Best Wes Alwan And Erin O Luanaigh Podcasts (2023)

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Home as Identity in “The Odyssey” 1:05:14

24d ago1:05:14

1:05:14

He was famously a man of many ways, whether we interpret these as abilities or norms; designs or deceptions; reasons or identities. Yet despite such resources, he was also famously stuck, making a 10-year odyssey of his attempt to return home from a 10-year war. What keeps the man of master plans from homecoming and domestic bliss? In the first of …

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Competing Affections in “The Lion in Winter” 51:04

2M ago51:04

51:04

Before Henry VIII changed history for lack of a son, Henry II had too many. His eldest, Richard, a fierce soldier who controls the wealthy Aquitaine, is the favorite of his mother, Eleanor. The youngest, John, is immature and dull, but his father’s favorite. And the middle son, scheming Geoffrey, is, quite dangerously, no one’s favorite. In the end…

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Friendship and Honor in “Becket” (1964) 49:06

3M ago49:06

49:06

In Jean Anouilh’s 1959 play “Becket,” the titular character seems at first to be a Saxon collaborationist to the Norman rule of England, and a man who has sacrificed his personal honor to his friendship with King Henry II and, as he puts it, “good living.” This will change when he becomes Archbishop of Canterbury, only to realize that he is enchant…

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Losing Your Head in Alice Munro’s “Carried Away” 56:07

4M ago56:07

56:07

Jack, a Canadian soldier recuperating in a European hospital during World War I, begins a correspondence with Louisa, the librarian in his hometown whom he has only seen and loved from afar. Their letters turn romantic. But when the war ends and he returns home, Jack never shows his face to Louisa and marries another woman, leaving Louisa to wonder…

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Time and Taboo in “Back to the Future” (1985) 51:59

4M ago51:59

51:59

In the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall, Doc Brown plans to use his Delorean time machine to head 25 years into the future and see, as he puts it, “the progress of mankind.” But like the license plate on the Delorean, Doc is out of time. Through his absent-mindedness—and angering some terrorists—Doc has failed to provide a future into which he or…

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The Violence of Redemption in John Donne’s “Batter My Heart” (Holy Sonnet 14) 49:13

5M ago49:13

49:13

In “Holy Sonnet 14,” John Donne would like his “three person’d God” to break instead of knock, blow instead of breathe, and burn instead of shine. This vision of redemption is about remaking rather than reform. And it seems to be motivated by a sense that neither reason nor the typical rhetoric of faith are not enough to bridge the mortal and the d…

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Mortal Pretensions in John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” (Holy Sonnet 10) 57:49

6M ago57:49

57:49

A recusant Catholic turned Protestant, a rake turned priest, a scholar, lawyer, politician, soldier, secretary, sermonizer, and of course, a poet— John Donne’s biography contains so many scuttled identities and discrete lives, perhaps its no wonder that his great subjects were mortality and death. His Holy Sonnets, likely composed between 1609 and …

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Trauma and Repetition in Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” (1974) 48:34

7M ago48:34

48:34

Roman Polanksi’s 1974 film “Chinatown” seems to have little to do with its titular neighborhood, which is the setting for only one horrible and final scene. Chinatown functions instead to represent the traumatic moment that drives this story just because it is hidden from view—a place indecipherable even to the hard-boiled private investigator who …

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Better and Bested in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” 59:06

8M ago59:06

59:06

It’s a play full of contradictions, secrets, lies, and unspoken rules. It’s a play decidedly for adults, but about a child—an imaginary one, no less. It takes place on a college campus, but it is absent of students. And it’s about “fun and games” and “playing pretend,” but its games are harsh and shocking, and playing pretend involves vengeance and…

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Pagan Poetics in “Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens 1:14:46

9M ago1:14:46

1:14:46

Wallace Stevens was an ungainly insurance executive, but his poetry is serene and secularly reverential. In particular, his poem “Sunday Morning” seems to suggest that the rhythm of the natural world—if we give it enough rapt attention—is as good as any chant or prayer. But can a return to nature worship solve the problem of nihilism, once monothei…

