It’s Thursday, and that means another new episode of the MTS Podcast hosted by Kale Zelden and yours truly is now available for your viewing (and listening) pleasure!
We’ve got thrills, chills, and midweek mayhem!
(I’m only half-kidding.)
This week, we continue our thematic search for truth behind the nested masks of lies in our social imaginary; from actresses changing their faces to narrative reconstructions and microexpressions, why is it that we can all look at the people offering the same information and come away with totally different understandings of what it means?
We also dip our toes into the weird, talking about spiritual parasites, historical accounts of levitation and bilocation, preternatural intuition, and the fact that if you pay too much attention to the things that lurk in the shadows of reality, they have a tendency to start paying more attention to you -- which also describes the egregores that power our online algorithms as they feed us more of what they have observed us interacting with.
We finish up with a return look at You Can See Everything (but with spoilers about the second half this time) and examine the way art can reveal deeper meaning in a way nonfiction can’t.
All of our various ways of pretending eventually rack up a bill that comes due. What happens when the stories we wear as disguises become threadbare, and reality shows through?
As always, you can grab the audio-only version right here or from your favorite podcast provider.
If you liked this essay, please consider subscribing—or send a tip (Venmo/Paypal/Stripe) to support this and future pieces like it.