are used to living relatively comfortable lives.

We work through some issues on the historical contexts of the novel's publication and our reading of it a mere 18 (or 7) years later, but in what feels like a radically different world both politically and with regards to climate.

The ways the novel does show in a subtle way some of the holes in the kinds of solutions it posits, like the Quiblers' possibility of moving in with the Khembalis, the questionable nature of American democracy vis a vis the fixed (or unfixed) presidential election, and the cloudy relationship between capitalism and liberal democracy, especially in light of the role China plays in the denouement. 

We touch on metaphor, science, Buddhism, 1000-year projects, the Chemosphere, class consciousness among the PMC, and so, so much more.

Thanks for listening to this season! We'll be taking a bit of a break for a few weeks and will return with a series of episodes on the ALIEN movie franchise, then probably an episode on the book Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future by Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann. And eventually we'll return to KSR--we still have at least five books left to read!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Jun 23, 202201:32:22
Green Earth, Episode 7: "Undecided," "Sacred Space," "Emerson for the Day:" Necessity, Joy, and Cats

Green Earth, Episode 7: "Undecided," "Sacred Space," "Emerson for the Day:" Necessity, Joy, and Cats

In this, our PENULTIMATE episode in our examination of Green Earth, Matt and Hilary start off by sharing what they're going to miss after the global civilizational collapse (heat in the winter, showers, i.e., relief from the pressure to be clean), and talk about how we're not talking about the very real threat of civilizational collapse. Then we talk about Chapters 25, 26, and a bit of 27 before we run out of brain power.

Here our conversation runs through decision-making and the myths surrounding it, complaints about sociobiology and evo psych and their connection to imagining responses to climate change, the ways history keeps us anchored to the present, realism and science fiction.

How will we wrest freedom from the grasp of necessity? What is the ransom adequate to save the world? Are cats a liquid or a solid?

We dive deep into Edgardo's experience of the Piazzolla concert and think about the premise that all joy is anticipatory, "dragged out from some better future time," and we lament the total unnecessariness of the misery of the present that we all, nevertheless, persist in reproducing. Whether we find all that funny is an open question.

This section also includes "Sacred Space," which depicts Rudra's death and funeral and Charlie and Frank's trip to the Sierras. We wonder about the Single-Frank Theory, also known as the Theory of Transcendent Franks.

This episode is bookended by cat appearances, so be sure to stay tuned until the end! (And don't make your hobby your side hustle.)

Thanks for listening!

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Music by Spirit of Space

Jun 13, 202201:22:00
Green Earth, Episode 6: "60 Days and Counting" 1, Exhaustion, Plastic, Solidity, Total Information Awareness

Green Earth, Episode 6: "60 Days and Counting" 1, Exhaustion, Plastic, Solidity, Total Information Awareness

Starting Sixty Days and Counting, Chapters 21-24

Again we ask the big questions:

Why are we doing this?

When does Frankie say, "relax"?

What if the 14 multinational corporations standing on each other's shoulders wearing an American flag overcoat that claim to be the USA suddenly took off the overcoat?

We have some pre-Uvalde, post-Obama thoughts about Phil Chase's idea that America is the "hope of the world," as well as housing precarity, plastic(!), hiding things in forests, and total information awareness. We don't achieve total information awareness in this episode, but hopefully we're getting close!

(This was recorded on May 15.)

Thank you for listening!

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May 30, 202201:19:33
Green Earth, Episode 5: "Fifty Degrees Below" 3, Indecision, Mutual Aid, Election Theater, and Bailiwicks

Green Earth, Episode 5: "Fifty Degrees Below" 3, Indecision, Mutual Aid, Election Theater, and Bailiwicks

First, the name of the Buddhist climate activist who self-immolated in front of the Supreme Court was Wynn Bruce. Matt forgets his name when he mentions him, but everyone should know him.

In this episode, we finish volume 2 of Green Earth, discussing "The Cold Snap," "Always Generous," "Leap Before You Look," and "Primavera Porteño"-- in a very freewheeling manner, it must be said!

We talk about the gap between knowing and acting, seeming and being. And ponder the following questions:

Are elections meaningful? 

Is Frank's brain injury the cause of his indecision?

Is the Khembali exorcism ceremony real?

Which of them are theater?

Paranoia, bourgeois individualism, coping, illusion, co-imagining trauma and the everyday, living a whole life--big themes in this episode!

We also mourn the passing of Hilary's cat and frequent podcast drop-in Louise, and look forward to the utopia of feline immortality under communism.

Thanks for listening!

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May 09, 202201:27:51
Green Earth, Episode 4: Permaculture, the Commons, Destiny

Green Earth, Episode 4: Permaculture, the Commons, Destiny

NOTE: This episode was recorded in early April.

In this episode we focus on “Is There a Technical Solution?,” “Autumn in New York,” and “Optimodal.”

But first we spend some time (as usual) lamenting the state of the world, especially the plight of the unhoused from Maine to Chicago. We decide private property should be abolished, which is also one of the best takeaways from Eric Holthaus’s The Future Earth. We also curse Barack Obama for what the Obama Center is doing to the South Side of Chicago. A bad guy, actually!

This leads us into thinking about public space and the commons, which takes us back into Green Earth and Frank’s experience living in a tree in Rock Creek Park. Here, outdoor spaces have become something more than what they were before the flood and the freeze. In the park, with Frank, the bros, and the frisbee golfers, we can find the novel’s speculative kernel, taking us outside the question of whether science can become political and whether politics can be reconciled to science.

