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Weird Studies

Episode 209 – At Home in the Labyrinth, with Murakami and Borges

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Arts, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.8784 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2026

⏱️ 94 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Haruki Murakami’s “Cream,” from First Person Singular, alongside Jorge Luis Borges’s classic tale, “The Garden of Forking Paths.” Together, these two stories occasion a meditation on time, perplexity, and the strange possibility that meaning isn't found at the end of the maze, but discovered only in the course of wandering it. Photo by DMzlC via Wikimedia Commons. Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page, home of Weird Studies Vol. 3 (to be released May 22, 2026). Joel Plaskett's website and Substack References Geoffrey Cornelius, “Chicane: Double-Thinking and Divination among the Witch-Doctors,” in Divination: Perspectives for a New Millennium, ed. Patrick Curry (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 119– 42.  Joe Leduc's Blood Oath  Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths”   Haruki Murakami, “Cream”  Marc Augé, Non-Places  Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic  Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats at the UFO Show”  Nicholas of Cusa, “On the Quadrature of the Circle”   Ethan Weed, “A Labyrinth of Symbols” Kids in the Hall, “Premise Beach”  David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return   David Lynch, Lost Highway  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Don Giovanni  Weird Studies, Episode 66 on “Diviner’s Time”   Gottfried Leibniz, Theodicy  Quentin Meillasoux, After Finitude  Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Spector Vision Radio

0:03.3

Hello everyone, what is up? I'm Rob.

0:07.5

I'm Eamon.

0:08.3

And you are listening to a trailer for our podcast, Monster Fuzz, which is brought to by Spector Vision Radio.

0:13.5

Do you like your high strangeness with an element of high silliness?

0:16.9

Our thoughts of subterranean lizard men keeping you awake at night.

0:19.6

Maybe Bigfoot's robbing clothes from your clothesline

0:22.0

Should you enter into a romantic relationship

0:24.1

With a poltergeist that's haunting your house?

0:25.9

If thoughts like these spin around your head like a UFO

0:28.5

Or a UAP to use the parlance of our time

0:31.2

Then you're in good company.

0:32.7

Tune into Monster Fuzz podcast every Monday and Thursday

0:35.4

Anywhere you get your podcasts.

0:45.3

Music podcast every Monday and Thursday, anywhere you get your podcasts. Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.

0:52.6

For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to

0:56.1

Weird Studies, this is J.F. Martel.

1:25.5

There's an old riddle and philosophy called the problem of future contingents.

1:31.0

It vexed to the ancients to no end because it made a mess of everything.

1:36.4

Aristotle stated the problem roughly as follows.

1:40.0

Take these two propositions.

1:42.1

A, there will be a C battle tomorrow.

...

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