The old world is dying; the new one cannot be born; now is the time of monsters. What better time to read, and read seriously? Every pedant on the internet thinks they're a critic because they have cultural preferences and their various streaming and social media services encourage them to state these preferences in little boxes. But some of us think criticism is something more. We know that criticism implies a way of being- a rejection of complacence, a dedication to searching high, low, and in between for insight and perspective, a constant development of the critical toolkit. Not only does that way of being point towards a better existence, but it also makes for criticism that's more fun to read. That's the gambit of this podcast- that there's an audience for something other than same-same mediocrity and parasocial agreement-clubs.
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peterberard.substack.com (https://peterberard.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)
Reading in the Time of Monsters 014 - The Heinlein Guy, with Quentin Mahoney
We’re back! I took a little break. My friend Quentin — poet, musician, bartender, general man of letters and experience — comes on to talk about scifi legend Robert A. Heinlein. We get down to cases with the Heinlein Hero as a type, the hero of an individuality so profound that his creator eventually pushes him into some deeply unsettling sexual scenarios - not (just) to satisfy horniness, but to efface the stain of reproduction on his solipsism. We had a great time with this one, and we both agree: for all his flaws, at least Heinlein was complex and seldom boring.
You can find some of Quentin’s work published by 1080 Press, findable at the instagram handle (at sign)1080press, and you can see his band Harmonium in the Woodstock, New York area.
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22 Sept 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 013 - Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Milton Hindus with Drew Flanagan
On this RITTOM we discuss the great and vile Louis-Ferdinand Celine! We here at RITTOM reject the cop-outs criticism deploys to avoid uncomfortable dealing with great artists who have done monstrous things. Celine was one of the greaters writers of his time and still highly readable today- Celine was a scabrous anti-semite, fascist, and self-serving liar. My friend and historian of France Drew Flanagan (https://www.upb.pitt.edu/drewflanagan) and I discuss the life and legacy of Celine in part through the lens of one of his most important American interlocutors, Milton Hindus, a man in a position many of us might find familiar when it comes to admire troubling artists.
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26 Aug 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 012 - Antifascism and Criticism
EDIT- I sent out a minorly glitchy version of this. But this one should be good.
On this episode, I talk about what antifascism might add to critical perspective. People commonly treat the antifascist attitude to criticism as, basically, a limiting factor, that you’re not supposed to like or enjoy works by artists you might otherwise be in the streets protesting against. Maybe I’ll get more into the specifics in a later episode, but as far as actual practicing antifascist organizers such as myself go, this is not the case. Rather, it’s the application of ideas to practice and the lessons drawn from practice to ideas. Left-leaning intellectuals ignore this at their peril, as we’ve seen in the embarassing spectacle of the hosts of Dissent’s “Know Your Enemy” podcast failing to know when a 23-year-old forum fascist, Nate Hochman, was taking them for a ride, and completely failing to own up to it when the extent of how badly they were duped was revealed after Hochman was fired from the DeSantis campaign for posting memes. The ways in which left intellectuals fail to engage with antifascism might be harmful for the left… but it’s damn sure harmful for my ability to take these people seriously. What do they care? They still get paid.
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26 Jul 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 011 - Revolutionary Russia from the Shop Floor with Kevin Murphy
On this episode of RITTOM, we talk with Russian historian Kevin Murphy about his Deutscher Prize-winning book, “Revolution and Counterrevolution: Class Struggle in a Moscow Metal Factory.” Since the Russian Revolution and its descent into Stalinist tyranny, there’s been a great deal of debate of how and why things went the way it did. Much of the discussion focuses on major individual political actors and on ideologies. Kevin chose to delve into the world of the Hammer and Sickle metal factory in Moscow, its labor disputes, political debates amongst workers, and conditions on the shop floor. The result is a fascinating work of history that sheds light on the fate of the revolution in Russia. Kevin was good enough to join me in discussing his work, and I think you’ll all enjoy it.
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peterberard.substack.com (https://peterberard.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)
8 Jul 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 010 - “Unmask Alice” and Literary Forgery, with John Dolan aka The War Nerd
This is a big one! One my literary heroes, John Dolan aka Gary Brecher aka The War Nerd comes onto RITTOM to discuss Rick Emerson’s “Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries” and the broader topic of literary forgery and fraud. You may have read some of Beatrice Sparks’ fabulisms in middle school, maybe even got assigned such dubious classics as “Go Ask Alice” without having been told it wasn’t a real druggie diary, but the fabrication of a supremely frustrated middle class Mormon housewife. John and I get into the broader history of literary forgery, why people produce and believe them, and some dirty truths about the reader-author-publisher relationship. “Unmask Alice” is a great book and this was a fantastic discussion, if I do say so myself.