We talk about home and habits, how the everyday lives of the characters are so partitioned and look for the things that hold Frank’s life together, one of which is the economy, indebtedness, insurance–ironically the very thing that, in the novel’s A-plot, may force the world to change course. The uninsurability of property in the face of catastrophic climate change may force capital into a different direction. In this way, Green Earth provides an actuarial imagination that gives a different relationship to the future, in ways that KSR will continue to develop in New York 2140 and The Ministry for the Future.

Meanwhile, Phil Chase is doing his Wizard of Oz routine, and Matt and Hilary reflect on what it looks like when our politics is centered on charismatic leaders. Being beholden to a pseudo-magical figure and the hierarchies and dependencies entailed by that arrangement don’t lend themselves to having a better democracy. Even Frank’s relationship with the bros seems to be one of liberal benevolence, which they do not fail to call him on.

We critique Chase’s speech calling on America to fulfill its “historical destiny” and put pressure on the possibility of threading the needle between the U.S. being a world leader without being hegemonic, “inventing permaculture” without engaging in imperialism. Can we reconcile the idea of the nation-state with the idea of a global civilization? What does “culture” mean in a borderless world?

The whole notion of “permaculture” is a weird one–isn’t culture constantly changing?

The section ends with some hints toward the need for a new global religion, with Frank dipping his toe in Emerson (and then getting beat up).

Hilary pulls a switcheroo, picks a bone with Donna Haraway, demands action, and Matt plugs Tokyo Vice.

It’s all happening.


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May 05, 202201:44:55
Green Earth, Episode 3: "Fifty Degrees Below," Robinsonades, Realism, Lama-Grooming

Green Earth, Episode 3: "Fifty Degrees Below," Robinsonades, Realism, Lama-Grooming

In this episode we talk about the first three chapters of Fifty Degrees Below, "Primate in Forest," "Abrupt Climate Change," and "Return to Khembalung."

We discuss the way this novel works within the mode of realism and look for areas where it pushes against that mode to find possibly utopian, possibly fantastical, alternatives. Our focus here is on comparing what we regard as the novel's two main characters, Frank and Charlie, and the way they are negotiating the "new normal" they find themselves in. They each seem to resist the new at the same time they are struggling to build it, whether that be in legislation (writing the book of the future) or in a treehouse (a Swiss Family Robinsonade). We talk about genre, truth claims, rewilding, and lama-grooming.

We'll be back in a couple weeks with our discussion of the next three chapters "Is There a Technical Solution?" "Autumn in New York," and "Optimodal."

Thanks for listening!

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Mar 30, 202201:27:51
Green Earth, Episode 2: Sweatpants, Buddha Nature, and Nukes

Green Earth, Episode 2: Sweatpants, Buddha Nature, and Nukes

In this episode we talk about the second half of the first volume of Green Earth, Forty Signs of Rain from "Athena on the Pacific" to "Broader Impacts."

Mar 07, 202201:43:28
Green Earth, Episode 1: "The Buddha Arrives" to "Science in the Capital": Setting the Table, the Literature of Banality, and Science in the W. Era

Green Earth, Episode 1: "The Buddha Arrives" to "Science in the Capital": Setting the Table, the Literature of Banality, and Science in the W. Era

We're back! This season we're tackling Green Earth, KSR's revised, single-volume edition of the Science in the Capital trilogy. The trilogy was originally published from 2004 to 2007. Green Earth was put out in 2015.

In this first episode we discuss the (un)likability of the novel's main characters, and the way the book seems to set the table for KSR's agenda for his following novels, particularly Shaman, 2312, New York 2140, and The Ministry for the Future. We talk about how Green Earth feels very much a Bush-era book, when it was still possible to believe that the main impediment to addressing climate change was anti-science attitudes that had infested an entire party in American politics, before the Obama era revealed that the real problem was far deeper, including obviously capitalism itself, but also something far more intractable, an approach to reality that was impervious to "just the facts" or "trust science" platitudes.

One thing Green Earth does that feels very of its moment as we read it from 2022 is its attempt to make palpable the presence of climate change in everyday life. In the early 2000s, it was still possible, on an exceptionally hot day, to joke casually about "global warming," without actually feeling what that meant. From today's perspective, when fires, floods, hurricanes, tornados, bomb cyclones, heat waves, polar vortexes, et al. hit with unprecedented regularity, that attitude feels like it comes from a place of (for lack of a better word) privilege. Green Earth attempts to make those events felt by a very specific kind of historical (fictional) subject: the hyper-productive, uber-educated, scientist-bureaucrat, engaged in the banalities of the everyday in the fields of both domesticity and national politics. What is it like for a person who is raising a child and running a household, and might, at a moment's notice, be face-to-face with the President, to experience climate change firsthand? In part what we see here is KSR's attempt to bring what he had developed throughout the Mars Trilogy home--to Earth, to everyday life, to the mundane, to the United States. In taking the energies of the Mars Trilogy and localizing them, Green Earth feels like a hinge moment in his writing, while still pursuing familiar questions and concerns: what will shock someone out of inaction to action, what is it like to live in a body on a planet, how does politics happen, where are we in history, and how do we move forward?