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Production for Use in “His Girl Friday” 54:39

10M ago54:39

54:39

Before she settles down to life of homemaking, security, and insurance policies with Bruce Baldwin in Albany, star reporter Hildy Johnson has one more story to write for her ex-husband and ex-boss Walter Burns, editor of the Morning Post. Hildy must write up an interview with convicted killer Earl Williams that will grant him a last-minute reprieve…

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Post-Doctoral Bedevilment in Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus” 1:12:30

11M ago1:12:30

1:12:30

Dr. Faustus expected more from his education. After a lifetime of study, his professional options—philosophy, medicine, law, and theology—all seem disappointingly ordinary. He is of course not the first to have this experience. At a societal level, the promise of knowledge is power, especially once it has become technology. At an individual level, …

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Fate and Blame in “Long Day’s Journey into Night” 1:07:48

12M ago1:07:48

1:07:48

Who is to blame for Mary Tyrone’s morphine addiction? Is it Mary herself? Is it Edmund, her younger son, after whose difficult birth Mary was first prescribed the drug? Is it Jamie, her older son, who caused the death of the brother that Edmund was born to replace? Is it the doctor who prescribed morphine too readily? Or is it James, Mary’s husband…

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Work as Madness in “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957) 55:41

1+ y ago55:41

55:41

In the beginning, Colonel Nicholson seems to be a stickler for principle, willing to die rather than have his officers do menial labor in a Japanese prison camp. In the end, his principles seem to be a cover for personal vanity. He is willing to put his officers to work building a bridge for his enemies, as long as it leaves him with a legacy. “The…

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What Falls Upon the Living in James Joyce’s “The Dead” 1:03:32

1+ y ago1:03:32

1:03:32

In 1906, presumably finished with his short story collection Dubliners, James Joyce wrote to his brother with dissatisfaction that, though he set about to create a comprehensive portrait of Ireland’s capital city, he had not managed to render its famous, unrivaled hospitality. His efforts to rectify this omission resulted in “The Dead,” the book’s …

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Finding Home in Stephen Spielberg’s “E.T.” (1982) 1:00:25

1+ y ago1:00:25

1:00:25

Stephen Spielberg once said that he was “still waiting to get out of [his] Peter Pan shoes and into [his] loafers.” Being a filmmaker, he said, was his way of remaining a child. Sort of. While his film “E.T.” is told from a child’s vantage point, it does not completely honor the wish to remain there. Like the alien he befriends, Eliot has been aban…

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The Power of Calm: Two Wordsworth Sonnets 1:06:10

1+ y ago1:06:10

1:06:10

William Wordsworth wrote no fewer than 523 sonnets over the course of his career. (By comparison, the second most prolific Romantic sonneteer was Keats with a paltry 67.) Two of Wordsworth’s best-loved efforts in the form are both Petrarchan sonnets with the same rhyme scheme, written in the same year, published in the same volume. Yet their messag…

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What Nature Betrays: Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (Part 2) 55:44

1+ y ago55:44

55:44

In Part 1 of our discussion of “Tintern Abbey,” we talked about whether Wordsworth was right to suggest that our experience of nature was good not just for restoring our weary spirits, but for helping us to mature and even for making us better people. In part two, we explore his justifications for this thesis, in particular the claim that nature co…

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Mother Nature’s Nurture in Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (Part 1) 51:12

1+ y ago51:12

51:12

After an absence of five years, the poet William Wordsworth returned to the idyllic ruins of a medieval monastery along the River Wye. The spot was perhaps not so very different from his last visit, but Wordsworth found that he had undergone a significant transformation in the intervening years. In a long blank-verse meditation, he explores the cha…

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The Fool Gets Hurt in Fellini’s “La Strada” (1954) 51:37

