Andrew Callaway

The Great Divide

December 20, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:25:38 0 Comments

The Great Divide

Man on the street divides couple in a car. Your host is triggered by a flag pole and writer Chris Arnade explains why America is polarized. PLUS Joseph Roth on the difference between great and mediocre talents.

Make your mark. The 2019 Radiotopia Fundraiser is in full swing! Go to radiotopia.fm to donate today.

On the End of the World

In which your host is deeply disturbed by his neighbor’s bigass flag and Joseph Roth offers some insight into how to work in this environment.

Dignity

Chris Arnade spent 7 years driving around an America he believes is divided into the front row and the back row.

ToE 2019 Radiotopia Fundraiser Spectacular!

December 18, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:25:38 0 Comments

ToE 2019 Radiotopia Fundraiser Spectacular!

Every Radiotopia podcast created a special episode for the 2019 Fundraiser. Many of these gems focus on the idea of a dream show as in what would your dream show be? well I am already making my dream show and that is thanks to you dear listener.  Yes, sometimes there are sponsors but the majority of the support for this podcast comes from listeners who donate to the Radiotopia annual fundraiser. In fact it is thanks to you that I have the freedom to say no to particular brands and products who would like to connect with you. So for our special episode we dive into the rejected sponsor pile – hear the best of the worst! **

Make your mark. Go to radiotopia.fm to donate today.

Make your mark. The 2019 Radiotopia Fundraiser is in full swing! Go to radiotopia.fm to donate today.

wake up and smell the coffee

December 4, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:25:38 5 Comments

Wake up and smell the coffee!

Your host follows a great cup of coffee from Paris, to Copenhagen and Kenya

Make your mark. The 2019 Radiotopia Fundraiser is in full swing! Go to radiotopia.fm to donate today.

Dreamin' Man

Your host’s coffee education begins in Paris where he has an amazing cup of light-roasted Kenyan filter coffee at Dreamin’ Man.

April

That amazing cup of coffee was roasted by the award-winning boutique operation April Coffee in Copenhagen.

In Kenya

April like everyone who buys Kenyan beans, has to go through the Nairobi Coffee Exchange. Your host then took a trip to the Murangi region to talk to some farmers.

Roasting at Origin

There aren’t a lot of companies roasting where the coffee farms are, but your host found one in Kenya – African Coffee Roasters. They’re a trying to show the world that it’s possible to roast at origin.

Coffee Collective

Is the specialty coffee sector too small to make a difference?

Coffee Collective‘s Klaus Thompson says no. He also explains why these light-roasted coffees are so delicious — and valuable.

I received some production support for this episode from a project out of the London School of Economics called A Tale of Two Valleys that is looking at Kenya’s rift valley and California’s central valley special thanks to everyone involved especially Laura Mann and Gianluca Iazzolino

Guided By Voices (r)

November 14, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:32:03 1 Comment

Guided By Voices (r)

Philosopher Daniel Heller-Roazen tells us the story of Pythagoras and the fifth hammer and how Kant and Kepler both tried (and failed) to record the universal harmonies Pythagoras once heard. Your host sets out to make some money doing experimental medical testing, and gets the chance to record the voice in his head.toe20image

Deep State revisited

October 24, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:25:38 1 Comment

Deep State Revisited

On this episode we dig down into the substratum of the ToE archive to better understand the true meaniong of Deep State.

More Adventures in Surveillance

we’re playing some favorites from our More Adventures In Surveillance series this week from the episodes Useful Idiots and Nothing to Hide.

Going Karura

October 10, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:25:38 5 Comments

Going Karura

While reporting in Nairobi, Kenya a group of striking Uber drivers turn your host on to a revolutionary strategy of resistance. Plus: stuck in a broken elevator!

Uber Strike in Kenya

in which your host makes friends with the striking uber drivers, struggles to get around kenya and find the mau mau cave.

The boy who cried wolf

September 24, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:25:38 2 Comments

The boy who cried wolf

The boy who cried wolf crosses paths with the Emperor with no clothes and little red riding hood. Plus: Computer Pinocchio.

Faerie Tales

The real fake versions of the stories you thought you knew.

False Alarm!

Check out the original versions of these stories scattered across 15 episodes of our mega-series, False Alarm!

Epstein’s funeral

September 12, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:25:38 1 Comment

Epstein's funeral

A million conspiracy theories are launched when Jeffrey Epstein is found dead in his jail cell on August 10th 2019. Your host wonders if this is “the big one.” ToE’s special correspondent Chris attends a secret Coney Island funeral.

PLUS: Epstein Brain.

The Big Tent Conspiracy Theory

Your host’s essay for the MIT Media Lab journal’s Unreal issue was released at a kind of bad time.

Epstein brain

When you have epstein brain, you can see allllllllllll the connections.

Epstein's funeral

ToE’s Chris attends a secret funeral on the coney island boardwalk and learns about when Jeffrey Epstein crossed paths with the Trumps in 1966!

That's Fred Trump himself with the axe

1984 (the BOOK not the year)

August 20, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 00:25:38 1 Comment

1984 (the BOOK not the year)

Your host has always wanted to talk to someone about 1984 the book and Dorian Lynskey totally delivers. He just published The Ministry of Truth a biography George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. Dorian tells us why and how this book has helped generations of readers to decode the world.

Don’t forget to check out your host’s 1984 (the year not the book) episode.

Ministry of Truth

Dorian’s Ministry of Truth is one of the best non-fiction books i’ve read in a long time… and i’m not just saying that cause i’m obsessed with 1984.