I mentioned Strange Aeons, a youtuber who does internet history, including work on literary fabulism, which as you can imagine gets pretty wild in internet fandom communities. She’s a really great historian and critic, check out her YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@STRANGEONS . You might figure this isn’t my thing- but thoughtful, rigorous history of culture that isn’t my thing IS my thing, indeed. Plus she’s funny! A good place to start, if you’re into literary fraud, is her story on tumblr fandom gadabout “hivliving”.
If you’re listening to this, there’s a good chance you already know of this, but John Dolan is one half of Radio War Nerd, a podcast covering the “world of wars” and occasionally other topics like literature as well, from the unique and uncompromising perspective Dolan and Mark Ames bring to things. You can find it at: https://www.patreon.com/radiowarnerd/posts
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28 Jun 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 009 - Achewood, Utopia of Depressed Dudes with John Perich
On this episode of RITTOM, we talk about Chris Onstad’s great webcomic Achewood, an absurdist slice of life comic and “love letter to the English language.” Friend and fellow writer/organizer John Perich joins me to explain what Achewood is, why it’s a big deal, and how a webcomic about cats and stuffed animals says more about consumer culture, masculinity, and depression than a lot of works with more studiously serious approaches manage.
Read John’s newsletter! Disparaging the Boot (https://disparagingtheboot.substack.com/)
Read Achewood! Here’s the first comic in the legendary May 2004 run (https://achewood.com/2004/05/03/title.html).
Support Onstad’s Achewood comeback! (https://www.patreon.com/Achewood)
Intro music by a friend, soon to experience a big life event! Shouts out!
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16 Jun 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 008 - Harris, Palo Alto
Hello all! RITTOM has returned. I had the 11th most popular literature podcast among Irish listeners, and dammit, I will not let the people of Ireland down! In this episode, I discuss why I was gone for a while, the format going forward (unless I need to change it again!), and then, Malcolm Harris’ Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, a marvelous work of history that is also… annoying? Somehow? In parts? In any event, give it a listen. Also consider subscribing to Melendy Avenue Review, the newsletter where I post more of my criticism, cat pics, and more! See the link below. Pay five dollars a month and get access to our Discord server!
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14 Apr 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 007 - Slobodian, “Crack-Up Capitalism”
Hello all! In this episode of Reading in the Time of Monsters, we are joined by Quinn Slobodian, professor of the history of ideas at Wellesley College and author most recently of “Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy”. Quinn is one of the most incisive historians of the late twentieth century working, and here he cuts through stale debates about globalization versus nationalism to show how ideologues with deep pocketed backers are working to create whole new visions of sovereignty through division. In “Crack-Up Capitalism,” we see how special economic zones, Bantustans, breakaway states and such scifi ideas as seasteading have all provided inspiration — or are instantiations of — the dream of encasing markets, capital, and their hierarchies from interfering democracy. This is an incredibly rich book and Quinn and I only scratch the surface- enjoy the interview then go pick it up!
This will also be this week’s Melendy Avenue Review, so help yourself to a Mithra pic!
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https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250753892/crackupcapitalism
You can follow Quinn on Twitter @zeithistoriker . While you’re at it, you can follow this podcast @RITTOMpod .
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31 Mar 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 006 - Surkov, "Almost Zero" or, Russian Elites Write Dumb Books Too
This one is was a Chieftain request! If you subscribe to Melendy Avenue Review at the Chieftain level, you, too, can request a book for me to review (within reason- needs to be in English, under 100,000 words, sourceable, etc). This one is a novel by Kremlin wire-puller Vladislav Surkov, and it proves that Putin’s goons can be just as pretentious, self-important, and bad at aping culture as any Ivy League or Oxbridge fancylad. Enjoy!
