The guest this week is C Derick Varn who returns to discuss his outsider's interest in the occult and the Platypus Affiliated Society. Varn is returning for the second half of what started out as a conversation about the difference between ontology and epistemology, and if you haven't heard that first half yet I do recommend checking it out. That was in episode 131.

I want to thank Andrew M for signing up to be a regular donor to the podcast. I've finally started the Philosophy Workshop and the first 20 people who subscribe by signing up to donate $10 or more on a monthly basis will be signed up for this combination between a philosophy lecture series and a writer's workshop. Using Talkshoe to host a monthly international conversation, the Diet Soap Philosophy workshop will include one 45 minute presentation/lecture monthly as well as a discussion wherein the lecture and monthly writings will be discussed. Subscribers who contribute writing will receive criticism and suggestions toward publication as well as a monthly one on one meeting with me so that we can discuss the submitted work. For the moment I'm limiting the workshop to 25 people. That is, there will be 20 spots for paid subscribers and 5 spots left open for those who want to participate but can't afford to donate regularly.

The music in this episode includes Bird Girl as performed by the band Circus Contraption, Etta James signature tune At Last and Elvis Costello's Stalin Malone. The voices you heard belonged to the postmodern Christian Peter Rollins, the synchromystic Jake Kotze, and Chris Mansour of the Platypus Society.

The guest this week is C Derick Varn. He is a blogger, a Facebook/social media leader, a poet, a university lecturer, and an American expatriate in South Korea. Our conversation lasted for over an hour and a half and touched on many subjects, and this is part one. This week we'll discuss ontology and epistemology and Zizek. The title of the episode is "How Not Is Can't Be."

Just to clarify at the outset: Ontology, according to Wikipedia is: "the philosophical study of the nature of being,existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences."

While Wikipedia says Epistemology is: "The branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge.[1][2] It addresses the questions:
▪ What is knowledge?
▪ How is knowledge acquired?
▪ To what extent is it possible for a given subject or entity to be known?
▪ How do we know what we know?"

Things are so confused in this Late Capitalist moment that I feel it's necessary to hash out these basic categories again, and again. And, apparently, I'm not alone. Be sure to listen for a clip of Louis CK explaining philosophy to his young daughter, and check out Varn's writings on his new blog Symptomatic Redness and his Facebook Group, which I like to call Marxoid Wank.

The guest this week is the pop philosopher Daniel Coffeen. Mister Coffeen is a recurring guest to Diet Soap, and this week we discuss his essay The Experience of An Idea which was posted on Thought Catalog last July.

It's Sunday, January 8th, 2012, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.

I want to thank Ishmael for donating to the podcast last week. I'd taken the donate button down from the podomatic site, but he found a link on the old diet soap blog and a copy of my book Pick Your Battle is jetting to the UK right now. I also want to announce that I'm hoping to start a Diet Soap philosophy workshop this year. The idea is to invite people to become regular donors to the podcast and join up to participate in a monthly philosophy workshop online. There will be more details on that front next week. But I will point out that I've still got a half box of copies of my book Pick Your Battle and a box full of my new book Wave of Mutilation is on its way to me, so in the future contributors to the podcast will be able to pick which book they'd like to receive in exchange for a donation.

Speaking of reading I also want to point out that Thought Catalog published a collection of essays on the subject of Pleasure or Enjoyment in this Late Capitalist Epoch. These were actually letters that I wrote to Daniel Coffeen and that he wrote back to me, and I think the epistolary form worked well for this bit of writing. So I'll provide a link to those in the show notes for this episode.

The music in the podcast included Edie Brickell's What I Am (a Karaoke version), Brian Eno's Music for Film, and the Who's classic "Can't Explain." The voices talking over the music included Rick Roderick describing Heidegger's ideas about anxiety and despair, Herbert Dreyfus and Bryan Magee discussing Heidegger on the BBC, and Andy Warhol discussing how Pop Art has become repetitious. Right now you're listening to the music played during the opening credits to Soderbergh's Kafka, but in just a moment you'll be listening to another Titanic Factoid.

There is no guest this week, but rather this week's episode is a sound collage that aims at understanding the video game Portal 2. After talking with my son Ben, after I tried to convince him that Portal 2 is best understood as a Symptom of the Late Capitalist crisis we're in, I edited this together. Here I make the case that the video game was best understood if seen through the lens of the Lacanian philosophy of Slavoj Zizek.

It's Wednesday, December 28th, 2011, and this will be the last Diet Soap podcast before the new year. I want to thank everyone who has been contacting me about the podcast through Facebook, and I want to mention that somebody asked me a very good question about the difference between social democracy and state socialism, but I lost track of the Facebook message. Could you resend that? Also I want to encourage everyone to get ahold of my novella "Wave of Mutilation" through Amazon, and also point that you'll hear an audio clip from that book at the end of this episode.

I also want to mention that a new collection of essays is up on Thought Catalog on the subject of Enjoyment. In fact Thought Catalog published letters I wrote to the Rhetor and playful philosopher Daniel Coffeen, and Mister Coffeen will be the first guest in the New Year. And Diet Soap will be back to a regular weekly schedule in 2012.

This is a conversation with the mystic, film critic, and existential detective Jason Horsley on the subject of UFOs. Horsley and I had been unfruitfully arguing on an abstract level for about twenty minutes when I decided to shift ground and talk in concrete terms about the phenomena. So the conversation you'll hear in this episode starts with this shift to the concrete or mundane, and I want to point out that I am a skeptic of the UFO phenomena. That is, I don't believe any of the literature or explanations for the phenomena. That said I find the subject endlessly fascinating. As a science fiction nerd, a surrealist wannabe, and a the kind of oddball who likes to puzzle over the metaphysical and ontological riddles that seem so prominent in this Late Capitalist age, the UFO subject is pleasing to me.

