There's a new channel for hot audio content from The Relentless Picnic. It's on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/relentlesspicnic Our episodes will still be released for free, and in the same way as always. But, as a Patron, you'll receive weekly "treats" from us, delivered to you via the Patreon. Among the "treats" you might expect from us each week are: ▪️ interviews, conversations, and informal chats with intriguing guests ▪️ question & answer sessions where the Picnic responds to...

Inspired by an O.G. paragon of male toxicity — Odysseus — this week we confront the meaning of our obligations, the phenomenon of gaslighting, and a certain typified masculinity near-feral in its ineptitude and shimmering in its self-denial. All in the space of a Homeric reverie. Special thanks to Sir Ian McKellan. SOURCES: Homer, The Odyssey, 12.30-200; 23.231-288 (tr. Fagles, read by Sir Ian) ; "Some Clinical Consequences of Introjection: Gaslighting" by Victor Calef, M.D. & Edward M....

The medium is our message. We sleuth out data points along the demographic trendlines, and follow them straight towards the beating, gray heart of TV―and beyond. How does it all end? We jump off the edge and file dispatches from the abyss. SOURCES: "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction," by David F. Wallace (Review of Contemporary Fiction 13:2, Summer 1993); _Network_, by Paddy Chayefsky, dir. Sidney Lumet (1976). _Within the Context of No Context_, by George W. S. Trow (Atlantic...

We hit the pavement to grapple directly with the National Park Service's Flight 93 National Memorial, and with 9/11. An album of photographs to aid your listening experience: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4zgYqd SOURCES: - Flight 93 National Memorial, NPS Brochure: http://bit.ly/2hbF1g7 - Timeline for United 93: http://n.pr/2hcDZg4 ; - Flight 93 National Memorial Cell Phone Tour: http://bit.ly/2fgXSWh ; - Memorial Committee Jury Report: http://bit.ly/2x9LnD0 ; - Environmental Impact Report:...

Lose yourself in the wild-eyed fearsome shadow of totality. Come see what hippies the Moon made of our steely-eyed missile men. Plus—Elon Musk trips over his own simulated shoelaces, and the Moon Matrix is fully decoded. Join us, but only if you've got the right glasses. SOURCES: Quora queries: https://www.quora.com/topic/Elon-Musk Elon Musk speaks with Walter Isaacson at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit: https://youtu.be/fPsHN1KyRQ8 ; "Elon Musk: The Chance We Are Not Living In a...

This week from our special plans department, Leo Strauss: a guide for the perplexed. Politics, both ancient and modern; the allure of elite cabals; a whiskey spill Rorschach test; polemics, hermeneutics, and sex in the stacks. Plus—Iraq, intelligence, independence, and other declarations of the great atheist priest: Text. WORKS CITED: Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire (Yale University Press, 2004), by Anne Norton; The Enduring Importance of Leo Strauss (University of Chicago...

We're trying to get at the allure of permanent consequences, the moral underpinnings of hitchhiking, and the secret greenhouses of your text-based relationships. Whither goest thou, America? And can you get us there before bed, we have to be up early? LINKS/SOURCES: a relationship beset by far-left podcasts: https://twitter.com/yungneocon/status/877017208161009664 ; "The End of the Open Road: The Inside Story of How Hitchhiking Died," by Molly Osberg (May '15): http://bit.ly/1E2bL9f ; "The...

Chaos reigns! The Relentless Picnic emerges victorious after the heinous destruction of our National Caverns! Justly! Jurassic Park, )))Ace of Base(((, Future Trump Scandals, Groundhog Day, and yet more dredging at the limit of human intelligence.

Like the man said: We're chained to the earth like a silent slave; trying to break free out of death's dark cave. Bones in South Africa, hoarding in New York City, and finally, a dispatch from our friend Matt Tice as he takes heavy fire, and glimpses reinforcement, on the front line of life. - "Geological and taphonomic context for the new hominin species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa." (Sept. '15): https://elifesciences.org/articles/09561 ; - Map of the Dinaledi...

We want you to hear our rollicking satire of venture capitalists, which involves lots of loose talk about cat masturbation. Here's how to hear it: 1) Leave us a rating/review on iTunes. Be real with us. We can take it. 2) Screengrab that ish. 3) Either a) e-mail that screenshotted review to [email protected], or b) DM that screenshotted review to @stanleypicnic on Twitter. Then, we'll send you either a direct download link or an mp3 attachment, featuring the sketch we lovingly...

Our three-man justice team takes on red ball after red ball: our books, our selves, and our bookshelves; words in the wild; words on screens; mysteries & heresies. Plus—blah blah blah Robert Frost!

