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PZ’s Podcast: Horror Hotel, Les Elucubrations de PZ, Over the River I&II, and “Hoping Without Hope” Conf Preview

by Mockingbird on Sep 24, 2012 • 1 Comment

Episode 117: Horror Hotel

Guess I’ve learned something new, or at least new to me, from an old and beloved source. That source is a tight little expressionist movie from 1960 entitled Horror Hotel. It featured Christopher Lee and Patricia Jessel, and was written by George Baxt. Horror Hotel, which was made in England about Americans, understands the phenomenon it is talking about, acutely. Horror Hotel understands the phenomenon it is talking about to be the drive to prolong physical life. The “heroine” and her husband, played by the sinister Valentine Dyall, are all about prolonging life. They are taking extreme…

Death / Grace in Practice / Philosophy

PZ’s Podcast: In the event of

by Mockingbird on Aug 27, 2012 • No Comments

EPISODE 115: In the event of

“What makes the melon ball bounce?” (That’s a Madison Avenue jingle, direct from the actual historic world that Mad Men is supposed to inhabit, which was produced by Raymond Scott in 1963 for Sprite.)

But it’s just a starter for the real question: What makes you bounce? What gives you that little pep and step, or at least from a grace perspective? What could prove sufficient to move you from paralysis and indecision, to truth and consequence?

Well, would it surprise you if I argued you’ve got to die, first? And really die — more or less,…

Grace in Practice / Suffering

Paul Zahl Talking Grace in Practice with Tullian Tchividjian, Pt 2 (Now Working!)

by Mockingbird on Aug 16, 2012 • No Comments

Once again, from our friends at Liberate. For Part One, go here. If you’re still having problems, be sure to empty your cache:

Church / Film / Theology

PZ’s Podcast: Return to Form and A Slight Shiver

by Mockingbird on Aug 13, 2012 • No Comments

Episode 113a: Return to Form

After a long drought, I’m back.

But the tack is somewhat new or, rather, old. The cast is a study in defeatedness, the karma of boy Watson in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), and the “absurdist” position taken by a young clergyman, Henry Francis Lyte, in 1816 (it took). It also delineates PZ’s own position: my own defeatedness and the new hope I strangely feel. For me it’s ‘Roger Corman’ come to SK, tho’ it’s really a theology of the cross, even explicitly that.

Call this an odd turn, call it a forced turn, call it my own re-enactment…

Everyday / Grace in Practice / Psychology / Theology

Paul Zahl Talking Grace in Practice with Tullian Tchividjian, Pt 1

by Mockingbird on Aug 10, 2012 • 1 Comment

THIS JUST IN: PZ”S PODCAST IS BACK UP AND RUNNING! Click here to go to the new page on iTunes. Even if you’ve subscribed in the past, you will need to re-subscribe. Right now only the two most recent episodes are up–the archives should be restored sometime next week–but if you haven’t gotten a chance to hear “The Two Geralds”, do yourself a favor. Some would say it’s right up there with his best (next to “Giant Crab Movies” and “Lounge Crooner Classics”). Regardless, here’s part one of a discussion PZ did a couple weeks ago with the good folks over at Liberate:

America / Forgiveness / Identity / Interviews / Music / News / Politics / Psychology / Science / Sports / Technology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: F. Scott FitzDylan, Dormroom Surrender, Self-Fulfilling Paranoia, Caveman Vulnerability, Campaign Boredom, More Olympics and Air Conditioning

by Ethan Richardson on Aug 3, 2012 • 2 Comments

1) The New Yorker recently released a very good (and very short) story from none other than F. Scott Fitzgerald, called “Thank You for the Light.” A “pretty, somewhat faded woman of forty,” a midwestern corset saleswoman, she cannot find a place to smoke a cigarette away from judgmental eyes. She is becoming desperate and in her desperation she finds, yes, a church. A small sampling here, but be sure to take the extra five minutes and read the whole thing here.

And to herself she was thinking, If I could just get three puffs I could sell old-fashioned whalebone.

She had…

Grace in Practice / Literature / Philosophy / Radio / Theology

Update on PZ’s Podcast

by Mockingbird on Jul 26, 2012 • No Comments

The good news is, the podcast is officially up on the new server! The less good news is, it probably won’t be available on iTunes for a few more days. In the meantime, though, you can get three new episodes by (re-)subscribing directly to the podcast via its updated feed. It’s actually really easy:

1. Copy the link to the new podcast feed (http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/paulzahl/podcast.xml) You can copy this link by right clicking on the link and selecting copy. Or you can click on the link and copy the link from the address bar on your browser.

2. Open up iTunes and go to the Advanced menu located on the top left of iTunes. Within the Advanced menu, you will see Subscribe to Podcast as the third listing. Choose this option and a dialogue box will open up asking for a URL. Paste the link to your Podcast Feed into the dialogue box and click OK. You have now added this podcast to your subscribed podcasts.

Blurbs appeared for two of the three new episodes a few weeks ago, but the casts themselves never made it up. So the three new casts are:

Episode 112: Kipling’s Lightworks
Episode 113: The Two Geralds
Episode 114: The Lost Continent

Thanks again for your patience!