We hope to be a bit more, shall we say, efficient with this book than we were with 2312, and we're excited to share our thoughts with you!

If you're curious, Matt and Hilary are also now published KSR scholars, having written a review for New Labor Forum, which can be found here

Thank you for the gift of your time, and we hope you enjoy this season!


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Feb 19, 202201:16:41
2312 Episode 14: "Kiran on Ice" to "Epilogue': The Final Countdown!, Crossword Puzzles, Exile, Pair Bonding, Pronouns!

2312 Episode 14: "Kiran on Ice" to "Epilogue': The Final Countdown!, Crossword Puzzles, Exile, Pair Bonding, Pronouns!

Our final episode of our 2312 season is here!

First, we talk about the topic on everyone's mind, the New York Times Crossword puzzle and how bad it is. We wrap that up around 6.5 minutes in.

Then, we reveal the topic of our next season, and it's....drumroll....GREEN EARTH! I know this delights many of you and disappoints an equal amount, and then the final third just can't wait for our mellifluous voices to lull them back to sleep. But whatever your reaction, we're going to dive into this 1000-page behemoth starting around February 2022. We'll probably, hopefully, have a movie episode in the meantime tide over the "true heads."

We talk then about resolutions that don't resolve things, closures that leave a lot open, comedy and the marriage plot, and the mode of the novel. Is this a novel? Is it an anti-novel?

We talk a lot about punishment, prison, exile, and the police. Genette reveals another side of Genette-self---and we find some prounouns attributed to "him"! ***ATTENTION STAN, ATTENTION STAN, THERE ARE STILL PRONOUNS ATTACHED TO GENETTE!!!*** We conclude that, in the end, Genette is not the noir detective, in that the inspector does not see Genette as implicated in the rot at the core of the system. Genette is not crushed by the resolution, Genette does not fail in victory. Rather, the Inspector is confident in the Inspector's [holy shit it's hard to write without pronouns!] correctness, righteous in the outcome of which Genette [*pant, pant, pant*] was crucial in bringing about.

We ask an important question: are there qubes in Congress now, and if so, are they of the Marjorie Taylor-Green variety or the Jared Golden variety?

Join us as we collapse some wave functions (make sentences) and make a podcast world.


Happy New Year, from us and Antonio Gramsci (https://viewpointmag.com/2015/01/01/i-hate-new-years-day/), and we'll see you soon! Thanks for listening!

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Jan 05, 202202:17:05
2312 Episode 13: "Swan and Pauline and Wahram and Genette," and Diane Keaton and Joe Manchin and Sonny Crockett and Jerry Seinfeld

2312 Episode 13: "Swan and Pauline and Wahram and Genette," and Diane Keaton and Joe Manchin and Sonny Crockett and Jerry Seinfeld

Back to hot opens, in another episode where we ask important questions like, “what is time? Is it just a number? Is a wristwatch like handcuffing yourself to time? What about neckties? Is it okay when Diane Keaton wears one? Should neurodivergent people join the CIA?”

We chit chat about the demonstrably untrue myth of progress in light of news from Antarctica, pandemic, and American political system, and Hilary bullies Matt into reading The Dawn of Everything. Matt would prefer to hang out and watch Seinfeld, the way social primates should. We settle the rules of subscribing to TIME Magazine before we finally get down to business at

18 minutes

When we start talking about the chapter “Swan and Pauline and Wahram and Genette.” This chapter weaves a bunch of strands together that don’t initially seem to belong to each other, in a way that’s poignant, playful, and action-packed. The team of investigators start to get to the bottom of what’s doing what to whom.

Should the world be more stable than your body? What does that have to do with the structure of feeling? Would it be better if we all lived on houseboats, like Joe Manchin, or would it be better if we all lived on houseboats, like (potentially) Sonny Crockett, or Clint Eastwood in Blood Work? (Matt was thinking of The Rockford Files, but Rockford lives in a trailer on the beach, not a houseboat. But that could be fun, too.)

In any event, we’ll only know in retrospect, just like the structure of feeling is only discernible in retrospect, from a position of difference, or loss, or absence, or mediation.

We end by noting the recurring idea of love as a paying of attention, and as a part of the gift economy.

One more episode (we think) to go!

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Dec 26, 202101:18:57
2312 Episode 12: "Extracts (17)" to "ETH Mobile" (I'm not even going to try to spell it): Utopias of Gender, Virginia Woolf, the Long Stare of the Tenured Professor

2312 Episode 12: "Extracts (17)" to "ETH Mobile" (I'm not even going to try to spell it): Utopias of Gender, Virginia Woolf, the Long Stare of the Tenured Professor

Hilary and The Good German are back! We're talking animals, qubes, and consciousness, embodiment and emotion, landscape and economic miracles, long stares of wolves (and tenured professors), utopia of gender, and lawn bowling with Virginia Woolf. 

(Most profanity and profundity has been edited out. For the book.)

Extracts (17) - 16:00

Swan in the Chateau Garden - 37:00

Quantum Walk (2)

Inspector Genette and Swan - 50:00

Titan - 52:25

Swan and Genette and Wahram - 54:25

Matt makes a fart joke with the longest set-up in history, 59:30-1:00:00

(Hi, NSA!)

Lists (15) - 1:11:25

Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Mobile - 1:13:45

Thanks for listening!

