First, apologies for missing a week. Producing these takes a lot of work and I needed I week off. - Jim Our guest this week is Balazs Szelenyi, Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University. From his university bio: Balazs Szelenyi received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1998 and teaches...

Peter Mulvey joins the pod in person, sitting side by side with Jim in the Slabmedia offices this week. We talk about his career in songwriting, hitting a little on themes and methods, but also on inspiration, and a long history of work. Jim mentions Peter's TED talk about his book Vlad the...

Ben Soto joins the pod to talk about The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life which is an extensive conversation between Matthieu Ricard and his father Jean-François Revel. Ben found this book particularly fascinating, given his interest in Buddhism, science, and...