A podcast about big books. Season One is devoted to a reading an analysis of Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel "Gravity's Rainbow," and other issues directly related to the text.
Slow Learners
Claim This Podcastby Asher Dark + John Semley
4.8(133 reviews)
25 episodes
Updated Inactive
Accepts GuestsHas SponsorsLocation 🇺🇸
Podcast Overview
A podcast about big books. Season One is devoted to a reading an analysis of Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel "Gravity's Rainbow," and other issues directly related to the text.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
10/17/2023
1 verified contact email on file for Slow Learners
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Recent Episodes
December 18, 2025
VINELAND EP 6/7: Voicemails
<p>We clear out the voicemail machine. Included: Proustian Failure, One Battle After Another, Bungled Anarchist Theory, Joyce Comparisons, Dante and His Divine Three-Volume Series, Japanese Cadences; Is Fiction Just, Like, Autobiography, Man?; Pynchonian Media, Montreal, AND AS USUAL LOTS MORE!!!!!!</p>
November 6, 2025
VINELAND EP 6: Vineland The Good?
<p>We are back. Sorry for the delay--we were just uh...savoring the book's ending, and the richness of the text.</p><p>John and Asher ride solo...together. Like DL and Takeshi! In our final Vineland read-through, we cover the book's last three chapters, learn more about Brock Vond's sexual proclivities, witness, the birth of Prairie, get the scoop on Zoyd's whole window-smashing-deal, return to Vineland itself for the Traverse-Becker family reunion, learn the fate of all our characters, and meet like 17 more.</p><p>We also discuss myths of the afterlife, theories of hereditary madness (courtesy Italian phrenologists), giggling, acid versus coke rock, acid versus coke books, the ontology of the Pynchonverse, the (over)abundance agenda, if Sleep is the same band as Electric Wizard, Sylvia Plath, Proust (natch!), something-other-than-pessimism, the symbolism of blue jays, if hope is evil, and the impossibility of tilting the beam.</p><p><br></p><p>Thanks for listening! We'll be back soon!</p><p>And remember...</p><p>SUNSHINE DAYDREAM</p><p>SUNSHINE DAYDREAM</p><p>SUNSHINE DAYDREAM</p><p>SUNSHINE DAYDREAM</p><p>SUNSHINE DAYDREAM</p><p>SUNSHINE DAYDREAM</p><p>SUNSHINE DAYDREAM</p><p>SUNSHINE</p><p>DAYDREAM</p><p><strong>Music In This Episode:</strong></p><p>Wendy Watson - "Degrassi Jr. High Theme" (excerpt)</p><p>Sleep - "Dragonaut" (excerpt)</p><p>Pop o' Pies - "Sugar Magnolia" (Demo Tape Version) (edited)</p><p><strong>Other Stuff:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48999/daddy-56d22aafa45b2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">"Daddy"</a> by Sylvia Plath</p><p><a href="https://www.gravitysrainbowguide.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">"Proverbs for Paranoids" </a>Gravity's Rainbow Guide</p>
October 23, 2025
VINELAND EP 5: It's The Libidinal Economy, Stupid! (W/Subliminal Jihad)
<p><strong>THIS WEEK: </strong>John and Asher reads through Chapters 10-12 of Vineland, which takes them back in their shared semester at the College of the Surf (John was Asher's RA). We also learn about the scintillating backstory of Frenesi Gates and her love affair with a COP (ew)--the betrayal of all her ostensible values. </p><p>We also talk Marx, Freud, Lyotard, Thorazine as a bad-trip-killer, cinematic radicalism, the horny monster who lives inside of you and makes you do stuff you shouldn't want to (or even don't want to) do, May '68, the Emerald Triangle, and the Pynchonian figure of the evil dentist.</p><p><strong>THEN:</strong> Asher is joined by Dimitri and Khalid of the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/cw/subliminaljihad" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Subliminal Jihad podcast</a> to talk about Pynchon's ties (literary and otherwise) to deep state conspiracism, occult machinations, and all things para-political (or as the boys would say it: political). The truth is out there? WRONG AGAIN. The truth is in...here.</p><p><br></p><p>MUSIC:</p><p><br></p><p>Kimi-Bogdan Raczynski</p>
25 total episodes available
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- What is Slow Learners?
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This podcast updates inactive.
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