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Dec 19, 202101:17:55
2312 Episode 11: "Extracts (15)" to "Lists (14)": Piloerection, Multispecies Solidarity, Land Art, Freedom

2312 Episode 11: "Extracts (15)" to "Lists (14)": Piloerection, Multispecies Solidarity, Land Art, Freedom

Hello again! First a massive apology for taking so long to get this episode out. As Matt explains in the opening, this was relatively unavoidable and not intentional, and we hope to finish our discussion of 2312 by the end of the year. As you’ll hear, the audio quality of the recording presented big problems for Matt, not an audio engineer, for making a listenable episode. He’s done his best!

In this episode we discuss chapters Extracts (15) to Lists (14), with characteristic rambling, long-windedness, and propensity for spoilers that you’ve grown to know and love. We talk about piloerection (it’s when your hair stands on end, weirdo), nature vs. culture, science vs. art, mammalness, revolution, and playful unresolvability.

Thanks for listening! We hope to be back soon!

30:30 – Extracts (15)

34:30 – Lists (12)

35:30 – Swan in Africa

45:30ish – Swan and the Wolves

56:30 – Lists (13)

58:30 – back to Swan and the Wolves

1:12:45 – Extracts (16)

1:24:20 – Wahram and Swan

1:34:25 – Lists (14)


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Dec 05, 202101:37:16
2312 Episode 10: "Swan in the Vulcanoids" to "Wahram on Earth": Political Economy, Aggressive Charity, Gifts

2312 Episode 10: "Swan in the Vulcanoids" to "Wahram on Earth": Political Economy, Aggressive Charity, Gifts

We start with more news from Maine: There's lithium in them thar hills! Will Elon Musk coup the governor? Stay tuned, and find out more here. We ask whether it's possible to extract these important minerals outside the demands of capital and profit, and to do it in a way that doesn't wreck the environment or the bodies of the people who will have to do this labor. We have no answers, just want to know!

Then, back to 2312. We talk a lot about the political economies of the various powers in the solar system, as the various plotlines and threads seem to start coming together and getting clearer in this chunk of chapters. How does the gift economy of the Vulcanoids and the Saturn League work? Why does the mute compulsion of economic relations still obtain on Venus? What is to be done with Earth? What's the difference between charity and a gift economy? Is charity always aggressive? What kind of revolution are Swan and Wahram driving at? We'll find out next time!

Swan in the Vulcanoids – 35:00

Lists (11) – 54:10

Wahram on Venus - 55:07

Extracts (13) – 1:09:10

Kiran in Vinmara – 1:10:35

Extracts (14) – 1:15:50

Here's a recent Jacobin piece on the hierarchy of needs, and here's the text Hilary mentions at the beginning, A World Without Money: Communism.

Thanks for listening!

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Oct 29, 202101:37:44
2312 Episode 9: "Swan and the Inspector" to "Extracts (12)": Totalities, Interpretability, and The Sad Planet

2312 Episode 9: "Swan and the Inspector" to "Extracts (12)": Totalities, Interpretability, and The Sad Planet

We spend the first ten minutes or so of this episode talking about an issue in Maine politics that presents a conundrum that's characteristic of the false choices capitalism and American democracy give us politically: which part of the ecosystem do you want to sacrifice to mitigate the disasters of another part? What's the least bad option? To read more about Question 1 on the Maine ballot, click here or here

Then we're off and running, talking about narrative and genre, sexliners and surfing, and the heaviness of Earth. Swan encounters a kind of dark postmodernity in her confrontation with the reality of Earth in this chunk of chapters, where it seems impossible to theorize the totality and the world is fundamentally unintepretable. In fact, while thinking the totality may promise to be our salvation, it may be that trying to think the totality--or even thinking that we could think the totality--is kind of what got us here in the first place.

Perennial question: What are the barriers to change? What's stopping us from acting? Why are we dithering? Who's this "we"?

We talk about revolution, excuses, reasons, ideology, fantasies of settler colonialism, psychology, Bill Gates (give us money!), and Kyrsten Sinema (go away!). We also find some differences between Matt and Hilary's editions of the novel.

SPOILER ALERT: Arkady dies in the Mars Trilogy.

Thanks for listening to us talk about this thick and chewy novel!

Swan and the Inspector – 11:00

Earth, the Planet of Sadness – 19:45

Swan on Earth – 41:55

Lists (10) – 1:25:25

Pluto, Charon, Nix, Hydra – 1:27:45

Pauline on Revolution – 1:32:15

Extracts (11) – 1:44:15

Swan at Home – 1:46:55

Extracts (12) – 1:59:10

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Oct 16, 202102:06:50
2312 Episode 8: "Lists (7)" to "Quantum Walk (1)": Noir, Late Feudalism, and the Long Postmodern

2312 Episode 8: "Lists (7)" to "Quantum Walk (1)": Noir, Late Feudalism, and the Long Postmodern

This week's episode features coughing, an apology (not for the coughing), and cat-talk. Also we discuss science communication, agency and historical periodization, intentional urban planning, living aesthetically, programming and will, surfing and gravity, noir and detective stories (watch Cutter's Way), and large forces that seem to control our lives (or do they?) and are impossible to understand (or are they??!!).

For those of you who want to cut straight to the news about Matt's cats' diets, it's at 1:04:20.