News

Quick PZ’s Podcast Update

by Mockingbird on Jul 16, 2012 • No Comments

As you may have noticed, PZ’s Podcast disappeared on iTunes a few days ago, due to a server-related issue. We aim to have it back up and running by the end of the week and will update you as soon as we know more. Thanks for your patience!

Bible / Literature / Sermons

PZ’s Podcast 112 & 113: Kipling’s Lightworks and The Two Geralds

by Mockingbird on Jul 2, 2012 • 2 Comments

Episode 112: Kipling’s Lightworks

Kipling shed light! This second talk on his poems and short stories, but especially his poems, sings the praises of the inspired bard. Interestingly, two of his best hymns were cut from The Hymnal (1982) — and not on “political correctness” grounds but on Christological grounds. It was thought that “Recessional” and “Children’s Song” were not specific enough. Whether this was right or wrong, we lost two inheritances, two great poems, for my money, rooted in “love to the loveless” and the critique of power.

I hope you will want to read “Epitaphs of the War 1914-1918″, and…

Death / Literature

PZ’s Podcast 110 & 111: Color Him Father and Kipling’s Second Sight

by Mockingbird on Jun 18, 2012 • No Comments

EPISODE 110: Color Him Father

Speaking of the supernatural short story, the English poet John Betjeman, who was a practicing Christian, once wrote:

“M.R. James is the greatest master of the ghost story. Henry James, Sheridan Le Fanu, and H. Russell Wakefield are equal seconds.”

What Betjeman left for the facts to point out, is that all four of these men were the sons of Protestant ministers. Even the famous Henry James was the son of Henry James, Sr., a conscientious, writing lay-evangelist for the theology of Emmanuel Swedenborg.

If you add the two other luminaries of the genre, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood,…

Books / Film / Grace in Practice / Religion / TV

Do Ya Ken It? Stephen King’s Parables of Grace in Action

by David Zahl on Jun 4, 2012 • 5 Comments

A thrill to see Grace in Practice mentioned on CNN! John Blake posted an article on the network’s Belief Blog entitled “The Gospel of Stephen King,” and one of his chief interview subjects was our intrepid podcaster/father figure. The Christian subtext of King’s work probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s read The Stand (David Foster Wallace’s second favorite book!) or watched the substitutionary fable known as The Green Mile, but it’s still nice to see it articulated with such feeling and warmth. The same unfortunately cannot be said for the comments on the piece (nearly 1100 popped…

Grace in Practice / Theology

A Short Course in Grace in Practice: July 30 – August 3!

by Mockingbird on May 24, 2012 • No Comments

That’s right–at the very end of July the one and only Dr. Paul F. M. Zahl will be teaching a week long class about his book (and Mbird fave) Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life at Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, FL! Needless to say, this is a rare and special opportunity, so be sure not to miss out (the course is open to the general public). For more info, go to www.knoxseminary.edu or to register directly, please contact registrar Lori Gottshall at LGottshall@knoxseminary.edu. The official blurb is as follows:

A Short Course in Grace in Practice

The…

Film / Identity / Psychology / Relationships

PZ’s Podcast: What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) and Fraulein Doktor

by Mockingbird on May 21, 2012 • No Comments

Episode 104: What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)

This one is about defense.

Someone said that human beings are “covered by thirty or forty skins or hides, like an ox’s or a bear’s, so thick and hard.” That’s not especially good to hear.

Someone else said to me recently, “Well, Paul, you have a toe on the road.” (I could have belted him!)

“Poor poor pitiful me” (L. Ronstadt). Yet it’s true.

Every time you think one of those “skins or hides” has slid off you, another one appears, lying in its place.

What does it take to get through to a person, meaning:…

Books / Literature / Religion

PZ’s Podcast: Flowers for Algernon I&II

by Mockingbird on May 7, 2012 • No Comments

Episode 102: Flowers for Algernon I

Algernon Blackwood, who died in 1951, wrote some of the best tales of supernatural horror that have ever been written. He is often compared to H. P. Lovecraft, who admired Blackwood’s stories; and paired with Arthur Machen, who wrote in the same genre at about the same time.

In 1996 Michael Moorcock wrote the following about the religious background to these men’s stories:

“In the end it is perhaps the puritan conscience itself which gives British and American supernatural fiction its particular quality. While rarely discussed, the power of the Protestant church is expressed in even the…

Humor / Music / Philosophy / Theology

PZ’s Podcast 100 & 101: Eternity and I Feel Like I Win When I Lose (plus Reception Address)

by Mockingbird on Apr 23, 2012 • No Comments

EPISODE 100: Eternity

Didn’t The Beach Boys sing something called “Hang On To Your Ego”? I guess it was a kind of “Not!”.

Well, this talk concerns death and the “art” of dying. What dies when you die physically? What lives on? What, if anything?

Consider the following observation from The Genius and the Goddess (1955):

“In the process of living as one ought to live, Helen had been dying by daily installments. When the final reckoning came, there was practically nothing to pay.” (p. 14)

Who was dying there? What was left? I’d like to know. That’s the the task I set in trying…