Background Radiation

So, it's a lot tighter on content and scope than usual, but customarily just as loose in argument. I love all the things I spoke about a lot. Since I imagine that most people read descriptions after they've watched, here's a list of things that almost made it out of the doc: more modem chat, sprawling fifteen minutes on Joy Division's Transmission, layman's history of broadcast technology, chat about the Medieval concept of the Book of Nature, chat about the Pleroma and Plotinus and the idea of all the world as an emanation of a single source. Aren't you happy that didn't happen? If you're not, quickly wipe away your tears, because those arguments will find homes elsewhere. This is a much quicker turnaround than the last few videos - primarily because, after the sort of fifty-book slogfest of the last one on Rome, I suddenly found myself doing the most mindless work of all time, Exam Invigilation, and was still sort of in an essay-production headspace. I'm doing easily 10k in silent, plodding laps around South Manchester's sports halls. Works Cited Auden, W. H. "Their Lonely Betters." Collected Poems, edited by Edward Mendelson, Random House, 1976. Heaney, Joe. "Rocks of Bawn." Sad Songs of Life, Smithsonian Folkways, 1989. Keats, John. "Ode to a Nightingale." Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, Taylor and Hessey, 1820. Messiaen, Olivier. Quartet for the End of Time. Performed by various ensembles. 1941. Molina, Jason. "Almost Was Good Enough." Songs: Ohia, Secretly Canadian, 1997. ---. "Blue Chicago Moon." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "Blue Factory Flame." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "Didn't It Rain." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "Farewell Transmission." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "Hold On Magnolia." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "I've Been Riding with the Ghost." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "Old Black Hen." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "The Big Game is Every Night." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "The Lioness." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "Two Blue Lights." Magnolia Electric Co., Secretly Canadian, 2003. ---. "Whip-Poor-Will." Ghost Tropic, Secretly Canadian, 2005. Oldham, Will. "The Brute Choir." Jarboe, Drag City, 2007. Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by various scholars, Original text circa 8 CE. Shakespeare, William. The Madness of Sweeney [Buile Shuibne]. Translated by J. G. O'Keeffe, Irish Texts Society, 1913. Williams, Hank. "I'm So Lonesome I Could Die." MGM Records, 1949. Yeats, William Butler. "The Wild Swans at Coole." The Wild Swans at Coole, Cuala Press, 1917 Probably a few more in the onscreen notes...