1+ y ago51:37

51:37

Fellini called his film “La Strada” a dangerous representation of his identity, and had a nervous breakdown just before completing its shooting. Perhaps this identity, and its vulnerability, have something to do with the film’s portrayal of a disappointed hope that love might vanquish pride, if properly assisted by the forces of playfulness and cre…

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False Roles and Fictitious Selves in “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin 1:00:14

1+ y ago1:00:14

1:00:14

In the late 19th century, the “New Woman” was a term coined by Henry James for a particular kind of feminist who demanded freedom of behavior, dress, education, and sexuality. Out of that paradigm came “The Awakening,” a novel that scandalized critics upon its publication with its tale of New Orleans society wife Edna Pointellier, who tries to thro…

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(post)script: Post-Wonderful 18:54

1+ y ago18:54

18:54

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters can learn more about their online courses at tischpro.smashcut.com/subtext. Most (post)script episodes are paywalled. To get them all, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or d…

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The Pain of Anonymity in “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) 56:06

2y ago56:06

56:06

Though sometimes accused of a sentimentality dubbed “Capracorn,” Frank Capra’s films are clear-eyed about the suffering of the everyman. A quintessential director of the Great Depression and World War II eras, Capra expressed better than most the desperation at the heart of a young country’s ambitions. And as a chronicler of his age’s disillusionme…

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(post)script: Is “Die Hard” a Christmas Movie? 16:44

2y ago16:44

16:44

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Die Hard.” The first (and much longer) part of this discussion can be found here. Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters can learn more about their online courses at tischpro.smashcut.com/subtext. Most (post)script episodes are paywalled.…

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Attachments “Die Hard” at Nakatomi Tower 53:16

2y ago53:16

53:16

It’s a Christmas movie, some say, and in the end the holiday classic “Let it Snow” plays over the credits. But what counts as snow in the final scenes is a confetti of smoke, debris, and millions of dollars of bearer bonds, not to mention the Euro-villain who tried to steal them. These descend from the blasted-out upper floor of a skyscraper onto a…

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Mad as Hell in “Network” (1976) 55:07

2y ago55:07

55:07

Diana Christensen is a television executive in search of an angry show—something that articulates the rage of the average viewer. In Howard Beale, failed newscaster turned mad-as-hell prophet, she seems to get exactly what she’s looking for. Yet in doing so, she reduces political and social discontent to a form of entertainment focused on generatin…

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Autonomy and Incest in Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex” 1:06:06

2y ago1:06:06

1:06:06

His first claim to fame was the solution to a riddle that earned him a kingdom by sheer force of intellect. His second was a doomed attempt to escape the particularly gruesome fates of patricide and incest. With his first act, Oedipus saved the city of Thebes from the sphinx; with his second, he afflicted it with a plague. In his retelling of this …

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Gender Opera in “Tootsie” 59:33

2y ago59:33

59:33

How do you become the many you truly are? Try becoming the woman you aren’t. While Michael Dorsey can take the blame for his desperate transformation into Dorothy Michaels, it’s she who gets the credit for making him a better man. How are gender dynamics reflected in our relationships to ourselves? When are we staying true to ourselves, and when ar…

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Our Name is Subtext, Podcast of Podcasts. Hear our “Ozymandias” Discussion, Ye Listeners, and Despair! 57:46

2y ago57:46

57:46

The land is not just ancient but “antique,” and while many of its artifacts end up as the possessions of distant museums, they may yet be capable of overpowering their audiences. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is traditionally taken as an exploration of hubris, and of the obliviating effect of time on power and its pretensions. But the poem al…

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Sex and Tech in “Alien” by Ridley Scott 1:14:30

2y ago1:14:30

1:14:30

The Nostromo is a labyrinthine spaceship, a hulking ore refinery run on a sophisticated computer operating system and manned by a crew of seven. But somehow it’s not the most impressive piece of technology in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien. That distinction belongs to the title character, an organism with blood of acid and two sets of jaws, highly-…

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Dead Wall Reveries in Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” 56:42