Be on the lookout for friend-of-the-show Daniel Aldana Cohen's interview with source-of-the-material-of-the-show-and-listener-to-and-number-one-fan-of-the-show Kim Stanley Robinson on The Dig from Jacobin (@thedigradio)!

Thanks for listening!

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Sep 28, 202101:54:06
2312 Episode 7: "Swan and the Inspector," Swan in Wonderland, Post-Scarcity Conspiracies, and the Nature of Evil

2312 Episode 7: "Swan and the Inspector," Swan in Wonderland, Post-Scarcity Conspiracies, and the Nature of Evil

This week’s episode is the second half of our conversation from last week’s episode, and concerns the “Swan and the Inspector” chapter. Genette takes Swan on his investigation of the strange goings-on throughout the solar system, visiting several asteroids including Yggdrasil and Inner Mongolia using the Interplan starship Swift Justice. The possibility of a conspiracy or some kind of concerted plan that potentially links Alex’s death, the destruction of Terminator, the even on Io, and the catastrophe on Yggdrasil, all involving strange qube behavior, starts to materialize for Genette.

Matt and Hilary have a long discussion about the nature of conspiracy, its possibilities and limitations as a conceptual apparatus for understanding the operation of power. While conspiracies are useful in illuminating certain aspects of the way power functions, they also contain the temptation for the analyst or investigator to throw up their hands and resign oneself to a kind of existential lack of agency. In this way, conspiratorial thinking can lead one to the conclusion that “the fix is in,” which appears as the flip side of an equally irrational faith that “the system works.” One way or another, the subject is allowed to be content in their powerlessness and merely a spectator of history rather than an active participant.

We talk about the nature of “evil,” the servile will, the concept of post-scarcity, and the problem of the concept of “human nature.” We think about Swan and Genette’s interaction with regard to their social roles, i.e., artist and cop (is Genette a cop?), before descending to the uncanny valley and watching Swan in Wonderland beat up three people claiming to be qubes with human bodies. How rude!

Thanks for listening!

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Sep 12, 202101:10:56
2312 Episode 6: "Lists (4)" to "Lists (6)": Patterns, Agency, Cops, Detection

2312 Episode 6: "Lists (4)" to "Lists (6)": Patterns, Agency, Cops, Detection

We had to split this episode up into two because we talked so long! The following episode (Episode 7, or maybe 6.2?) will deal with "Swan and the Inspector." Here, we have: 

3:20 - Lists (4)

11:35 - Inspector Genette

32:28 - Lists (5)

39:00 - Swan and Mqaret

51:30 - Extracts (7)

1:01:00 - Kiran on Venus

1:08:25 - Lists (6)

Lots of discussion of identity, the state, agency, conspiracy (more to come on that), sex/gender, and detecting patterns. Genette is trying to figure out what happened to Terminator, and the solution almost immediately appears before the inspector. It has something to do with the qubes, although we're not sure what. In the next episode Matt and Hilary will talk extensively about the very creepy episode where Swan confronts 3 women claiming to be qubes. For now, please excuse Matt the neanderthal for giving Genette pronouns! No pronouns for Jean!

Thanks for listening!

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Sep 07, 202101:12:49
2312 Episode 5: "Wahram and Swan:" A bird and a toad go for a walk and whistle Beethoven

2312 Episode 5: "Wahram and Swan:" A bird and a toad go for a walk and whistle Beethoven

This long episode is devoted to the "Wahram and Swan" chapter of 2312, when the two characters attend a Beethoven concert and the tracks on which Terminator runs are mysteriously destroyed. Wahram and Swan, along with three young "sunwalkers", then have to us the utilidor under the surface of Mercury to seek help. This is a major inciting incident for the remainder of the novel.

Matt and Hilary discuss a range of issues, including social reproduction (dyads vs. crechés), sameness and repetition, the dense specificities of place, and more.

Thanks for listening!

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Aug 22, 202101:40:14
2312 Episode 4: "Extracts (3)" to "Extracts (6)": Rainbows, Frogs, Worms, and Heterogeneous Economies

2312 Episode 4: "Extracts (3)" to "Extracts (6)": Rainbows, Frogs, Worms, and Heterogeneous Economies

We talk about the form of the "Extracts" chapters, the importance of Earth in the relationships in the story, the sky, living on the side of a planet, acting vs. being, talking to frogs, sleeping with worms, O. Henry, Danny DeVito, hawala, elephants, degenerates, and "marginal capitalism" (what is it?).

Watch out for the Late Heavy Bombardment, because it's coming!

Thanks for listening!

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Aug 10, 202101:29:32
2312 Episode 3: Intentions, Aporia, Freedom

2312 Episode 3: Intentions, Aporia, Freedom

We continue our conversation from last week, ending right before the chapter "Extracts (3)."

Matt and Hilary talk about art, chemistry, repetition, intentionality, power, capital, alliances, suffering, allegory, systems, etc. A big question is whether the spacers constitute something like an interplanetary bourgeoisie (or elite), and where capitalism is still alive in the solar system of 2312. We also talk about the role the figure of AI plays here, and whether it is allegorical to something like what we call "the market" or "capital"--in other words, the concept of a kind of an algorithmic logic that appears to operate behind the backs of the human characters. Is it independent of them? Does it act with intention? How can it be mapped and understood?

We're introduced to Zasha and Kiran, and the solar system's balkanization.

