NP: Podcasts/BEE Podcast/The Great Courses

[Steven Koteff]

I am suddenly having to commute a lot more. I was basically living on, and gleefully, willingly into, debt for six months after grad school. Now I am working a lot more. (If I wasn't against the day before, holy shit am I now). I'm still very blessed as far as all this goes--I'm only working half-time and am making enough to live healthfully, with relative comfort, freedom, etc, in a major metropolis--but I am often a big baby about it. (Then again, Kafka never actually worked very long hours, from what I understand.)

PODCASTS

Longer commutes beget more time listening to things. Any podcast recommendations are welcome. And I mean any--interested in mind expansion, here. 

BEE PODCAST

I have started listening to The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast. I have conflicted feelings about it generally. I think, on the one hand, it reveals that BEE's best contributions in recent memory are as a cultural critic/pundit type. And in that regard he is actually a voice I really value. But. I will say that I think the medium of podcasting--as opposed to nonfiction writing, say--is a complicated, and sometimes good translation of him. Hearing him--both in just human auditory processing/personality parsing and in what effect having to more or less improvise has on him--reveals a lot more of his humanity, as his nonfiction writing is often too like his fiction in voice. Kind of disaffected. It has elements so overtly affected they obscure his humanity and niceness. Too confident. In the podcast he seems like a caring guy. But he also loses a bit of precision/intelligence. Which makes sense given that his writing process is often sort of tortured. (He, like Didion talks about, is a different person behind a typewriter.) But I recommend at least trying an episode of the podcast. It treats pop culture and entertainment with an intelligence and perspective I don't get from many other places, myself. 

THE GREAT COURSES

One of the things that advertises on his show is this subscription to The Great Courses. These are, copy says, college-level courses curated by world class professors. It seems suspiciously unCool to me. And also unacademic. But I am feeling, as ever, totally deficient in every body of knowledge (especially history). Do any of you guys have any experience with this? -
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l