Unchained Melodies

July 3, 2015August 27, 2017

Episode 23: NBA Draft Fashion, Jurassic World, Lost the Plot: Escape Plan, Overlooked Biblical Names, OTC Hall of Fame, Unchained Melodies, and The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro

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This week Dave and Steel discuss highlights in NBA draft fashion, Dave’s opinion of the film Jurassic World, play another version of Lost the Plot with the Stallone/Schwarzenegger film Escape Plan, share some unjustly forgotten Biblical baby names, induct the newest member of the Off the Chain Hall of Fame, share some great America-inspired music from John Wayne, Ray Charles, Neil Diamond, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Brother Ali, and James Brown, and drop some moving wisdom from a famous July 4th speech by Frederick Douglass.

Episode 22: Adventures in Homeschooling, Small Talk, Expert Testimony: Parenting and Creativity, Everyday Heroes, Unchained Melodies, and I Hate To Leave This Beautiful Place

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This week Dave was out, so Steel had to hold down the fort without him. Fortunately, Rose and Emeline were available, and together the three of them had a delightful time, discussing Rose and Emeline’s homeschooling experiences, a newly discovered connection between the brain and the lymphatic system, the survival ability of the word ‘mother’, and the surging greatness that is emoji. The three of them also discussed some of the challenges of parenting and their struggles to balance familial commitments with the desire for a creative life, what it’s been like raising boys, the style era they’d feel most at home in, and three everyday heroes (all women) they wanted to praise. In this week’s edition of Unchained Melodies, the focus was on songs sung in languages other than English, and they shared great sounds from Fran Jeffries, Peter Pan Complex, Ana Tijoux, Natalia LaFourcade, Glen Check, and Super Furry Animals, before Rose shared some moving book wisdom from an Inuit folklorist recounted in Howard Norman’s memoir I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place.

Episode 21: Pickup Basketball, Assigned Reading, Expert Testimony: Urban Planning, Unchained Melodies, and Those Winter Sundays

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This week Dave and Steel are joined by their friend Spencer. Together the trio discusses Steel and Spencer’s pickup basketball escapades, give reports on their recent reading (books by Thomas Pynchon, Dan Simmons, and Sabine Heinlein) and give each other new reading assignments (books by Frank Herbert, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ignazio Silone, Brandon Sanderson, Daniel Kahneman, and Alexander Dolgun), Dave & Steel ask Spencer all their burning questions about urban planning and transportation issues, share great music by Dawn Landes, Saintseneca, Christopher Paul Stelling, Strand of Oaks, Adult Mom, and Konono No. 1, and drop a beautiful poetic tribute to fathers from the twentieth-century American poet Robert Hayden.

Episode 20: The Tennant, OTC Time Travel, Ask OTC, Brother vs. Brother, Unchained Melodies, and Richard Feynman

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This week Dave and Steel are joined by Jon, the infamous younger brother of Alan, their guest last week. Together, the trio discusses Jon’s acting chops, amateur physicists and Jon’s impressively detailed theory of time travel (first developed when he was in the 6th grade!), answer listener questions about dating, The Hulk, space travel, and NASA’s dreamiest astronaut, hear Jon’s versions of the family stories Alan shared last week, talk about their favorite video games (old and new), share nerdly music from They Might Be Giants, Socalled, The Aquabats, Bombadil, The Uncluded, and the Thomas Was Alone video game soundtrack, and share some book wisdom from the illustrious physicist and science popularizer Richard Feynman.

Links

The Tennant [The Tenant]

The Tennant’s End

OTC Science

Dave loves the idea of amateur physicists. See here and here and here for more on why.
Peter Vranas’ faculty page (see the research page to read about his thoughts on the retrosuicide paradox).

