The Brilliant podcast is a way to have a deeper conversations than allowed in the text boxes of websites. On the one hand a podcast is one way communication but on the other it allows the intimacy of radio, of a voice in your ear that is yours alone.
We live in a world where most stories are just variants of the same story; Good beats evil, Cowboys and Indians, profits and loss. This story has been told a thousand, million times and the ubiquity of it is a great tragedy, a tragedy because of the consequences it has on our imagination and our relationships. A tragedy because it is the same old sad song told over and over again.
The Brilliant podcast is an attempt to tell different kinds of stories, ones with complex moral plays, ones that aren’t so clearly stories, and ones that are of human size. Our motivation to tell these tales is a desire to see a proliferation of different stories and not just the simple morality plays of popular culture or the inverted, but otherwise identical, stories of the radical milieu.
We believe that a world of free people is possible. We call these people, anarchists, the brilliant, or practicioners of the beautiful idea and they are our concern. If we were different people we’d discuss these people as our community, and they are, but they also aren’t because the tension of community within mass society means it is not a stable term. The free people we live, fight, and learn from grow and shrink, flare and cool, dim and shine brighter than the sun.
This year has been a great one for the podcast. Here are some highlights.
(as always you can find new episodes at The Brilliant – http://thebrilliant.org/)
Conversations about Technology
Our recent conversation about technology did not perhaps push the conversation as far as I would have liked BUT was a fantastic snapshot of what some of the luminaries of contemporary post-left anarchism have to say on this matter among others.
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-59-technology-i/ The Youth speak!
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-60-technology-ii/ PZS from Brazil
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-61-technology-iii/ Ramon Elani
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-62-technology-iv/ Rydra from Free Radical Radio!
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-63-technology-v/ Jason McQuinn
Exclusion
The conversations on exclusion reflected on my BASTARD conference presentation and discuss the practical and theoretical consequences of social exclusion for anarchists
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-55-exclusion-i/ Ben
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-56-exclusion-ii/ Soren, Dominique, and the shitshow called Oakland
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-57-exclusion-iii/ Mitchell Halberstadt
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-58-exclusion-iv/ Andy Robinson and theory
Discussions with Isaac
Our series with Isaac Cronin has been rewarding. Isaac is one of the first set of American post-situationists and was the creater (with lots of help) of “Call it Sleep”. We have had seven discussions with Isaac so far.
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-31-isaac-cronin-i/ Origin
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/s02e05-aka-episode-34-isaac-cronin-ii/ Berkeley in the 60s. FSM.
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-37-s02e08-isaac-iii/ Berkeley and the Vietnam War
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-39-s02e10-isaac-cronin-iv-1969/ 1969 The Council for the Eruption of the Marvelous
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-43-isaac-v-1970-1972/ post-CEM. James Carr
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-46-isaac-vi-mid-seventies/ Paris in the mid-seventies
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-48-isaac-vii-call-it-sleep/ Call it Sleep
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/isaac-vii-the-pharmaceutical-industry/ The pharmaceutical Industry
Eco-Extremism
We’ve been in the middle of a shitton of needless and hyperbolic controversy around our publications of eco-extremist material. This is mostly by people too young to understand the context of anti-social anarchist activity that stretches back 150 years, too trained by our sensationalist outrage culture to critically engage with people who they only know by communique and/or the Internet, or too cynical to come out and say what their issues are with the idea of publishing controversial idea.
More here http://littleblackcart.com/why-do-we-publish-such-objectionable-things/
In response we’ve had a few episodes on the topic.
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-41-atassa/ A three part conversation about Atassa
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-49-abe-cabrera-atassa/ Conversation with the editor of Atassa
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-50-concerning-its-with-bellamy/ Critical conversation with Bellamy about EE and ITS
http://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-53-a-round-table-discussion-i/ Round table discussion after dustup in Seattle
Thank you so much for your attention and feeback.
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