241! The Goldilocks Zone of Weird

This week Aaron and Joey talk about the importance of making space for weird. They don't talk about being normal and forgotten or weird and remembered.

references

• CVS Bangers

• The X Files Techno Remix

• Pure Moods CD Commercial

240! Justice Thresholds

Where does your justice threshold rest? 

This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about Lana Del Rey, LEGO, the arenas of justice, the TSA, Aaron's personal space, and taking umbrage. They don’t talk about the Molecular Lego of Knots. 

references 

• Lana Del Rey's "Video Games" 

• Father John Misty 

• LEGO Great Pyramid of Giza 

• Corrections Department: Jan (pronounced Yon) Vormann discusses his Dispatch Work 

• Donatello vs Sub Zero | Mortal Kombat 11 vs Injustice 

• LEGO Masters Season 1, Episode 6: Aaron and Christian's Bridge 

• Veritasium on Knot Theory 

239! Honesty

What is the role of truth and how should we think about how it's changing? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about misinformation, wallets, the replication crisis, journalism, radical candor, and trust. They don’t talk about the word "cap." 

references 

• Revisiting Critical Nonsense 227! Tendies 

• Nick Lavallee Wants to Crown Manchester “The Chicken Tender Capital of the World” 

• Replication crisis 

• The Explorer and the Journalist: The Extraordinary Story of Frederick Cook and Philip Gibbs by Richard Evans 

• Billy Joel's "A Matter of Trust" 

238! Procrastitivity

In what ways is procrastitivity useful ... or not? 

This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about procrastination styles, Maya Angelou, procrastavoidance, urgency, anxiety, and Éric Ripert. They don’t talk about The Soul of an Octopus. 

references 

• Joey is a baboon 

• "Maya Angelou: How I Write" 

• The Eisenhower Matrix 

• Urge incontinence 

• Baldur's Gate 3 

• Final Fantasy XVI 

• Éric Ripert 

237! Names

What's in a name? 

This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about Cher, dysmorphia, name commonality, De'Coldest Crawford, permutations, and nick names. They don’t talk about Major Danger. 

references 

• Cher and Aqua turn back time. 

• Revisiting Critical Nonsense 139! Teenage Girl Power and Sharing Names 

• De'Coldest Crawford 

• Ryans Meetup 

• How Many of Me? (a variation) 

• Danger Charles 

• Come On Be My Baby Tonight 

• Torres Potato Chips 

• Neutral Milk Hotel 

• Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 

236! Life Decisions

What things should we be leaving up to chance? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about the expectation of rightness, hiring, outsourcing decisions, smart coins, Level 5 Engineers, and proposing. They don’t talk about DJ Screw. 

references 

• Take a look at me now ... 

• because we've been waiting for this moment for all our lives. 

• Big Think: ‘Freakonomics’ study offers simple strategy for making tough decisions 

• "Not good enough!" 

235! Conceiving History

How do we wrestle with history? 

This week, Jess and Aaron talk about rote learning, putty, history as study vs. history as culture, stories, empathy, and erasure. They don’t talk about the history of Play-Doh. 

references 

• Six 

• The Very Serious History of Silly Putty 

• Red, White & Royal Blue 

• Giving credit where it's due: "Molly Ivins, lively columnist who dubbed Bush 'Shrub'" 

• See also: Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush by Molly Ivins 

234! Reconsuming Content

This week, Joey and Jess talk about Chuck Klosterman, Bluey (again), the Mona Lisa, High Fidelity, Kafka, and Shakespeare. They don’t talk about Slick Rick. 

references 

• Whut? 

• How to find Kentucky on a map 

• Anathem by Neal Stephenson 

• How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie 

• High Fidelity 

• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl 

• The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 

233! Gamifying Sleep

What things that we need should we be gamifying? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about not getting enough sleep, Pokémon, mixed expertise, incentivized behavior change, Duolingo, and eating. They don’t talk about superconductors, no matter how badly Joey wants to. 

references 

• Like no one ever was ... 

• Pokémon Sleep 

• The Atlantic: Did Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely Fabricate Data for the Same Study? 

• The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson 

• The New York Times: Sleep Better at Every Age 

• The New York Times: 500 Days of Duolingo: What You Can (and Can’t) Learn From a Language App 

• Common metre 

• 감사합니다 

232! Contradiction

How do we deal with contradiction? 

This week, Jess, Joey, and Aaron talk about Björk, Barbie, G-strings, Elf on a Shelf, multiverses, and compartmentalization. They don’t talk about Green Day. 

references 

• The Perfectly Emo Clone High Intro 

• Björk "All Is Full of Love" 

• Björk + SNL 

• 'Barbie' invites you into a Dream House stuffed with existential angst 

• The New York Times: Who Gets to Wear G-Strings Now? 

• Occam's razor 

• Reader's Digest: 26 of the Funniest Oxymoron Examples 

• The Elf on a Shelf 

• The Verge: The LK-99 ‘superconductor’ went viral — here’s what the experts think 

• Unearthly Materials 

• LEGO Eggo Waffles 

231! Finding Empathy

Where might we find more empathy for each other? 

This week, Jess and Joey talk about etiquette, niceties, deplaning, consideration, the inverse crush, and villains. They don’t talk about Brother Bear. 

references 

• Take a look at something that's not The Lion King now 

• Whatever you're feeling in the air tonight, it's not The Lion King 

• It might just be love though 

• Bumble released its female users height preferences 

• Pulmonary embolism 

• Paramore's "crushcrushcrush" 

230! Unexpected Audiences

How should we think about things that are created that wind up being more beloved by audiences that weren't the original target? 