Ask OTC

Mars One, a project led by an intriguing Dutchman that hopes to establish a human colony on Mars.
Eccentric visionary billionaire Elon Musk also wants us to go to Mars.
Bios of NASA’s current roster of astronauts

OTC Video Games

Favorite Game of All Time

River Raid [Dave]
Pirates! Gold [Steel]
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword [Jon]

Favorite Game Currently

Jaws [Dave]
Championship Manager: Season 01/02 [Steel]
Splatoon [Jon]

They Might Be Giants — Purple Toupee

Socalled — Work with What You Got

The Aquabats — Cat with Two Heads

Bombadil — Laundromat

The Uncluded — Delicate Cycle

Book Wisdom

This week’s book wisdom was taken primarily from Richard Feynman’s book The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist, which collected three of his best known lectures on science and human understanding.

June 5, 2015August 27, 2017

Episode 19: Hug Daddy Game, Top 5 Norwegian Words, Small Talk, Expert Testimony: Ask the Marketer, Brother vs. Brother, Unchained Melodies, and East of Eden

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This week Dave and Steel are joined by their old friend Alan. Dave introduces the two men to a game he plays with his daughters called the “Hug Daddy Game,” Alan shares his fave favorite Norwegian words, and they run through a segment of small talk, discussing the latest FIFA scandals, Alan’s love of a well-edited Hobbit remake, and Nate DiMeo’s fantastic podcast the Memory Palace. We then present a very special feature, “Ask The Marketer,” in which we present several difficult to market products to Alan, a professional marketer, and he explains how he’d market these increasingly repulsive brands/products, following which we share great music about fictional characters from The Flaming Lips, The Brunettes, Mumford and Sons, The Spin Doctors, Suicide, and Duck Tales, and Alan closes the episode with some book wisdom from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

Episode 18: Name of the Year, OTC Vacations, To the Limits, Unchained Melodies: Fight Edition, and White Noise

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This week Dave and Steel offer their congratulations to the 2015 Name of the Year (won by Idaho’s finest citizen!), discuss the allure of road trips, their dream vacations and vacation dreams, and are joined by Dave’s wife Arianne for a special To the Limits segment, in which the trio discusses Born to Run, Arianne’s visit to the Tarahumara tribe in Northern Mexico, and Aron Ralston, the man whose experiences inspired the film 127 Hours. Dave and Steel also try to answer two very important questions in a lengthy segment of Unchained Melodies which features music by Spoon, Mötley Crüe, Dizzee Rascal, Ratatat, The Gipsy Kings, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Okkervil River, and Stylophonic, and Dave drops some book wisdom from the great Don DeLillo.

Episode 17: OTC Vistas, Small Talk, Walden, Unchained Melodies: Summer Songs, and Cat's Cradle

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This week Dave and Steel are joined by Dave’s friend Rosie. Together the trio describe the most beautiful places they’ve ever been and discuss the greatness of Lonesome Dove, the latest in shipping crate swimming pool construction, and the legend of Mingering Mike, an imaginary soul singer who made good in the latest edition of Small Talk. Rosie and Steel also try to explain the greatness of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden to a skeptical Dave, and they have a bit of fun with a fill-in-the-blanks game. They share great summer tunes from Son Volt, Loudon Wainwright III, The Bowerbirds, Fountains of Wayne, crash, and The Drums, and Rosie drops some book wisdom from Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel Cat’s Cradle.

Links

OTC Vistas

Rosie: The Spiral Jetty [an earthwork by Robert Smithson] in the Great Salt Lake, Utah
Steel: Gandria/Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland
Dave: Marion Lake, Wyoming

Small Talk

Lonesome Dove

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m44NQUIOaiQ
Shipping container swimming pools
Mingering Mike: Jon Ronson’s Guardian article and his personal website

Walden

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

Read the book.

Unchained Melodies

Son Volt — Windfall

Loudon Wainwright III — The Swimming Song

The Bowerbirds — Overcome with Light

Fountains of Wayne — Leave the Biker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQalBzt8ECU

crash — Mad at the Clouds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnghXaEkE_Q

The Drums — Let’s Go Surfing