2y ago56:42

56:42

Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” is subtitled a “Story of Wall St.,” yet there is almost nothing in it of the bustle of city life, and entirely nothing in it of the hustle of the trading floor. The story’s walls block out the streets, serving on the one hand as a container for a colorful assortment of human Xerox machines, on the other as a blan…

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Cursed Kids or Psych-Au Pair? “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James 1:27:20

2y ago1:27:20

1:27:20

The story begins and ends with two variations on the meaning of the title. On the one hand, to give another turn of the screw is to ratchet up the horror of a good ghost story, in this case by involving children in it. On the other, it’s to treat the cause of that horror as if it were just another of life’s many obstacles, to be overcome both by sc…

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Gentility and Injustice in “Gone with the Wind” (1939) 1:15:18

2y ago1:15:18

1:15:18

On the moors of medieval Scotland, three witches hail Gone with the Wind— adjusted for inflation, the highest-grossing film in American history— has undergone several critical reappraisals in the 82 years since its production and release. Certainly the film romanticizes the Antebellum South and the Confederacy while glossing over the evils of slave…

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Realism as Cruelty in “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams 1:33:16

2y ago1:33:16

1:33:16

In the transition from stage to screen, A Streetcar Named Desire retained its long-running Broadway cast with a single exception: the role of Blanche Dubois, which passed from Jessica Tandy to Vivien Leigh. Like Blanche, Leigh was the odd woman out. A symbol of the glories of the studio system, married to the symbol of English stage acting, her cla…

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Prestidigitocracy in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) 1:17:18

2y ago1:17:18

1:17:18

The Wizard of Oz is supposed by the land’s inhabitants to be its most powerful magician. But far from having any actual power, he is not even native to the place in which real magic is in plentiful supply. Oddly, this supernatural world seems to be secretly governed by mundane sleight of hand, and growing up, for Dorothy, involves uncovering the fl…

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Formulated Phrases in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot: Part 2 1:32:26

2y ago1:32:26

1:32:26

Wes & Erin continue their analysis of T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” In Part 1, they covered roughly the first third of the poem. In Part 2, they begin with a discussion of Prufrock’s coffee spoons, and then continue on to: his allusions to John the Baptist, Lazarus, and Hamlet; the disjointed portrait of his probable love int…

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Disturbing the Universe in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot: Part 1 1:03:57

2+ y ago1:03:57

1:03:57

It was T. S. Eliot’s first published poem. Written when he was only in his early 20s, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” rode the crest of the wave of literary Modernism, predated World War I, and presaged an age of indecision and anxiety. The poem is the dramatic interior monologue of the title character, a middle-aged man whose passivity and a…

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(post)script: Post-Apocalypse 17:08

2+ y ago17:08

17:08

Listen to more episodes of (post)script at Patreon. Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Apocalypse Now.” Wes apologizes for asking Erin to watch something so disturbing, and we further discuss dueling conceptions of the arts, one Platonic and the other Aristotelian. We agree that “Apocalypse Now,” despite being challenging, is an aesthetic mas…

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At Home with War in “Apocalypse Now” (1979) by Francis Ford Coppola 1:14:04

2+ y ago1:14:04

1:14:04

Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore doesn’t flinch for enemy fire, loves the smell of napalm in the morning, and would literally kill for good surfing and a beachside barbecue. His attempts to recreate home within the theater of war render him the perfect foil to a certain upriver madman, who seems intent on making high culture serve the purposes of pr…

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Unsound Methods in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” 1:28:06

2+ y ago1:28:06

1:28:06

On his journey to the heart of the Congo, Marlow learns of a famed ivory trader named Kurtz— a remarkable man; a “universal genius;” a painter, poet, and musician; a man whose success in his trade has been unparalleled, but whose “unsound methods” have put him at odds with local bureaucrats. When Marlow finally meets Kurtz, he hears firsthand the t…

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On the Lam with “Thelma & Louise” (1991) 1:29:00