"Lists (2)" is a litany of practices of conscious embodiment and experiments in experience that are not only individual but that might also be shared, public, or communal in various ways. 

Thanks for listening!

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Jul 30, 202101:02:47
2312 Episode 2: "Extracts (1)" to "Wahram and Swan": Decadence, Dragons, Seizing the Day in the Pseudoiterative

2312 Episode 2: "Extracts (1)" to "Wahram and Swan": Decadence, Dragons, Seizing the Day in the Pseudoiterative

In this episode we talk about chapters from Extracts (1) to Wahram and Swan (yes, only two chapters, how decadent of us!).

We talk about the "Ascensions," the asteroids that are hollowed out to create terraria, refugia, and farms, and try to think about the political economy of the solar system in 2312. Wahram and Swan on the Alfred Wegener asteroid lead to a discussion of decadence, habit, and constructing pseudoiteratives to live artfully and be open to finding newness in the everyday. We ask what "being productive" means and how we seize the day in capitalism. Swan and Wahram have very different approaches to the problem of living free of wage labor.

Also Hilary insists on talking about the Christian Bale/ Matthew McConaughey vehicle dragon/ tomato movie Reign of Fire (2002). It's her favorite movie, smh.

We spoke for 2 hours in this session, so we decided to split it into two episodes. The next one will drop some time next week, and we'll go up to Extracts (3), for those following along.

The clip at the end was taken from YouTube user R-Bee Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJelEXaPhJ8&t=31s

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Jul 23, 202101:04:21
2312 Episode One: Attachment, Habit, Gender, and Purloined Letters

2312 Episode One: Attachment, Habit, Gender, and Purloined Letters

In this episode we read from the first chapter after the prologue up to "Swan and Alex."

First, Hilary and Matt start by discussing the work of Lauren Berlant, an eminent literary critic and feminist theorist from the University of Chicago who passed away recently. Berlant's work focuses on affect, agency, attachment, the sentimental, literature, politics, human-being, normativity, and innumerable other topics, in ways that help illuminate the questions we discuss so much: how does change happen (or not), and what does literature (or art) have to do with it? Matt and Hilary explore some of the ways Berlant's work might shed light KSR's novels. There are elements in 2312, especially around attachment and habit and gender, that Berlant's ideas may help illuminate. We discuss pieces including Cruel Optimism, "Poor Eliza," and The Queen of America Goes to Washington City.

We get started talking about the novel about 37 minutes in (in case you're anxious) and talk about Swan and her relationship to herself, her art, Alex, and Wahram. The role of art in 2312 seems especially important, particularly because the people of Mercury appear to be able to live their lives incredibly artfully, so that science, art, technology, and life-making all seem continuous in ways they may not appear to us in our lived experience. We explore ways this novel plays with narrative and detective fiction, and the ways that agency seems here to extend out beyond figures that we tend to think of as agential.

Thanks for listening! We'll be back soon with more!

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Jul 12, 202101:29:35
2312 Episode Zero: "Prologue," Far-Future Posthumanism, Narrative, Gender, Habit, and Ritual

2312 Episode Zero: "Prologue," Far-Future Posthumanism, Narrative, Gender, Habit, and Ritual

We're back to reveal your desires to you!

We're starting on our new season, which will focus on 2312. In this episode we talk about far-future science fiction, posthumanism, and some of the broad themes and topics this book focuses on, such as gender and sexuality, habit and ritual, art and performance. We talk a bit about how the book tends to subvert its own narrative, and narrative itself, with its tendency to ties things up in neat little bows. 2312 traffics in many narrative forms and modes, including (interplanetary) romance and the detective novel, but it's also a book about home, where to find it and how to build it. Of course, we're here with our customary digressions and non-sequiturs, including, here, one about fictional universes, authorship, Michael Mann, podcasts, and the decay of higher education.

We'll be back in roughly a week to talk about a chunk of the book, duration TBD (probably 50-80 pages, if history is any indication?).

We hope you join us and look forward to reading with you! This season goes out to all the messy individuals who love drama and whistling.

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Music by Spirit of Space

Jun 27, 202101:13:41
Marooned at the Movies! Escapes From New York and L.A.

Marooned at the Movies! Escapes From New York and L.A.

Matt and Hilary are joined by their boon companion Bill Hutchison to discuss John Carpenter's (identical) films ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) and ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996).

The gang talks about the concept of the prison-island-city film and 1980s science fictions of popular cinema. We get into the western qualities of the films, discuss the logics of settler colonialism and the myth of the law, and we make some breakthroughs on the big question these films pose: What makes Snake tick? At the end we share our picks for where we'd set a third ESCAPE FROM movie.

Our movie episodes are very indulgent, and we're going to keep doing them occasionally! For those non-movie-lovers out there, we'll be back in a few weeks with our regularly scheduled programming, discussing KSR's 2012 novel, 2312! Until then, thanks for listening!

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Jun 01, 202101:42:40
Shaman 8: "Shaman," Art-Making, Transmitting Knowledge, Portrait of the Shaman as a Young Man

Shaman 8: "Shaman," Art-Making, Transmitting Knowledge, Portrait of the Shaman as a Young Man

Based on Matt’s joke opening, your friendly hosts talk about JFK and JFK for the first ten minutes, so you can probably skip that to get to the good stuff, our discussion of the last chapter of Shaman, “Shaman”!

