Phil Klay

Episode 57: Some Lying and Some BS

September 10th, 2023  |  1 hr 34 mins

Jake and Phil are joined by Walter Kirn to discuss Kirn's essay "The Bullshit" alongside Mark Twain's "My First Lie and How I Got Out of It"

Episode 56: The Secular Saint

August 9th, 2023  |  1 hr 35 mins

Jake and Phil are joined by Santiago Ramos, a contributing writer to Commonweal Magazine, to discuss Michael Novak's The Secular Saint and the epilogue to Michel Houellebecq's 1998 novel The Elementary Particles.

Episode 55: The Great Mating Debate

July 12th, 2023  |  1 hr 18 mins

Phil is joined by Becca Rothfeld, BD McClay, and Jon Baskin to discuss Norman Rush's 1991 novel Mating, and whether it offers a roadmap for love in the 21st century.

Episode 54: Nirvana and The Trials of the Young

June 13th, 2023  |  1 hr 20 mins

Phil is joined by the great novelist, short story writer and essayist Mary Gaitskill to discuss Gaitskill's essay "The Trials of the Young" in the most recent Liberties Journal, alongside the Nirvana songs "Drain You" and "Moist Vagina."

Episode 53: Poe's Law and Philip K. Dick's Faith of Our Fathers

May 16th, 2023  |  1 hr 36 mins

Jake and Phil are joined by Gurwinder Bhogal to discuss Poe's Law and Philip K. Dick's Faith of Our Fathers

Episode 52: True Believers and the Case of the Writer Turned Congressman

April 13th, 2023  |  1 hr 51 mins

Jake and Phil are joined by former Michigan Congressman Peter Meijer to discuss longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer’s 1951 book, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, and the poem “On Reading Crowds and Power,” by Geoffrey Hill.

Episode 51: A Public Address, A Colloquium, or Maybe Just a Q&A

March 21st, 2023  |  1 hr 9 mins

Jake and Phil answer questions from our listeners.

Episode 50: El Greco, Picasso, and The Pleasures of Ignorance

February 22nd, 2023  |  1 hr 8 mins

Jake and Phil discuss Aldous Huxley's "Meditation on El Greco", and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

Episode 49: Angry Popes and Architecture

January 26th, 2023  |  1 hr 33 mins

Jake and Phil are joined by John Davis, an environmental and architectural historian at the Knowlton School at Ohio State, to discuss Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pope Pius X's encyclical against the modernists, and La Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, Spain.

Episode 48: The Ultimate Revolution

November 22nd, 2022  |  1 hr 56 mins

Jake and Phil are joined by Becca Rothfeld to discuss Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex and Sheila Heti's That Longing for a Holy Completeness (from her novel MOTHERHOOD)

Episode 47: The Democracy Engineering Complex

October 18th, 2022  |  58 mins 27 secs

Phil is joined by Sam Kimbriel, the founding director of Aspen's Philosophy & Society Initiative, to discuss Sam's essay "What the Democracy Engineering Complex Misses"

Episode 46: Sunday Morning and God's Grandeur

September 19th, 2022  |  1 hr 12 mins

To celebrate Phil's birthday, Jake joins Phil to discuss Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning" and Gerard Manley Hopkins' "God's Grandeur."

Episode 45: Spielberg and Roxy Music

July 21st, 2022  |  1 hr 58 mins

Jake and Phil are joined by culture critic Armond White to discuss Make Spielberg Great Again and Roxy Music's 1979 album Manifesto

Episode 44: We're All Stars Now In the Dope Show

June 17th, 2022  |  1 hr 38 mins

Episode 43: Tradition and the Individual Talent

May 28th, 2022  |  1 hr 17 mins

Jake and Phil discuss T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent", and James Joyce's "A Mother"

Episode 42: The Transmogrifications of Gary Leib

April 11th, 2022  |  1 hr 9 mins

Phil is joined by Peter Catapano, of the New York Times, and graphic novelist Jess Ruliffson to discuss Peter's essay on the life and work of cartoonist Gary Leib