Ask OTC

May 15, 2015August 27, 2017

Episode 16: Disney World, Small Talk, Ask OTC, Expert Testimony: OTC Comics, Unchained Melodies, and The Phantom Tollbooth

Subscribe: RSS

This week Dave and Steel are joined by their friend Oliver. Together they discuss Dave’s recent family vacation to Disney World (including a refreshing stop at Club Cool!), explore the benefits of Transcendental Meditation, learn more about the Rocky Mountain Land Library, speculate about the return of Full House (it’s going to be called Fuller House!), offer listeners moving advice and dance tips, discuss Dave and Oliver’s shared passion for cartooning and comic books, share their envy of the voices of Antony Heggarty, Prince Nelson, Van Morrison, Vic Chesnutt, Charlie Puth, and Bobby Hatfield & Bill Medley, and drop some wisdom from Norton Juster’s classic children’s adventure novel The Phantom Tollbooth.

Episode 14: Poetry, Expert Testimony, Small Talk, Ask OTC, Unchained Melodies, and Charles Reznikoff

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

This week Dave and Steel are joined by their friend Katie (a female nurse!) to discuss a huge panoply of things, including Steel’s love for poetry, Katie’s college softball career, A League of Their Own, the return of the brontosaurus, Wonder Woman’s freaky creator William Moulton Marston, and the difference between anabolic and boring steroids. Katie also leads the guys through a set of rapid fire ‘lightning round’ questions, and they take listener questions about home buying, flu shots, and high school math classes, and then share some great music from Cayetana, Lucius, Blackstreet, Alice Boman, and Jason Isbell, and Steel shares two poems from the criminally underread Charles Reznikoff: “[During the Second World War …]” and “Te Deum”.

Links

Poetry

Three of the life-changing poets that Steel talked about:

And here’s a bunch of articles about Emily Dickinson’s “Master” letters:

From Nicholas Rombes at the Rumpus
An article on Dickinson’s love life from the Emily Dickinson Museum
A review of a recent (2012) book which makes a case for identifying who Dickinson was addressing as “Master” in these letters

Expert Testimony

Katie’s Indiana University softball athlete page

A League of Their Own

Small Talk

The Brontosaurus is back! (an article by Elif Batuman in The New Yorker)
William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, was a weird dude. Exhibits 1, 2, and 3.
More on the difference between boring steroids and anabolic steroids.

Unchained Melodies

Cayetana — Hot Dad Calendar

Lucius — Wildewoman

Blackstreet — No Diggity

Alice Boman — Lead Me

Jason Isbell — Cover Me Up

Book Wisdom

This week Steel read two poems by Charles Reznikoff: the first an untitled vignette, and the second a short poem called “Te Deum” (a Latin phrase literally translatable as ‘Thee, O God’).

April 3, 2015August 27, 2017

Episode 10: Baby Birthday Parties, To The Limits, Ask OTC, Small Talk, Diesel: Running on Gas, Unchained Melodies, and Montaigne's Essays

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

This week Dave and Steel discuss some pro tips for successful birthday parties for infants and toddlers, talk about some incredible feats of human achievement (including Yeti sightings and some of the longest walks ever recorded), introduce you to the paranormal educational opportunities available at Arthur Findlay College, discuss Turning Point and Radio Diaries, answer great listener questions about vanity plates and rectal tubes, share some great music from Martha Wainwright, The New Christy Minstrels, Bahamas, and The National, and drop some humility from Michel de Montaigne.

Links

To The Limits

Sławomir Rawicz’s book is called The Long Walk. The book was the ‘inspiration’ for a 2010 film called The Way Back with Colin Farrell and Ed Harris.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kezJTpyMI

Here’s Elizabeth Weil’s NYT magazine article about the Swiss adventurer Sarah Marquis. Ms. Marquis maintains a website where you can hear interviews, find her TED talks, and see several videos of her exploits.