2+ y ago1:29:00

1:29:00

Two women—one a straight-laced waitress, the other a naive housewife—leave town for a quiet weekend getaway. But after a deadly encounter with a rapist, the two become unlikely…and then increasingly confident…outlaws. Though a kindly police officer tries to convince the women to turn themselves in, their refusal to surrender to a future scripted by…

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Spiritual Matters in Chekhov’s “The Student” and “A Medical Case” 1:14:29

2+ y ago1:14:29

1:14:29

In Chekhov’s stories, beautiful natural surroundings are often a setting for unnatural lives and ugly social conditions. This sets the stage for a reflection on the relationship between physical and spiritual needs. His story “The Student” suggests that material deprivation–whether it is the exhaustion of the apostle Peter or the poverty of the Rus…

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Art and Action in Chekhov’s “The House with the Mezzanine” 1:20:01

2+ y ago1:20:01

1:20:01

In this story, there are two sisters: one introverted, frail, and bookish; the other dominant, opinionated, and politically active. In meeting them, an accomplished artist seems to be confronted with a dilemma. Should art subordinate itself to the project of creating a just society? Or should it focus on serving more spiritual needs? These question…

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Nipped by Love in Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Little Dog” 1:09:12

2+ y ago1:09:12

1:09:12

Dmitri Gurov does not take love seriously. His wife annoys him, long-term relationships scare him, and his love life consists of brief affairs with women he meets at vacation resorts. In Anna, he finds someone who appears to be the usual victim—traveling alone, tired of her husband, and unlikely to make any effective demands for intimacy, something…

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Business Gets Personal in “The Godfather” (1972) 1:21:59

2+ y ago1:21:59

1:21:59

Out of the darkness of the opening frames comes a supplicant— Buonasera the undertaker. He pleads for the justice that the American legal system denied him. As the camera draws back, we see the outline of a face, a hand… Don Corleone holds court at the confluence of loyalty and duress, generosity and calculation, power and fragility. It is not mone…

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(post)script: Post-Hall: Pimps, Pills, and Automobiles 17:04

2+ y ago17:04

17:04

Listen to more episodes of (post)script at Patreon. Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Annie Hall; Wes pines to revisit his many unwritten essays, including the one about love and nostalgia in Woody Allen films. We discuss whether Mike Nichols used crack, and the way Google’s algorithms mercilessly hunt Wes down to forcibly dose him with infor…

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Love and Nostalgia in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” (1977) 1:05:55

2+ y ago1:05:55

1:05:55

Alvy Singer is not, he tells us, a depressive character. It’s just that as a child he always worried that the expanding universe would one day break apart; and as an adult that romantic relationships must always fall apart. With Annie Hall, he thought he had finally found something that would last, in part because she could — like the audiences of …

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Yielding to Suggestion in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” 1:32:13

2+ y ago1:32:13

1:32:13

On the moors of medieval Scotland, three witches hail the nobleman Macbeth as the future king—despite the fact that King Duncan is very much alive, and Macbeth is not in line to the throne. At the suggestion of power, Macbeth’s mind leaps to murder. Later, he fancies he sees a floating dagger leading him to Duncan, and after more bloodshed, believe…

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Clever Hopes in W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939” 1:18:04

2+ y ago1:18:04

1:18:04

W. H. Auden hated this poem. He called it the most dishonest he had ever written, and eventually had it excluded from collections of his poetry. And yet it quickly became one of his most popular poems. And after the attacks of September 11, it was published in several national newspapers and widely discussed. This might seem to be a strange result,…

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The “Human Position” of Suffering in W. H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” 1:03:56

2+ y ago1:03:56

1:03:56

As war loomed in Europe, the poet W.H. Auden left Britain for the United States. One of the poems he wrote just before leaving is about the nature of human suffering—or as Auden puts it, the “human position” of suffering: for the most part, it happens invisibly, and the procession of ordinary life leaves it unacknowledged. Yet, the representation a…

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