It's been a while...
It's been a while...
A long-overdue update from Strange Exiles with news about Season 2
Strange Exiles is back in October! Episode 14 will hit streaming on the 19th. Read on for more news about our next guest, and some hints about what’s coming up on the rest of Season 2. If you want to catch up before we return, you can find all the episodes so far on Anchor, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Season 2 got off to a bit of a false start. Here’s a little bit of context about where I’ve been these past few months. For anyone new to this blog or to the podcast, Strange Exiles is a one man operation. I started it during lockdown in part as a way to build new connections to a world that felt distant and strange. The name comes from a passage by the philosopher George Santayana:
“The whole natural world will be removed to a distance. It will have become foreign. It will touch us, and exist morally for us, only as the scene of our strange exile.”
- ‘Realms of Being’ (New York, Cooper Square, 1972, p.741)
To my surprise and great delight, the podcast picked up a small but dedicated audience of regular listeners - which perhaps includes you. Conversations with some interesting people in my immediate orbit span out into discussions with thinkers and writers I had admired for years, bringing me more questions than answers. Season 1 felt like the beginning of an epic quest to distill and explain the complex history of ideas that underpin our identities and ideologies. We scratched the surface, but there was more to understand.
12 episodes later, I wrapped up Season 1 for the winter. Friend of the podcast Pete Ross, who works in audio, advised me sternly not to break for too long. Podcasting, he patiently explained, was about momentum. It turned out to be good advice, which I ignored twice. I managed to record Episode 13, an essay about the apocalypse (and the accompanying reading recommendations) in April, but a few episodes planned between May and September fell through, or got delayed.
I had some physical health issues over the summer, which are still resolving themselves. This month, I’ve been able to record two interviews in between rest and recovery. It turns out momentum is absolutely the key. I learned a lesson about my capacity and enthusiasm for the other pursuits I spend time on - music and performance. While these are things I’ll always do, and which will always give me great enjoyment, I’m less and less keen to put energy and time into promoting them. The satisfaction I get from adding to the archive of Strange Exiles is both deeper, and healthier. Perhaps this is because my music and poetry is introspective - while the podcast is about reaching out, making connections outside of my experience and expertise. For the foreseeable future, Strange Exiles is where I want to put my creative energy and time, in between earning a living. The plan is still for 12-episode seasons, but with a little luck, there should be no more long gaps between episodes.
Over the past few months I’ve had to cancel a few things, including a planned live event at Doune The Rabbit Hole festival’s ‘Douneiversity’ stage. This was entirely due to the aforementioned health issues. Live episodes are definitely in my future plans for the show, so watch this space in 2023 - and if you have any suggestions or opportunities to pass on, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
I did write a lot over the break, and if you’re looking for a couple of long reads you’ll find two essays over at the You Call That Radio blog. I wrote about Boris Johnson and memes back in February 2022, and in May I wrote about my experiences as a fan, critic and maker of hip-hop in an essay called ‘The Tourist’. I also presented my first academic paper at a conference called ‘Unlearning Nihilism’ in June, which may form part of a future episode of the show. I have a few more of these in the works, which will likely end up here on the Strange Exiles blog.
I’d like to offer a personal thank you to the listeners of the podcast for sticking with us through Season 1, and the false start this year. I’m confident the wait will be worth it!
What we read on our holidays
Here are a few things I have been reading, which might (or might not) offer a few cryptic clues about upcoming guests…
‘Mother of Storms’ by John Barnes
Gripping climate disaster fiction that comes on like a cyberpunk tornado, from the author of one of my favourite science fiction books of all time.
Meme warfare (The Atlantic)
This recently published Atlantic piece by Joan Donovan, Emily Dreyfuss and Brian Friedberg offers an analysis of the way online memes and viral content fed into the American ‘insurrection’ of 2020.
The Otolith Group (The Quietus)
I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to the boundary-smashing, provocative work of Otolith, the art collective formed by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun. John Quin’s profile/review is a great introduction.
Boris Groys on transgression (Jacobin)
A fearsome defence of offence and transgression in culture from the art historian Boris Groys (interviewed by Carlos Egaña). As he explains: “Art should show you things that you don’t like to see, don’t want to see, or are not interested in seeing.”
Edward George on Afrofuturism (Guardian)
Sukhdev Sandhu talks to the artist and film-maker behind the fascinating Black Audio Film Collective, now exploring the legacy, importance and futures of black artists in science fiction, film and visual art.
On Lupita Nyong’o in ‘Us’ (Film School Rejects)
The work of director Jordan Peele has been justly celebrated for unpacking the horrors of race and inequality in the American psyche. This essay explores Nyong’o’s powerful performance in ‘Us’, and the relevance of Peele’s approach to genre film.
Cory Doctorow’s Chokepoint Capitalism
Web evangelist and copyright avenger Doctorow’s new book, co-written with Rebecca Giblin, promises to be an excoriating assault on the rip-off economics of streaming economies, and the extractivist business models of industry giants like Spotify, Netflix and Amazon. It’s already generating a lot of buzz.
Darren McGarvey on class structure - Blindboy podcast
Blindboy speaks to Season 1 guest and friend of the pod Darren McGarvey about his new book ‘The Social Distance Between Us’ and many other topics. An open, honest, and at times deeply moving conversation between two brilliant humans.
Coming up on Season 2: Katie Goh
Our first guest on Season 2 will be the brilliant critic and journalist Katie Goh, author of the book The End: Surviving the World Through Imagined Disasters. Katie and I discuss representations of the apocalypse in fiction, film and culture at large, taking in everything from the Book of Revelations to revolutionary politics, ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Sharknado’.
I’m really excited to share my conversation with Katie, which offers a more comprehensive, less nihilistic vision of the near-future and post-apocalypse than my own readings in Episode 13, while exploring similar thematic territory, including the theory of Mark Fisher and Slavoj Žižek. If you want to get familiar with her work before the episode airs, I highly recommend her book, which you can get from 404 Ink as part of their excellent ‘Inklings’ series.
The conversation with Katie indicates a direction for the season. While Season 1 was quite free-ranging in its exploration of different perspectives and stories, I plan to give Season 2 a bit more a narrative through-line. The start of that story is the apocalypse. Where it ends…? I hope you’ll stick around to find out.
I’d also like to extend an open invitation to listeners and followers of the newsletter to send in suggestions, requests or questions for guests to strange.exiles@gmail.com. While there are quite a few guests now confirmed for the next batch of episodes, the whole point of this is to explore new voices and perspectives. Tell us who’s exciting you, challenging you, enraging you. These are the important stories - let’s explore them together.
I’ll be back in October. Until then, find us here:
Subscribe at sptfy.com/strangeexiles
Follow @strangeexiles for updates
All subscribe links at anchor.fm/strangeexiles
Take care of each other.
Bram E. Gieben, Glasgow, September 2022