Episode 59: Green Mountains Are Always Walking

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around a lake." This line from Wallace Stevens' "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" captures something of the mysteries of walking. It points to the undeniable yet baffling relationship between walking and thinking, between putting one foot in front of the other and uncovering the secret of the soul and world. In this episode, JF and Phil exchange ideas about the weirdness of this thing most humans did on most days for most of world history. The conversation ranges over a vast territory, with zen monks, novelists, Jesuits and more joining your hosts on what turns out to be a journey to wondrous places. Header image by Beatrice, Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES Dogen, The Mountains and Waters Sutra Weird Studies listener Stephanie Quick on the Conspirinormal podcast Weird Studies episode 51, Blind Seers: On Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood' Lionel Snell, SSOTBME Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" Arthur Machen, "The White People" Herman Melville, Moby Dick Vladimir Horowitz, Russian panist Gregory Bateson, cybernetic theorist The myth of the Giant Antaeus Wallce Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" Deleuze, Difference and Repetition Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life John Cowper Powys, English novelist Will Self, English writer Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait” Paul Thomas Anderson (director), Punch Drunk Love Viktor Shklovsky, Russian formalist Patreon blog post on Phil’s dream David Lynch (director), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me