Kant

Today’s Comment of the Week: The Folder of Laundry!

~ jackewilson ~ 2 Comments

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Wonderful Reader [or I guess Wonderful Listener] R listens to Episode 2 of The Jacke Wilson Show and writes:

I love your whole thing about philosophers and drug effects. I had to laugh as you explained some Conte-crazed college kid jumping on a table and making some life-changing announcement. It’s amazing how ideas can MOVE people. Also thoroughly enjoyed your two segments. Honestly, just the idea of some deep-sea fish spending it’s life in darkness, unrealized by humans, BLOWS MY MIND. And the “Sign” is great. The ending is tricky with these epiphany stories. I feel they go one of two ways: Either the sign is real and he is right, or the sign is fake and the story tries to drop the other sarcastic shoe just as the reader is getting her hopes up. But your ending was much more thoughtful than either of these, and honestly I stopped what I was doing (folding laundry!) just to listen. Jacke’s reaction to the insurance lady is just hysterical! I love it! Thank you for your work, always nice to meet a fellow thinker 😉

This is so much fun for me! I don’t know why I started a podcast, other than I enjoy listening to them myself and I thought it would be a good way to try to connect with other people. Maybe to entertain, maybe make some people think. Maybe throw some ideas out into the world and see if anyone is as crazy as me.

I have a noisy household and a full-time job, so I have to record these things at 4 in the morning. (Also known as “Writing Time.”) The oddest thing about the process is not having an audience. Well, writing is like that too, but recording a podcast is even stranger, at least for me.

After I released Episode 1, I got some wonderful feedback, including some very warm comments from some longtime friends of the Jacke blog. And now this! To think that someone stopped what they were doing to listen – well, readers, I hate to admit this, but it got a little dusty in Jacke’s world today. You have to remember how many years I spent basically writing for no audience other than a few friends and family. I’ve talked about this before; it’s not something I need to go into again, other than to say how THANKFUL I am for each and every listener, reader, commenter, emailer, and generally receptive human being.

The world is a little less lonely, the sense of community feels a little stronger today. Thank you!

You can listen to the Beatles, philosophers, prehistoric fish, and all the other epiphanies here:

Download the mp3 file: The Jacke Wilson Show 1.2 – Perception and the Mind

You can also download The Jacke Wilson Show 1.1 – the Halloween Episode or listen to it here:

PS: When I thought about the last time I gushed with appreciation over a reader’s comment, I thought to myself, “Well, it’s been about a year since I did that, so it’s probably okay to do it again.” Then I found the link and realized it was LAST MONTH. Stay with me, people! I’m not always so sentimental!

It’s The Jacke Wilson Show! Episode 2 – The Mind

~ jackewilson ~ 5 Comments

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Here we go! Episode 2 of THE JACKE WILSON SHOW is up and running. This is a fun one: the Beatles, philosophers, prehistoric fish and Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch. A few Tibetan rainbows for good measure. And lots more!

Download the mp3 file: The Jacke Wilson Show 1.2 – Perception and the Mind

Getting better, I hope! You can also download The Jacke Wilson Show 1.1 – the Halloween Episode or listen to it here:

Let me know what you think! Thank you for listening!

Show Notes:

It’s the JACKE WILSON SHOW!

Episode 2: The Mind. The Beatles, the clinical effects of Descartes, Kant, and Nietzsche, philosophy and psych experiments at the University of Chicago, the rainbows of Tibet, holy spirits of all kinds, Tetris Zombies, and Jacke Wilson Object #20 (The Sign).

JACKE WILSON is the pen name of a writer whose books have been described as being “full of intrigue and expertly rendered deadpan comedy.” Born in Wisconsin, Jacke has since lived in Chicago, Bologna, Taiwan, Ann Arbor, Seattle, Mountain View, and New York City. Jacke now lives and works in the Washington D.C. area. Like his writings, the JACKE WILSON SHOW takes an affectionate look at the absurdities in literature, art, philosophy, great books, poetry, current events, hard news, politics, whatever passes for civilization these days, and the human condition (that dying animal). For more about Jacke and his books, visit Jacke at jackewilson.com.

Credits:

 

A History of Jacke in 100 Objects #19: My Roommate’s Books

~ jackewilson ~ 20 Comments

My roommate arrived before I did; I met his stuff before I met him.

Meeting his stuff first was fine with me, because the truth was that I was a little afraid of him. Wilfred Carter Boiteaux III. From New Orleans. Or maybe of New Orleans? I had not known anyone with a name like that before.

A month earlier we had spoken on the phone. I had expected Thurston Howell but he didn’t sound quite like that. He sounded like a decent guy who would make a good roommate. If anything he sounded as anxious and nervous as me.

And now, as I gazed at his stuff, I saw nothing to concern me. Nothing violent or bizarre; no gaudy signs of wealth. A suitcase, unopened, stood in his closet. A small black-and-white television sat on the corner of the desk, next to the folder of orientation materials we’d received in the mail. On the top of the folder was the yellow sheet with the room assignments, just like the one I had, only in the blank for roommate, his sheet would have my name instead of his own.

Jacke Wilson from Cadbridge, Wisconsin. Just how disappointed had he been to see that?

Well, what could I do about it now? Maybe I’d grow on him.

Then I looked up and noticed something else: his bookshelf. It was completely full.
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Killer Poetry

~ jackewilson ~ Leave a comment

We’ve had killer fiction on our radar screen for a while. Now here comes the tragic tale of… killer poetry!

A former teacher was detained in Russia’s Urals after being accused of stabbing an acquaintance to death in a dispute about literary genres, investigators said Wednesday.

The 67-year-old victim insisted that “the only real literature is prose,” the Sverdlovsk Region’s branch of the Investigative Committee said.

The victim’s assertion outraged the 53-year-old suspect, who favored poetry, and the dispute ended with the ex-teacher stabbing his friend to death, investigators said.

Ridiculous! I cannot imagine any circumstance in which arguing over the world of ideas can possibly be… wait, what?

This is not the first time high-brow disputes have led to bloodshed in Russia. In September, a man was shot in a line for beer in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don after enraging a fellow beer drinker with his views about the work of Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant.

I stand corrected. Kant – that’s different! Fellow beer drinkers be warned: Don’t mess with my views of Immanuel Kant!