Episodes
Not All Propaganda is Art 8: Signature Acoustique
Not All Propaganda is Art 8: Signature Acoustique Richard Wright died from a mysterious illness on November 28th, 1960. Or was he murdered? Tune in for a new listen...
Not All Propaganda is Art 7: Manufacturing Dissent
Not All Propaganda is Art 7: Manufacturing Dissent In 1959, Anti-Americanism surged in the UK. England seethed over America’s treatment of its Prime Minister who was smacked down for...
Not All Propaganda is Art 6: The Kitsch Debate
Not All Propaganda is Art 6: The Kitsch Debate In the summer of 1959, Nixon and Khrushchev argued over a washing machine in a backstage kitchen in Moscow, while...
Not All Propaganda is Art 5: The Play’s the Thing
Not All Propaganda is Art 5: The Play’s the Thing In the fall of 1958, Kenneth Tynan moved from London to New York and upon arrival, clashed with Hollywood...
Not All Propaganda is Art 4: Propagande Noire
Not All Propaganda is Art 4: Propagande Noire In 1956, Richard Wright spoke of islands of free men at the first Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris....
Not All Propaganda is Art 3: The Man Who Was Thursday’s Children
Not All Propaganda is Art 3: The Man Who Was Thursday’s Children In 1956 London Theater critic Kenneth Tynan helped launch a youth movement committed to exposing social and...
Not All Propaganda is Art 2: Outsider Influence
Not All Propaganda is Art 2: Outsider Influence In 1956, New Yorker writer Dwight Macdonald joined Encounter, a magazine secretly backed by American and British security agencies. He arrived...
Not All Propaganda is Art 1: Operation Younger Brother
Not All Propaganda is Art 1: Operation Younger Brother Introducing a new ToE series Not All Propaganda is Art In the 1950s the CIA weaponized culture to capture hearts...
Wrong Way with Joanne McNeil
Wrong Way with Joanne McNeil One of my favorite technology critics has just published a novel about Self Driving Cars (or fake Self Driving Cars). We talk about her...
The Hank Show (when computers are right)
The Hank Show (when computers are right) Today we live inside data systems that contain, surveil, and judge us. In his new book, the Hank Show, author and journalist...
Outsider Studies: Connie Converse
Outsider Studies: Connie Converse The life of musician Connie Converse easily reduces down to one of those Hemingway length sad stories: Before Dylan there was Connie Converse and then...
Lives of the Wives
Lives of the Wives (with Carmela Ciuraru) Some books have titles that jump out right out at you, Carmela Ciuraru’s new group biography Lives of the Wives is definitely one...
Too good to be true
Too good to be True Two very different tales about making stuff up about the CIA. Your host shares the story of Sylvia Press, who in the 1950s, wrote a...
Not going back to normal (a conversation with Jeremiah Moss author of Feral City)
Not going back to normal (a conversation with Jeremiah Moss author of Feral City) Jeremiah Moss’s Feral City is much much more than a Covid memoir. In many ways...
Risky Business: Hollywood and Israel
Risky Business: Hollywood and Israel In their new book Hollywood and Israel, film scholars Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman take us behind and beyond the screen to show how...
Trouble and Travel with James Campbell
Trouble and Travel with James Campbell Growing up in Glasgow in the 1960s James Campbell got into loads of trouble. At the age of 15 he left school and...
Second time as forced
Second time as forced Citizens armed only with Molotov cocktails battle with Russian tanks on the streets of… Budapest. In November of 1956 Russian troops invaded Hungary. The revolution...
How to tell the truth about lies (part ii of ii)
How to tell the truth about lies (part ii of ii) We conclude our investigation into Hollywood’s retelling of the secret crimes, conspiracies and lies that rocked America in...
Making Trouble, Asking Questions
Making Trouble, Asking Questions When he was 16 your host mistook the Hollywood movie The Manchurian Candidate for real life. This confusion led to decades of trouble. This episode...
How to tell the truth about lies (part i of ii)
How to tell the truth about lies (part i of ii) Journalists may write the first draft of history but Hollywood prints the legends and the myths. The 1976...
Nightvision
Nightvision After testing positive in Lisbon, your host assesses Portugal’s expat and exile scenes. Plus! lunch with the writer Joseph Roth at a hotel on the waterfront.
Herdest Immunity Special (New York after Rona part v of v)
Herdest Immunity (New York after Rona part v of v) Our New York after Rona miniseries comes to an end just in time for the latest Variant. The WHO...
Not All Propaganda is Art 9: Freedom or Death
Not All Propaganda is Art 9: Freedom or Death ToE’s Cultural Cold War miniseries concludes with three stories about containment and death. Richard Wright delivers his final lecture on...