Hi everyone!
Here is our podcast, episode #7. Tom wanted to talk about Taylor Swift, and how she’s the only hope for humanity against the scale of destruction we’re up against, but Tim brought up Walt Whitman’s words during the last 4 years of his life and we talked about that before we got to Taylor.
They are both classic Americans, in the same lineage, even, and probably love this country more than they should. Anyway, give it a listen!
Here are some timestamps:
1:00 Walt and "the trouble with most poems" (not in any way human.)
3:00 The New York Times obituary
5:00 Poetry/art vs "directness"
6:00 Walt in the hospitals
8:00 Walt bedridden for 4 years. Aging parents, wheelchairs and Autograph hounds
9:30 Walt's death final autograph
12:00 Who was he appreciated by? Oscar Wilde comes to visit.
14:00 Was he still writing? Chapbooks and poems about aging and dying.
15:30 Tom figures out Walt doesn't have a problem with his poetry, it's other people's poetry he has a problem with.
18:00 Poetry vs nursing, a false dichotomy. "All he wanted was companionship"
21:00 "He finally got what he wanted in those hospitals"
23 :00 Walt on his deathbed, spoke majestically about his work. "The book is set."
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28:00 Taylor Swift
29:00 Taylor as queen or deity
32:00 Taylor as the single main force of creation on the planet right now. How do we comprehend so much destruction right now? Only Taylor Swift is possibly as large.
33:00 Ezra Pound on Finnegan's Wake; large scale audiences
36:45 Mainstream authors, artists.
38:00 Tim on female roles in typical mythology; Pericles praising the Athenian Women for not being seen.
40:00 Women allowed to write autobiography in country music
43:00 Taylor has transcended all labels and stories you put on her
44:00 As a creative person in a time of destruction, where do we find inspiration?
45:15 Taylor Swift's business decisions
46:30 The eventual end of an era
47:20 Final thoughts, kindness, generous, large force against destruction.
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48:30 Tom's reading corner: Walt Whitman on Abraham Lincoln