Can computers learn & are Redditors ever right? We do some psychologizing of the modern American cornered by the paranormal. Plus. Are you there, Dad? It's me, Science! Thanks to the bold redditors who shared their stories: u/Parrot-Tamer, u/desk_jockey26, u/[deleted], u/brennnnz, u/TheThirdWheel, u/matics, u/khaustic, u/Squirly, u/[deleted], & u/americanslang59. "Alien Knowledge: When Machines Justify Knowledge," by David Weinberger (Apr. '17): http://bit.ly/2oTH6Pv ; 2008 San...

This week, we try and wrap our heads around money via several parables and case studies. We inquire after the history of the gold standard in America, the implications of certain prison economies, and the predicament of the penny. Plus—who'd Andie MacDowell marry, and what ended the marriage life? SOURCES: - MarriedWiki: http://bit.ly/2oJzOuB & http://bit.ly/2p2eZgv; - "Gold and Economic Freedom" by Alan Greenspan (1966): http://bit.ly/1kBtoGq [don't visit this cursèd site]; -...

Getting' head during laser tag this week. The film Silence, state violence; great 90's dance pop, old-timey newsmen; planes and doctors, & incipient global war—plainly doctored. Plus: guess who's coming to Seder? - "Capitalism Is Violence" (4/12/17), by Matt Bruenig in Jacobin: http://bit.ly/2opZVFY

Let's move past the gollys and gee-whizzes from nominee Neil Gorsuch with some newly obtained recordings. Plus: we take confused tween investigator Devin Nunes to task for his tricky tick-tock; & why members of a certain angry caucus aren't enjoying their House freedom. - "Comey’s testimony humiliates Trump," by Jennifer Rubin (WaPo, 3/20): http://wapo.st/2mlmbVt ; - "Devin Nunes Vanished the Night Before He Made Trump Surveillance Claims," by Tim Mak (Daily Beast, 3/24):...

We sit down with Frank Luntz, a man on a mission to civilize. His newest book is called "The Lonely Win: Longing for Death in a Buyer's Market." Plus—why America should just surrender and accept the permanent financial aristocracy. Op. Cit. - "The Agony of Frank Luntz," by Molly Ball in The Atlantic (Jan. '14): http://theatln.tc/2nwAxys - "Cheering Up Frank Luntz, and Ourselves," by Jim Geraghty in the National Review Online (Jan. '14): http://bit.ly/2mmAWDh. Media 1. Interview, Real Time...

Despite wafting our fans we still get the vapours during Jeff Sessions's recusal announcement. Plus: we plunge the dipstick into thinkovator Jeff Jarvis & Blort seeks someone to take them post-business. "Here's a blueprint for radical innovation in journalism education," Jeff Jarvis (Sept. 2012): http://bit.ly/2mV2PTJ

Art as the material excrement produced when you self-transcend, selling your self in a buyer's market, 10,001 strategies for leveraging your friendship with a reclusive poet. - “The Culture of Celebrity,” Joseph Epstein (Oct. 2005): http://tws.io/2l86EaU - “Jean Cocteau, The Art of Fiction No. 34.” Interview by Joseph Fifield (1964): http://bit.ly/2m38bOV - “What Is Art?” by Leo Tolstoy (1897): http://bit.ly/2mGLZXU - “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka (1922; tr. Ian Johnston, 2009):...

A free-form, Saul-into-Paul hour-long lightning round. With a white-knuckle tour of Mark Zuckerberg's babyteaching, shirtshooting, A.I.-in-the-home. Plus: a deep scan of Paul Ryan's cowardice and a meditation on the Court's Snuggie addict supreme, Sam Alito.

We take a freedive into American culture's most unlikely and prophetic artefact. No supplemental oxygen allowed. First in a series.

Her♂es gather to hammer out the discourse-swords and talk about their feelings. Remember to order meatballs at Papa John's to contact your congressperson.

The definitive moral posture re: punching Nazis. Plus, we examine fact-chefs Conway and Spicer, expose their snake hearts and x-ray their snake hearts to see whose snake heart beats with greater fidelity to the party anthem. - "What happens when you tie your career to Donald Trump? Ask Sean Spicer in a few months." (This is an actual WaPo headline from a few months ago): http://wpo.st/FOtT2

We send three virtual humans to the Consumer Electronics Show to sample the gadgets of the destructor class. - "To save books, librarians create fake 'reader' to check out titles" (Dec. '16): http://bit.ly/2iB2Dtr

Battling the swarm of political messaging, a quick zip into the abyss with Vladislav Surkov, and bets are placed on the shape of the new American fascism. - "Without Sky" by "Natan Dubovitsky" (trans. Bill Bowler): http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue582/without_sky.html

Are we rooting for a plutocratic coup d'etat? Plus— the futility of generation labels, Game of Thrones as the deadest political metaphor, and the flagrant violation of US Fish and Wildlife regulations inside Aaron Sorkin's pants.