My Summer Lair Chapter #90: How Much Do You Really Know About Our Civilization?

Typically a Time Machine would be considered yet another instance of technology replacing human jobs like fortune-tellers, soothsayers etc. all the spiritual prophetic retailers. The technology would be a more accurate broader vision of the future rather than an isolated (almost selfish) desire to know what “my future holds.” This isn’t the case in the FC3000.

The FC3000 is a time machine that allows you to go back in time but also create an alternative timeline. So the present and current timeline is safe…even though it’s a timeline created by a time traveler who went back in time and through his actions created this present we’re in.

Confused? It’s better if you better up Ryan North’s latest book How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler. You might know Ryan as the Marvel comics writer on The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Over the course of this conversation, we cover Doctor Who, Star Trek, Back to the Future, the evolution of civilization and recognize that while the past may not be what we have envisioned perhaps going back in time is not the answer…either. Or is it…

How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler is out now and it has real science and real jokes! Well worth reading no matter what year you are in…

Ryan North @ W • T • F

Host & Photography by Sammy Younan

Recorded: Thursday September 20, 2018 at 6pm (EST)

My Summer Lair Chapter #87: What Is Democracy?

Filmmaker Astra Taylor did something remarkable with her latest documentary: she asked a question “What Is Democracy?” and then she…listened. Like actually, actively listened. Listening has become…revolutionary.

We’re told to vote and protest and stand up for our rights and stand against all kinds of Twitter-branded evil and yet listening is one of the most powerful activities we can undertake.

Listening is a lost skill. To listen to somebody…to hear what they have to say; even if we don’t agree with it. Especially if we don’t agree with it! That’s freedom. Freedom is so inspiring.

Astra Taylor is the talented writer of 2014’s The People’s Platform: a non-fiction book exploring gap of the internet dream that was sold to us and the harsh reality of the internet. That’s not freedom.

She’s following up that book with this documentary premiering at TIFF. As she puts it…it’s not a question than an answer: she’s doing the hard work of grappling with democracy. The work you are supposed to do.

In that sense the documentary is inspiring because it pushes one to do their own hard work…to commit to doing the work. Truth is weddings…those are easy…marriages are hard. Do The Work.

There’s 2 TIFF screenings: September 11 & September 13 followed by a number of festival screenings.

Astra Taylor @ W • T • F

Host Sammy Younan

Recorded: Saturday September 8, 2018 at 5pm (EST) at Girth Radio

I see every experience through a pop culture lens: as September 11, 2001 unfolded I expected a fierce album from Bruce Springsteen…maybe Bob Dylan would get back in the ring and put em up. That dark day demanded our best.

Do you want the mashed potatoes or the asparagus?

Sometimes you inhabit that magical universe where you eat a spicy pulled pork burrito the size of your head and when all the good stuff splurts outta the burrito’s butt it wonderfully lands on the wax paper wrapper. Bonus?

And Summer is done: fall is death’s waiting room as the icy plague creeps across the land; muting hope and freezing life under a bleak barren winter landscape.

Eh…least we get free candy on Halloween plus all that dressing up! And bonus this year we get a Halloween movie.