Episode 69: Special Episode: On Some Mental Effects of the Pandemic

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2020

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is there to say about the COVID-19 virus that hasn't already been said, over and over again, all around the world, in quaratined houses and on TV and social media and countless Zoom chats ... what can we say that you haven't heard? Well, probably nothing. But we are now at the point where we realize that the real importance of the things we say is not their content, but the mere fact of saying them. As Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message, and at a time when we have been driven into separate solitudes, we are discovering that the real meaning of our utterances might be something like "hello, are you there?" and "I am here, talking to you." In that spirit, Phil and JF have a conversation about William James's essay "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake," partly to discuss the ways that it's relevant to our present circumstances and the ways it's not, but mostly to make human connections, both with each other and with Weird Studies listeners. As JF says, stay close, but keep your distance. REFERENCES William James, "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake" William James, Writings 1902-1910 Noel Black (director), "To See the Invisible Man", 2nd segment of episode 16 of The Twilight Zone (1985-86) Weird Studies no. 29, “On Lovecraft” Weird Studies no. 64, “Dreams and Shadows: On Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea” Weird Studies no. 67, “Goblins, Goat-Gods and Gates: On Hellier” Martin Heidegger, “‘Only a God Can Save Us’: The Spiegel Interview" Bruno Latour, "An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns" H.P. Lovecraft, “Nyarlathotep” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:02.0	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:23.3	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weirdstudies.com. Do you know anybody you would think of as elvish in the Tolkien-esque sense?
0:52.8	Because Tolkien is so clearly thumbing the scales for
0:55.7	the elves. Talking about them as like, too good for this world, a pure race far above the can
1:00.8	of mankind and all the rest of it. But also aloof and disinterested and guilty. I think that there's
1:07.7	an undercurrent of darkness with the elves and Tolkien, at least my last reading.
1:12.8	I've read the book a few times.
1:14.3	The last time I read, I was like, well, okay, yeah, there's another thing.
1:17.6	They're a melancholy, depressed, anemic race that has lived out its time and is disappearing.
1:24.3	And they're very protective and insular and arrogant.
1:29.2	The thing is that they're quasi-. They have perfect aim with the bow. They can walk on top of snow. They can do all kinds of
1:35.3	stuff that humans can't do. They don't sleep. They don't need to sleep. And yet at the same time,
1:41.4	they leave. You know, when it's time for them to fight, they just fuck off.
1:45.2	They go to their Western lands there where they live forever.
1:48.3	We start with the hobbits, and the hobbits are just so enamored with elves.
1:51.8	They admire them and fear them.
1:53.3	So we see them through their eyes.
1:55.8	Yeah.
1:57.0	That's a really interesting thought, an anemic and spent and depressed species yeah it'd be cool
2:05.6	to do something on Tolkien one day well we'd spend a bit of time on Tolkien when we were talking
2:10.6	right that's right we were talking about LaGuin that's right we were talking about LaGuin yeah that's true
	...

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