157 - Phil Ford on Taboo: Time and Belief in Exotica

FUTURE FOSSILS

This week I’m honored to speak with musicologist Phil Ford, co-host of Weird Studies, on a voyage that takes us from elevator muzak to aquarian cults to Disneyland to the future of magical warfare. We discuss what it means to be (or want to be) “primitives of an unknown culture,” the staging of nature, what happens when your aesthetic commitments become your reality commitments, ontological anarchy, and The Super Mario Bros Movie’s influence on the 2016 presidential election. Keep your ears peeled for deep cuts on Fight Club, the Alt-Right, Les Baxter, William Irwin Thompson, Jurassic Park, and Burning Man…

Read Phil’s essay, “Taboo: Time and Belief in Exotica.” And while you’re at it, read my comments on his essay about Time Binding & Music History on The Long Now Blog.

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Even though we didn’t watch them until later, there must be time loops flowing back into this conversation from both the documentary Feels Good Man and the satire Sassy Justice. Go watch them both immediately and you’ll know what I mean.

For more, check out my appearance on Weird Studies 26 and Phil’s appearance on Future Fossils 126. And then read more about why things keep turning into crabs at Boing Boing and in the Future Fossils Facebook Group (1, 2).

Intro and outro music is from Skytree’s new LP of spacey downtempo electronica, Infraplanetary.

Cover art sourced from the uncannily appropriate less-real.com/images/21162.

Enjoy, and thanks for listening!

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