Minisode 24: Jaws
1 Oct
Tag Archives: mtol
Crystal Blue Redemption, by Travis Fishburn
28 Sep
On Sunday, Breaking Bad comes to an end. The popular theory is that the series finale of the show will also mark the end of Walter White. With the flash forward teases that we’ve seen, it looks like Walt is going to be making a grand last stand in the tradition of Scarface and The Wild Bunch. I have no doubt that we will walk away from the show with a sense of closure, but I think that most people are more interested in emotional satisfaction. If Breaking Bad‘s history is any indicator, I think we’re in for a very visceral and polarizing climax. I think that each individual’s feelings about the conclusion will be heavily informed by their personal opinion of Walter White.
“Top” Ten, by Jim Rohner
25 Sep
There’s something inherently and immediately enjoyable about lists. People are more inclined to spend the time to read a list with its easily digestible bites than they are an article with its in-depth eloquence and deliberate structure. While lists of the Top Ten Best This’s or Top Ten Worst That’s may have once been considered novelties or reserved for special occasions on websites in the past, internet lists are so often read that there are now entire websites dedicated to making lists. So, when Tyler asked the MTOL contributors if anyone wanted to tackle a Top Ten list inspired by his and Josh’s current stretch of minisodes, I jumped at the chance. But almost as soon as I agreed to write it, I began to wonder if I was capable of writing a worthwhile list.
Minisode 23: Red
24 Sep
Episode 87 transcription
22 Sep
Our friends over at rev.com- a transcription service company- have taken the liberty of transcribing episode 87 of the podcast, in which we discussed Ryan Murphy’s Eat Pray Love. If you’re interested, you can read the full transcription after the jump.
The Eyehole, by Robert Hornak
12 Sep
In Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Slaughterhouse-5, the Trafalmadorians have abducted Billy Pilgrim and put him in a glass-domed cage on their planet, on display like a zoo animal. Trafalmadorians do not live in the now, they live on their entire timeline at the same time. A being that is dead is dead only from a certain point on, but he is alive at all points before that, so not really ever dead. Trafalmadorians do not understand Billy’s ultra-limited way of thinking about time. When I read the following description for the first time years ago, I felt I had a perfect analogy to help me understand the difference between the way God sees time and the way I see time:
There was a lot that Billy said that was gibberish to the Trafalmadorians. They couldn’t imagine what time looked like to him. Billy had given up on explaining that. The guide outside had to explain as best he could.
The guide invited the crowd to imagine that they were looking across a desert at a mountain range on a day that was twinkling bright and clear. They could look at a peak, or a bird, or a cloud, at a stone right in front of them, or even down into a canyon behind them. But among them was this poor Earthling, and his head was encased in a steel sphere which he could never take off. There was only one eyehole through which he could look, and welded to that eyehole were six feet of pipe.
This was only the beginning of Billy’s miseries in the metaphor. He was also strapped to a steel lattice which was bolted to a flatcar on rails, and there was no way he could turn his head or touch the pipe. The far end of the pipe rested on a bi-pod which was also bolted to the flatcar. All Billy could see was the little dot at the end of the pipe. He didn’t know he was on a flatcar, didn’t even know there was anything peculiar about his situation.
The flatcar sometimes crept, sometimes went extremely fast, often stopped – went uphill, downhill, around curves, along straightaways. Whatever poor Billy saw through the pipe, he had no choice but to say to himself, “That’s life.”
Minisode 21: Annie Hall
11 Aug
