Murmur 76 : Guy Maddin "The Stupidest Man At Harvard (In Praise of Beloved Aunt Li'l)"

SUBJECT : TEACHING FILM

A subject uniquely-near to us.  Can film be taught?  Yes.  Should film be taught?  That's up to the instructor.  An instructor we'd never let down is filmmaker Guy Maddin who has made teaching a subtle advocation for the past several years.  The film students at Harvard were exposed to this genius artist, begging the questions -- do advanced degrees make the film teacher?  Is teaching an art?  And what are film students truly signing on for when they study a craft and history that's concise and finite-enough to learn autodidactically?  In the hands of Professor Maddin, learning film is merely an excuse to go to class.

Murmur 75 : José González "They Choose Where We Live"

SUBJECT : ARTIST AS NEW PARENT

Singer/songwriter/musician José González provides us an exclusive, beyond-rare opportunity to share his (and Mom's) navigation of the early months, hours, days, and seconds of their baby Laura's life.  Do artist/parents read "how-to" books or are they uniquely intuitive?  To wit, does parenting make artists of us all, or fools?  It's also humbling which decisions are made pre-birth, pre-sound, pre-geography, pre-art.  Laura, naturally, will have the final say.

Murmur 74 : Efrim Menuck "A Gift That Grows Quickly"

SUBJECT : FAITH In all forms.  Secular, religious; man-made and ephemeral.  What gets you out of bed, everyday?  Efrim Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mount Zion) reviews his own journey in-and-out-of Faith.  Totems useful and elusive.  Is religious-faith the only kind possess-able?  In the absence of faith is meaning even possible?  And, are artists priests of a sort?  Light topics for a complex mind.  

Murmur 73 : Hamed Sinno "The Fear Quotidian"

SUBJECT : FEAR A baseline for many.  That timeless of motivators; back and forth.  Such thins line, though, as fear continually masquerades as hate (and "phobia").  Hamed Sinno of Mashrou' Leila has been banned, labeled, censored, cursed, followed, chased, reviled, revered, applauded, lauded, targeted and blamed; yet, never silenced.  Fearless.  Well, maybe a fear or two has crept (and crawled) in along the way.  No one is immune, entirely.

Murmur 72 : Ben Bruce "It Takes An Expat"

SUBJECT : THE EXPAT We're all from somewhere else, no?  If one were, however, to sketch-out the concept of  "The Outsider", know that those who make-home in a country/community/culture outside of their birthplace, can potentially reflect, contribute, protect, nurture, extol, farm, and touch a world in ways no "insider" ever could.  Asking Alexandra's Ben Bruce has no fear of the Expat.  Here, he explores both the currency and privilege of living a life somewhere else; and why he's continually drawn to a life naturally impervious to homesickness.

Murmur 71 : Joshua Oppenheimer "The Scarecrow's Dilemma"

SUBJECT : INTELLIGENCE The two edges of "Intelligence" -- one, steeped in curiosity, humility, and understanding; the other, in fear, judgement, and power.  Which will you choose and how will you apply it?  Here, filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer carves us a path; including the taxonomy of "genius", "master", "masterpiece"; and whether or not art can in fact increase one's "Intelligence".

Murmur 70 : Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie) "Our Own Bag Of Hammers"

Don't be a tourist, be a traveller... or, so they say.  But do they also say that to musicians?  If so, then why do most musicians continue to "tour"?  Is it a means of rebooting?  Surviving?  Seeking?  Erasing?  Healing?  Communing?  Curing?  Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie) has utilized movement as a agent for all of the above; as well as a conduit for lessons he continues to pass on.  Lessons co-promised both in art and in love.

Murmur 69 : Mike Francesa "Mondays at 1"

Most pioneers are dead.  So when we have one on the show, it’s humbling.  Especially one we grew up listening to Monday-Friday for five-and-a-half hours a day; once for 24hours straight.  As Mike Francesa has left his weekly radio show and “power chair” after 30 years, we (and he) finally get our lives back.  So, let’s talk about it with the man, himself -- A teacher without students. An artist without a brush.  The icon who now seeks a new audience. 

Murmur 68 : Jock "A Fistful of Mondo"

SUBJECT : MONDO There is a word that signifies a perpetual state of fandom.  A state that artists never surrender to, no matter how accomplished or revered their work.  The word... Mondo.  Edison, Welles, Kubrick were Mondo; so was Picasso.  Jock is a modern master of this über-genre; an artist whose singular DNA can be seen in his best-selling posters for Carpenter’s “The Thing”, Del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” & Deodato’s “Cannibal Holocaust”; as well as in Ava/"Ex Machina" and an Aurebesh Easter Egg he left for his son in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (a small, indie film in which Jock served as Costume Concept Artist.)

Murmur 67 : Jeff Bridges "The Actor From Scratch"

SUBJECT : THE ART OF THE ACTOR There is an internal, human art to acting, independent of the technical execution of craft.  Which human elements feed that mechanism?  Or, as Brando once said, are we all “merely actors, everyday”?  For Jeff Bridges it begins and ends with two gifts; one from his mom (his “first acting teacher”) and one from his dad -- we’ll give you a hint... Time and Love.  Five years in the making, Jeff joins us to cover the Art of the Actor, up to and including the art of retirement.  Rage on.