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28 Mar 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 005 - Kuang, "Babel", and the New Chosen One narrative
We have our first guest! My friend Kit (https://twitter.com/ursulaklesin) joins me to talk about R.F. Kuang’s 2022 novel, and likely big scifi/fantasy award nominee, “Babel.” Kuang’s fourth novel published before she turned 26 (she has another out this year), this historical fantasy tale of a young Chinese man drawn into the British imperial apparatus as a translator and maker of magic driven by translation has drawn rave reviews. Kit and I have other ideas about the book, its mediocre prose, uninspired characterization, shallow politics, and all-around stifling, suffocating quality. We do a deep dive on what Kit has named “the new chosen one” narrative, where instead of simpletons being chosen for quests ala Tolkien or Star Wars, we get young people of marginalized identities taken into the bosom of the empires that marginalize them, only to lead rebellion against them. Some examples of these narratives are good, and some are bad, and it’s worth looking at their prominence.
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12 Mar 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 004: Toole, "A Confederacy of Dunces"
I thought I would break things up a little and talk about a book I like. More than — or maybe just along with — being a really funny novel that everyone from high schoolers on up read and enjoy, “A Confederacy of Dunces” says more about more “serious” matters than a lot of your supposedly serious literature, and more elegantly as well. While for the most part people either love the book or just ignore it, every now and again tiresome establishment literature hacks try to take Toole down a few pegs, posthumously. One such was cokehead litterateur Tom Bissell. You can find my YouTube video rebuking Tom Bissell’s lousy hack job on “A Confederacy of Dunces” here (https://youtu.be/t6QlmkWvqtg). But here, I’m going to “accentuate the positive,” as they say.
The audio quality is bad. Sorry. I might look into getting a better mic and/or not recording on Substack’s little recording modality.
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12 Feb 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 003 - Lockwood, "No One Is Talking About This" and the Problems of Contemporary Literature
This went from a reasonably straightforward review of a book I did not like — Patricia Lockwood’s 2021 novel No One Is Talking About This — to a whole… thing. A manifesto? In any event, an episode that was going to be me talking about how one lousy novel indicated some of the problems with contemporary English-language letters has turned into a longer spiel as I try to explain what I think is wrong, why, and what alternatives might look like. In my observation, critical podcasts — not just literary criticism but film and tv criticism, “cultural criticism” more broadly, which tips into political discourse which has the same issue — lays out a few broad lines of agreement, usually shared enemies, and expects the producers’ twitter following to get what it all means through social context. Well, I haven’t got a twitter. So I need to explain it all.
I said I was going to paywall odd-numbered episodes, and I am, but I’m going to start at 005 instead, as this is late, and something of a statement of my program. If you want to see all my content — all the podcasts, all the reviews, all the cat pics — subscribe at the Citizen level or above at Melendy Avenue Review (http://peterberard.substack.com). Subscribe for free for half the podcasts and some of the rest of the podcasts.
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24 Jan 2023
Reading in the Time of Monsters 002 - Richardson, "Strange Journey"
In this second episode, I introduce a feature we’ll see going forward: self-crit! I’m going to own the stuff I get wrong, according to my own lights, and refine my ideas that way. I talk about the criticism of the smog of discourse, and how it’s hard to nail down who you’re talking about it sometimes.
The review here is of Peter Richardson’s Savage Journey: The Weird Road to Gonzo (2022). I’m a big Thompson fan and someone who loves intellectual history that wanders from the academy, so, I was excited to see a book that promised to discuss Thompson as a writer and how he developed. Alas, this isn’t really what I was looking for, with a shallow “child becomes the man” analysis of the sort we see all too often in history and journalism. Is it too much to ask for a history that acknowledges change, as opposed to everything becoming what it was already? Also, can we have a biographer of a funny person who can get what a hyperbolic joke is when they see it? Is that too much to ask?
I referred to the Rite Gud podcast, go listen! (https://kittysneezes.com/category/podcast-3/rite-gud/)
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13 Jan 2023
Reading in the Age of Monsters 001: Introductions, and Mark Fisher
This is the first episode of Reading in the Age of Monsters podcast, a book criticism podcast. Let’s do some criticism that doesn’t suck. Mark Fisher wrote some criticism that didn’t suck, analyzing the culture of late capitalism with acuity. But his work and his image have been absorbed into a sphere of online discourse that fetishizes the depression, helplessness, and passivity Fisher knew well and lamented.
I admit to amateurishness in the recording. It might get better, but I admit it is not the highest priority. I had a smoother first version, actually, but recorded it without turning my mic on, like a dummy.
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