This week, Joey and Aaron talk about Bluey, Pixar, Adult Swim, Married With Children, Patricia Richardson, and drag queens. They don’t talk about Left Eye. 

references 

• In case you Don't Know Much about Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt 

• Lisa Stansfeild aka Definitely-Not-Linda-Ronstadt 

• Bluey 

• Bandit 

• Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood 

• The Most Subversive Kid’s Television Shows Ever Made 

• Married... With Children 

• Mom Power: ‘Home Improvement’s’ Jill Taylor Is The Best Sitcom Mom Of All Time 

• Shrinking 

• Dungeons and Drag Queens 

• Australians 

229! Attractiveness

How important is attractiveness? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about self-rating, the butt phase, dating apps, dating profiles as brand strategy, TMI, and hotties. They don’t talk about teratophilia. 

references 

• Debutante Ball's are real 

• ... as are narwhals 

• "Physical and Psychosocial Correlates of Facial Attractiveness" by Marco Costa and Dario Maestripieri (PDF) 

• "80% Of Women Choose Only The Top 20% of Attractive Men" Is A Big Fat Incel Lie 

• Pew Research: The Virtues and Downsides of Online Dating 

• Institute for Family Studies: On Internet Dating Sites, Women Prefer Men With Higher Incomes and More Education 

• Fast Company: I Found Out My Secret Internal Tinder Rating And Now I Wish I Hadn’t 

228! Patriotism and Empanadas

What is patriotic? 

This week, Jess, Aaron, and Joey talk about American Democracy, fusion foods, the spirit of the thing, beer holding, the cronut, and empanadas. They don’t talk about pastechi. 

references 

• Dance Moms 

• BuzzFeed: "Maddie Ziegler On Being Sia's 'Muse' From Age 11" 

• "Majorities in most countries have a positive opinion of the U.S." 

• "Will Democracy Win? Barack Obama in Conversation with Christiane Amanpour" 

• Revisiting: Critical Nonsense 233! The Familiar Unexpected 

• Empanada Mama 

• TasteAtlas: "100 Most Popular Dumplings in the World" 

• USA! USA?: A patriotic playlist for people who aren't sure how they feel about America 

227! Tendies

Why are we all suddenly calling these chicken "tendies"? 

This week, Jess and Joey talk about children's food, compression, self-deprecation, cutification, Big Chicken, and expressivity. They don’t talk about brekky. 

references 

• Chicken Fried 

• philology 

• ScienceDirect: Compression and communication in the cultural evolution of linguistic structure 

226! Collective Vibes

Do you believe in the idea that collective vibes could exist, and are we fully entering into a new vibe? 

This week, Joey and Aaron talk about the debt ceiling battle, the Writers Guild of America strike, AI, not sitting idle, Lucy Lawless, and pasta. They don’t talk about cowboy pasta. 

references 

• A long "May-tember" 

• ARTnews: Hannah Gadsby’s Disastrous ‘Pablo-matic’ Show at the Brooklyn Museum Has Some ‘Pablo-ms’ of Its Own 

• The Writers Guild of America strike 

• Cascatelli pasta 

• The New York Times: "The Best Canned Tomatoes" 

225! The Year of DnD

What have you learned in one year of playing DnD together? 

This week, Jess and Joey talk about Dungeons & Dragons, body doubling, Type 1 and Type 2 Fun, hobbies, forks, and the Metaverse. They don’t talk about the D&D All-Stars. 

references 

• Dungeons & Dragons 

• DM = Dungeon Mster 

• OBS 

224! Optimism

How should we feel about optimism? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about genetics, pessimism, risk aversion, oxytocin, hugs, and butt pats. They don’t talk about why cats like butt pats, though. 

references 

• chanteuse 

• Is Optimism Genetic? 

• oxytocin 

• Do you believe in life after love? 

• Chimp Empire 

223! The Familiar Unexpected

When was the last time that you experienced something familar unexpected? 

This week, Jess, Joey, and Aaron talk about mochi, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, chord progressions, rollercoasters, Warrior Cats, and Doppler radar. They don’t talk about The Lloyd Dobler Effect. 

references 

• Corrections Department: The original The Parent Trap film came out in 1961 

• Kramer vs. Kramer 

• Mochi 

• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor 

• Carolina Chocolate Drops "Hit Em Up Style" 

• "7 Common Chord Progressions You’ll Instantly Recognize" 

• Boomerang Coaster 

• Suspended Looping Coaster 

• Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky 

• Warriors 

• Blindness by José Saramago 

• This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone 

• Critical Nonsense Bookclub 

222! Watching Things

What are you watching right now and why? 

This week, Aaron, Jess, and Joey talk about SpongeBob, YouTube shorts rabbit holes, RuPaul's Drag Race, the NBA Playoffs, Alan Wake, and bikinis. To the Sunbathing Angel's dismay, they don’t talk about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. 

references 

• Calm Down 

• Revsiting Critical Nonsense 217! AI Centaurs 

• Progress Report Edition 092: Consider the Centaur 

• Only Murders In the Building 

• "A potato flew around my room until you came" 

• The Ren & Stimpy Show 

• Stephen Hillenburg 

• John K. 

• BuzzFeed News: The Disturbing Secret Behind An Iconic Cartoon: Underage Sexual Abuse 

• "... babyyyyyyy" 

• How The Design Of Spongebob Has Changed Over The Years 

• RuPaul's Masterclass 

• RuPaul on How to Live Your Best Life 

• Jungian Therapy 

• Daisy Jones & the Six 

• Riley Keough 

• The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch 

• Alan Wake 

• How It's Actually Made - Bread