Topics include social connection, the modern divisions between work and leisure, public and private, and art as a rarified form that takes place in a specific place and time. How does art figure in Loon's world? As Loon becomes the shaman, what do his paintings mean for him and his people? We talk about the concept of genius and the role of the shaman as a medium of knowledge, as well as the nature of mediation in contemporary technological society.

We talk a lot about art, cultural transformation, newness, and memory, as well as the relationship between intimacy and knowledge (and ignorance).

If you're listening to this, congratulations! You're a shaman now!

Before starting another Kim Stanley Robinson book we're going to do a couple episodes on movies, including John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. (or New York...or both?). If you have a suggestion for a movie you'd like to hear us gab about, you can contact us via the links below. We're still undecided on the next KSR novel on our list, so if you'd like to weigh in on that, please feel free! We'll get to them all eventually...

Thanks for listening! Again!

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May 12, 202101:30:26
Shaman 7: "All the Worlds Meet," Anthropology, Home, Teaching, and the Bird's Eye View

Shaman 7: "All the Worlds Meet," Anthropology, Home, Teaching, and the Bird's Eye View

In this episode we discuss "All the Worlds Meet," in which Loon recuperates after his ordeal, Click haunts Thorn, Thorn dies, Loon builds a new pair of snowshoes, and the Wolf Pack begins to break up.

We talk about teaching and the formation and passing on of knowledge in the context of Thorn and Heather's different teaching styles. There appears to be no such thing as intellectual property in this society--what a concept!

At the eight eight, we see various people make bird's eye views of the land. Hilary talks about the loving relationship to place that would motivate you to make models of it, and the childlike fun of destroying them.

We discuss the status of "home" in KSR's science fiction and the place of mourning and melancholy in building a new world.

Matt says "plethora" twice and we conclude with kitty round-up!

Thanks for listening!

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Apr 29, 202101:18:31
Shaman 6: "Hunted," Butt-Eating, Hermeneutics, and Barack Obama's Almonds
Apr 14, 202101:21:25
Shaman 5: "Under the Ice," Metabolics, Captivity, and Thermal Abundance

Shaman 5: "Under the Ice," Metabolics, Captivity, and Thermal Abundance

In this episode we discuss "Under the Ice," where Elga is kidnapped, Loon goes to rescue her, he gets captured, and Thorn and Click rescue them. A lot to discuss!

Here we're introduced to the northers, or the jende as they call themselves, a northern pack that, contrary to what we might expect, live in relative luxury compared to the Wolf Pack. Though they spend 10 months of the year in winter, they subsist on fish and seals, which are plentiful. As a result they are, as Loon sees it, "rich." They have bags of fat that they use as fuel and food, a very calorie-rich society. In addition, they have domesticated wolves and rely on the labor of captive slaves. It's unclear which came first in this chicken-or-egg scenario, and we talk about that.

We also have our most extended (so far) exposure to Click, who, as listener Michael suggests, might be the closest KSR comes to writing about aliens. Click is a Neanderthal with radically different capabilities than Thorn and Loon.

It's a thrilling, dudes-rock chapter in this 50% woman podcast!

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Apr 07, 202101:23:21
Shaman 3 & 4: "Elga," "The Hunger Spring," Art-Making and -Experiencing, Neanderthals, and Poor Richard's Podcast

Shaman 3 & 4: "Elga," "The Hunger Spring," Art-Making and -Experiencing, Neanderthals, and Poor Richard's Podcast

Happy (belated) birthday, Kim Stanley Robinson! Is he the author of this podcast? Hilary says, in some ways, yes. Matt says, most certainly, no! You be the judge! Anyway, it's weird to have a podcast that people listen to and seem to enjoy...

This episode we talk a lot about art, making art, the experience of art, and the work (pun intended) of art. Language and communication seems to be a key theme in our discussion as well--between people, between humans and non-human persons (wolverine, Heather, and Click), and between homo sapiens and other non-homo sapiens humans (Heather and Click). We talk more about the dialectic between novelty and sameness, social organization and the place of the individual within the group in Shaman, and the patterns and diversity of experience available to pre-historic people.

These chapters depict the eight eight festival, Loon's meeting Elga, and a long winter in which one member of the Wolf pack dies. At the eight eight festival, the shamans have their corroboree, and we see that not only do these people have a very accurate calendar, they also, according to the song sung by Pippi, have a sense that the world is probably round, and very big. But the key thing is Thorn and Loon's journey into the cave to bid farewell to the year and to get immersed in painting and art. In what may be KSR's most extended depiction of the process of art-making, we get a discussion of representation and abstraction, naturalism and realism, and the ability humans have to communicate with each other across eons and to alarm themselves with what they make.

Along the way we also mention John Lanchester's review of Kindred, the book on Neanderthals by Rebecca Wragg Sykes, for the London Review of Books, and Matt reads a passage from James C. Scott's Against the Grain about the possible mass deskilling of early humans with the late Neolithic revolution. We also thank Shred Magazine and Sean Estelle @chitrans_plant and Daniel Aldana Cohen @aldatweets for a wonderful conversation last week about KSR's oeuvre. The full recorded conversation can be found on YouTube here.

Thanks for listening!