1984 (the year not the book) r

August 20, 2019 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything 01:03:39 2 Comments

1984 (the year not the book)

In 1984 your host was twelve years old and like George Orwell’s protagonist Winston Smith, he kept a diary, for the citizens of the future. For this special installment of Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything we travel back in time and give this diary a soundtrack. TV commercials, radio spots, movie clips – all sound from 1984 (the year, not the book). Find out what totalitarianism really sounds like.

Plus check out this short piece on my 1984 “where’s the beef” record collection for Hilobrow’s Political Objects series.

Today is January 1st, 1984.

I got up early to watch a show on PBS. The show was called Good Morning, Mr. Orwell — but it was very confusing…

I have no idea what these people were trying to say.

Later in the afternoon I watched a special by Walter Cronkite — this was more what I was looking for. He explained how there are lots of ways in which we are already living in 1984.

I have decided to keep a diary, like Winston Smith did in Orwell’s novel. Only my diary is going to come with a soundtrack. Using my tape recorder I am going to collect sounds from the TV, movies people’s home recordings, music.

I am doing this for the citizens of the future, so that they will know the truth — so they will know that it is possible to live in a totalitarian society and not even know it.

My teacher says I am nuts to compare our world with George Orwell’s, but this diary will prove people like her wrong.

January 12th, 1984

Today is my birthday, I am 12 years old.

Josh, Mike and I went to Burger King and we went up to the counter and got our orders and then I shouted out “Where’s the beef?!” but no-one got the joke!! Don’t they see why this woman is so awesome???

That lady from the Wendy’s commercial is like the embodiment of our collective fatigue with bullshit. She’s demanding the truth for all of us.

I think I’m in love!

January 31st, 1984

If we were living in Oceania, Ronald Reagan’s new reelection commercial would be playing on a loop on the giant telescreens in Victory Square. I’ve seen it three times already! The message of these Morning in America ads is clear: it is not enough to obey Big Brother, we must love him! 

But this morning Ronald Reagan was on Good Morning America- it was 2min of hate!

March 8, 1984

It turns out I’m not the only person who is in love with the where’s the beef lady. Her name is Clara Peller and she’s become super famous.

 

While it’s great to see her get all this attention, it kinda bothers me that a-holes like Ryan, this dick in my class, like her too. His dad, who’s a cop, picked him up after school the other day in his cop car and he went “Where’s the Beef” over the loudspeaker when we walked out of the building. Then they both shouted where’s the beef at each other like it was their own private joke — I almost puked!! I considered disavowing all of my allegiances to this lady.

But then, this morning I saw her on the TV. She was on the Today show with the guy who made her commercial.

I think “Where’s the beef” is not an advertising slogan or a catch phrase, it is a revolutionary war cry!

Shouting where’s the beef is like saying I refuse to accept the fake — I demand the real!

Clara Peller is like one of those secret freedom fighters Philip K. Dick talks about in his VALISSYSTEM book — something I read about in the Philip K. Dick Society Newsletter — he wrote:

I sensed the Empire without seeing it, sensed a vast iron prison in which human slaves toiled. And I saw as if superimposed on the black metal walls of this huge prison certain rapidly scurrying figures in gray robes: enemies of the Empire and its tyranny, a remnant opposed to it.

I’m certain that if Philip K. Dick was still alive he would recognize that Clara Peller is one of those enemies of the Black Iron Prison.

Clara Peller is proof that in our 1984 the resistance is real!

August 12th, 1984

I’m seeing VCRs and video cameras everywhere — its like overnight there was a video invasion.

 

In our 1984 there might not be that many hidden cameras, but that doesn’t mean George Orwell is wrong. Big Brother doesn’t have to record us, we are doing it for him.

There are even TV shows now where the whole point is to get people to send in their own recordings!

This weekend Josh, Mike and I tried to make a video for one of these shows — a new comedy series on NBC called the homemade comedy special. It was a total disaster. I think the problem that we each have our own definition of what comedy is.

My idea was clearly superior, it was a sci-fi author dystopia Olympic competition. We would each portray famous sci-fi writers and describe a nightmare dystopia and the joke would be that the winner — me — would describe our actual world, which would scare all the judges into giving me a perfect ten.

But we didn’t film anything. We spent the entire day fighting.

 

August 22nd, 1984

I saw something tonight that I am sure will haunt me for the rest of my life.

"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"

I was watching the Republican convention on TV with my mom. Nancy Reagan was giving a speech, and then all of a sudden Ronald Reagan appeared on the giant screen behind her. They must have set up a two way camera system in his hotel room, because he could see her and he started waving — and she then she turned around and started waving back… and the crowd screamed and roared like they were still at the olympics. 

You know, this is gonna sound a little weird, but i swear i could hear the voice of O’Brien — coming from somewhere in that coliseum. “How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?” he croaked, as Reagan’s hand flopped up and down on the giant telescreen. 

It’s been kind of fun playing detective — searching for hidden clues about the Orwellian nature of our world. but tonight I realized that nothing is actually hidden — its all right there — in the open.. and it kinda freaks me out. 

I’m worried. If Ronald Reagan wins we might end up living in 1984 forever!

November 6th, 1984

This is one of the worst nights of my life. Ronald Reagan just got re-elected, and it wasn’t even close.

Looking at that red map I really do feel like a minority of one.

December 31, 1984

Dear Citizen of the future,

I hope wherever you are in the future — that this diary will be of use to you.

I sure hope you are not living in the Black Iron Prison, but if you are I hope you have a really cool reality distortion field that makes your life bearable.

Perhaps you’ve succeeded in burning the Black Iron Prison down?

Perhaps in the future it’s totalitarianism that gets stamped out, and the only boot — is the one you hear, before the face on your screen lights up.