Reading and Writing

Bob Dylan

Happy 80th Birthday Bob Dylan!!!
 
Check out Claire's art, music, and writing here: https://www.claireakebrandart.com/

The Bhagavad Gita

Check out Claire's art, music, and writing here: https://www.claireakebrandart.com/
Claire and I celebrate the Hindu epic scripture the Bhagavad Gita. We talk about the indescribability of the divine, what it means to perform worship and feel awe, the unity of all things, the divinity inside each of us, the doctrine of karma, and many practical injunctions on how to live, including detaching ourselves from the fruits of our actions, meditation, selfless service, praise, and whether or not there might be something good about the extremes of desire and passion and pain. 

John Steinbeck, The Pearl

Claire and I talk about Steinbeck's novella The Pearl, and consider the genre of parable, the downside of dreams, the risks of interpretation, the poisonous nature of desire, our exile from Eden, the dangers of wealth and fame, utopian thinking, Hamlet's claim that "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," and more. 

Masterpieces of World Literature, Final Thoughts

A few final thoughts. 

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

This time I chat with Spencer, Steven, and Cecilia about Beckett's play Waiting for Godot. We talk about silence, meaning, nothingness, God, nihilism, play, love, friendship, endurance, suicide, amnesia, King Lear, Charlie Chaplin, happiness, and more!

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, Part 2

Emily, Allie, and I talk about more sections of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. We discuss the value of literature as a witness to human pain, the dangers of ideology, what it means to take responsibility for our suffering, how Solzhenitsyn could end up saying "bless you, prison," the power of small individual actions, how one book can change the world, and much more. 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, Part 1

Carter and I discuss some early chunks of Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, and consider the implications of the archipelago metaphor, why it's valuable to read about atrocities, why this book has such lyrical power, what happens when we do not value freedom enough, Solzhenitsyn's provocative claim that the Gulag inmates "deserved everything" that happened to them, the dangers of lying, the consequences of political ideology, and much more. 
 
Check out Claire's music, art, and writing here: www.claireakebrandart.com
 

Shakespeare, As You Like It

Emma, Rachel, and I enthuse over As You Like It. We chat about what it can teach us about writing poetry in the 21st century, in what ways poetry can delight and instruct, how Shakespeare manages to conjure believable humans, what literary irony is, why Rosalind is so captivating, why Orlando's poetry is bad, in what ways all the world is a stage, how the play itself refutes its most famous soliloquy, and much more. 

Camus, The Plague, Part 2

Ysa and Ethan help me celebrate the beautiful conclusion of Camus' novel The Plague. We talk about the problem of evil and suffering, how Christianity can be kept honest, how we can choose between accepting everything or denying everything, what it means to attain a happiness that knows death, in what ways we are all called upon to be healers, why there are more things in humans to admire than to despise, what it means that "the plague" never really goes away, and much more. 

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Ysa, Emily, and I celebrate Whitman's masterpiece Song of Myself. We talk about what it feels like to stand in the presence of great art, what makes Whitman's poetry timeless and democratic, what aspects of his poem we can still use as models in the 21st century, how to make truth statements in poetry, how to use abstractions, how to notice moments of quiet beauty, what the poem's rhythmical power is, and much more.