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Mar 24, 202101:26:58
Shaman 1 & 2: Loon's Wander, The Wolves at Home, Abundance, Scarcity, and Life Before Capitalist Ruins

Shaman 1 & 2: Loon's Wander, The Wolves at Home, Abundance, Scarcity, and Life Before Capitalist Ruins

[NB: We had some technical audio issues this week, especially on Matt's end. Something to do with Zoom, we presume. You probably won't notice most of them, but there's one point where Matt had to re-record himself reading a passage from the book; hopefully it won't be too jarring.]

This week we discuss the first two chapters of Shaman. Matt and Hilary talk about the abundance of Loon's world in contrast to the picture of the life of early humans that capitalism tries to impose on our imagination. The world of this novel has no state or politics to speak of, no written language, no phone, no lights, no motor cars--and yet, if it's not a life of luxury, it's at least one of plenty. Although there's a division of labor, that labor does not present itself as alienated. Knowledge disciplines seem undivided--the lines between science, art, history, philosophy are not yet drawn, or are drawn very differently. Political power as we know it is absent; leadership is more about responsibility to the collective than the artificial propping up of a system imposed from the past. Stories convey a truth of living-in-common that prohibits the teller from lying for his own self-aggrandizement. 

The end of the episode deviates from a discussion about the book; instead we talk about: weather, seasons, dads, wearing layers, pandemic, Chicago's bad mayor, baseball fans and their burials.

Texts referenced:
Society Against the State by Pierre Clastres
Against the Grain by James C. Scott
Stone Age Economics by Marshall Sahlins

Next time we'll talk about the next 2 chapters, the old ones, and the wolverine, and we'll touch on this book review from the London Review of Books: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n24/john-lanchester/twenty-types-of-human

On Wednesday, March 17 at 8pm Eastern, Matt and Hilary will be joining Daniel Aldana Cohen, author of A Planet to Win, and Sean Estelle from Shred Magazine as part of Shred Fest, the weeklong launch of Shred Magazine, an online space dedicated to exploring complex questions about life through a dialectical lens, meaning we examine the dynamic and interwoven nature of life and society holistically. We'll be chatting about the works of Kim Stanley Robinson and the ways they encourage us to not only imagine a new world but bring a new world into being. Join us at the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/363565941294547

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Mar 14, 202101:26:59
Shaman Episode Zero: Caves, Common Life, Adventure, and Fire

Shaman Episode Zero: Caves, Common Life, Adventure, and Fire

Hello! We are coming back, with a new season of discussing Kim Stanley Robinson novels! This season we'll be doing Shaman (2013), so get your copies ready and start re-reading. New episodes will hopefully be dropping starting next week.

This week Matt and Hilary chat about what kind of science fiction novel Shaman is, what we're looking forward to talking about, and what we're missing, both during the pandemic and under capitalism more generally. Topics include:

  • despair
  • what kind of science fiction novel is this?
  • Chauvet cave
  • things we miss
  • things we had already lacked
  • common life
  • basketball vs. crossfit
  • immersion in the rigorous imagination of a completely different lifeway
  • adventure, blood, starting fires with sticks
  • gender and primitivism
  • boy perspectives

Thank you for listening and we hope to be back next week with regularly scheduled programing!

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Mar 02, 202151:25
The Ministry for the Future: The Kim Stanley Robinson Interview

The Ministry for the Future: The Kim Stanley Robinson Interview

We sit down with the one and only KSR to discuss The Ministry for the Future. Stan indulges Matt and Hilary as they ask about a wide range of questions that address topics like:

  • technical problems of writing
  • riddles
  • Orwell on the radio
  • PTSD
  • ambiguity
  • rule of law
  • religion, science, and economics
  • violence
  • MMT
  • "the future"

Some references: The One vs. the Many by Alex Woloch, How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual by Katerina Clark, Penelope Fitzgerald, Joseph Conrad

Lose lose lose lose lose lose lose win!

We want to thank Stan again for his time, thoughts, and support!

Thanks for listening!

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Jan 28, 202102:15:53
The Ministry for the Future 97-106: Promethean Authority, Invisible Revolution, Guggenmusik, No Fate, Dignity

The Ministry for the Future 97-106: Promethean Authority, Invisible Revolution, Guggenmusik, No Fate, Dignity

This is our last, if not best, episode concerning The Ministry for the Future. (What does the phrase “if not” mean, anyway? We’ll never know!)

We talk the failurewin (or successlose) of progress. Trying things is about failing at them, there’s no such thing as fate. Need a posture of openness toward the future that’s about being willing to work, try, fail. Faith in the future, it’s not given, it doesn’t belong to someone else, or to capital. Revolution isn’t necessarily recognizable as such in the moment it’s happening, and even if you’re doing a revolution, you may have to do it again.

Radical democracy, the internet of animals, the personhood of plants, the return of meaning, living in loss, building on ruins science fiction's obsession with population, the shackling of science by capitalist instrumentality, family and solidarity, dignity, connection, the fundamental mysteriousness of Being, independent of the limitations capital places on us--we talk about it all, man. And we try to reconcile ourselves to the fact that even if we fix the planet we're still going to suffer. It might just mean that we keep going on and continuing to live. Life is in the living, and nothing is inevitable. Except suffering! Cool...

Also Escape from New York was set in 1997; Johnny Mnemonic was set in 2021. And should we do a newsletter?

Thanks for listening! We'll be back in a few weeks with an interview with KSR, some movie episodes, and our next Robinson book.

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Jan 05, 202101:59:45