This episode looks at the problem of having access to too much information, material and opinion in the online space. So much content, and so much for free, and such ease of access, creates an imbalanced relationship that offers dubious benefits. Dara looks at his own internet consumption habits and questions the merits of unearned offerings.
In this episode Dara shares his thoughts and responses after a movie mini-binge. He is struck by the hackneyed plotline of CODA (2021) but thinks the film is saved by the acting and warmth of the main cast. He compares it to a couple of other movies that didn’t take flight, including the risible Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), and the glorified Apple commercial that was Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013).
In this episode, Dara is brushing up against his past and walking the fine line between nostalgia and sentimentality. Spending a lot of time in Dublin recently has provoked a host of memories from over 20 years ago and Dara feels like he keeps bumping into his younger self around every street corner.
Elastic Time and the Love of Two Cities – Episode 93 Read More »
Inspired by a podcast about Julius Caesar, Dara realises he has long had a fascination with assassinations, particularly those that have played out in movies. In this episode he looks closely at the celluloid executions that most impacted him, paying close attention to Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, amongst others.
Assassination Fascination and the Gun as Symbol of Cultural Psyche – Episode 92 Read More »
In this episode, Dara finally achieves a long-term goal of the podcast – he gets his wife to sit down for an interview at Hashtag Blessed!
Dara is not in the mood for this week’s episode. He simply doesn’t have the headspace. But he talks himself into it and soon warms up as he mentions how a recent football podcast planted the seed for what he wants to talk about – touchstones. What are the reference points that help us negotiate the world in which we find ourselves? Who are the pillar-like figures that we feel we can lean on? Who remains unchanged?
Pillars, Pathfinders, and Dodging Space Trash – Episode 90 Read More »
In this episode, Dara is all stirred up as a result of the theatre production he is currently working on. The subject of the work is masculinity and the nurturing and shaping of boys into men. Dara admits that the process of examining this subject closely is leaving him exhausted but also inspired and full of almost uncontrollable thought processes and emotional impulses around what masculinity means to him
Stirring the Masculinity Pot and Countering Dubious Male Voices – Episode 89 Read More »
In this episode, Dara looks at a couple of recent news stories in Ireland that have raised some confronting questions about where we’re at as a society.
Laughing at the Wrong Things, or Why Cat Stevens is So Funny to Me – Episode 88 Read More »
After hearing his wife listening to a selection of different piano pieces in preparation for a class, Dara realised he wanted to talk about motifs. He discusses motifs in the work of film score composers before warming to the idea of motifs in one’s life – what themes and fascinations have recurred over a lifetime? What has been circled back to? What has been underscored and reiterated?
The Attraction of Certain Instruments, or Oh, What a Lovely Wand! – Episode 87 Read More »
In this episode Dara shares his experience of a recent family funeral that seemed to succeed in channelling a profound communal expression of love and grief. Because of his role in the service, he had to wait to express his own feelings.
Notes From a Funeral, or The Power of the Collective Experience – Episode 86 Read More »
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