By the way, it's Friday, December 9th, 2011, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast. You might have noticed that podcast has slipped into an irregular schedule. I've been working two jobs for the past two months and have found keeping up with interviews and editing to be pretty much impossible. However, starting next week I'll only be working one job (as the seasonal job ends) and I should be able to get back on schedule. I have some big plans for 2012, which as you all know will be the last year of history, and the podcast is a big part of those plans.

I also want to point out that my latest short story "Erasing the Concept of Sex from the Photobooth" is available in this month's Interzone magazine. Interzone is England's leading science fiction magazine and I'm glad to have my work appear there again. So if you're in the UK you might look for the current issue at your local Newsstand, and I'll provide an online link in the show notes for this episode. Also, everyone should consider purchasing my novella Wave of Mutilation. I'll pick up providing audio excerpts to that in the next week probably, and I hope to start making the rounds on various podcasts and maybe even radio to promote the book. I'm proud of it and I want a lot of people to read it.

The guest this week is the professor and philosopher Ted Friedman, and Ted and I discussed the television program Lost and the psychoanalyst Carl Jung. Friedman recently wrote an essay called Jung and Lost for the online journal Flow, and I was glad to discuss the strange network of relations that constituted JJ Abrams hit television program.

Speaking of being Lost, things are looking pretty grim in this Late Capitalist moment. I think we can finally put the idea that some sort of economic recovery is in the offing to bed now. Instead we should buckle our seat belts and prepare for another dip. Chinese manufacturing is slowing down and Germany's bonds are apparently losing their value. Europe is teetering. It may have already fallen and just not hit the ground yet. China, the lender of choice, may be finding that its pockets are empty. The only question is this: Now or later? Shall we have our full fledged crisis now, or later?

Forces working for a new economy, a new society, while not exactly strong are at least present. The Egyptian and Tunisian revolution has come to the West and gone back to Egypt again. In Cairo people are in the streets and facing military repression: the people face down tear gas attacks, rubber bullets, billy clubs, and blood runs in the streets. Still the people of Egypt keep going back to the streets, now matter what. While in Lisbon Portugal the workers or on strike today, and the occupations, protests, marches, and other forms of resistance keep on plodding on all around the world.

It's a scary moment. An exciting moment. We live in interesting times.

I want to thank everyone for listening to this podcast and communicating with me on Facebook, on twitter, and through my blog that's douglaslain.com. Also I want to encourage everyone who is listening to grab a copy of my newest book "Wave of Mutilation." I'm still very proud of this little novella and I think it has something to offer people right now. The book speaks to what it means to see the world fall apart, and how decomposition and destruction can serve the very story or system that we're struggling to transcend. It's also a fun little jape. A recent critic at SfSite.com said of the book: "Those who like to be at the forefront of what's truly unique about the field of science fiction writing will want to grab this book." That book is available on Amazon and if you like the Diet Soap podcast I encourage you to get a copy.

The blogger, political philosopher, and commie Jodi Dean is the guest this week. She returns to discuss how the Occupy Movement fits into this Late Capitalist moment, and we look at both what is great about Occupy Wall Street and what the movement's limitations might be. We spoke last Friday, right before Occupy Portland was scheduled to be evicted from two adjoining parks (Chapman and Lownsdale squares) in downtown Portland. The people of Portland made a terrific showing on the first night and thwarted police efforts to clear the park. Over 2000 people made the eviction impossible. However, the next day the city did manage clear the parks, but since then Occupy Portland has been popping up everywhere. A rolling protest is rolling through downtown and nobody knows quite where it will land.

It now Wednesday, November 16th, 2011, we're a couple days late with the podcast. I'm Douglas Lain the host. I was there on Saturday night and early Sunday morning and you'll here a clip or two from Occupy Portland in this podcast.

No excerpt from my book this week either. I will get back to that story, but I'm not sure when.

Listen to clips from the last night of Occupy Portland along with sound collages featuring Nat King Cole, Pete Seeger, and a Midnight countdown. A clip from Laurie Anderson's "Only an Expert" is also featured.

The guest this week is Marxist economist Andrew Kliman. Kliman is a professor at Pace University, the author of two books: Reclaiming Marx and The Failure of Capitalist Production, and a returning guest to the podcast.

Since Occupy Wall Street has taken off you may have noticed that this Commie show has gotten worse. That is, while I've played the Internationale at the beginning of every episode during the last two years, I recently replaced that intro with Rick Roderick imploring us to transcend the petty bourgeois lives that define this Late Capitalist moment. What this change indicates is perhaps an attempt to let go of nostalgia and the trappings of old failed revolutions. Kliman and his cohorts are sometimes accused of being orthodox or dogmatic Marxists, but I think a proper understanding of Marx's value theory might point to the need for a break or rupture. Everything seems to point to the need for truly creative acts.

As always I'll remind you to find the Diet Soap Facebook page, to look for me on twitter, to find my website (that's douglaslain.com) and to consider helping the podcast by purchasing a copy of my newest novella, a book called "Wave of Mutilation," from Amazon. I didn't have time to edit together an excerpt from the book this week, but I'll be sure to include an excerpt next week. Also I'd love to hear from people who have been following the story so far. Is anybody out there?

The Occupy Movement emphasizes income inequality and while that inequality is utterly unacceptable, the real crime of Capitalist production is how limiting it is. The real emancipation won't be when we all live in a world where everyone can afford a nice house, a car, and an iPad, but a world in which everyone is free to develop their creative and productive capacities in order to build a life beyond cars and iPads.

There are two guests this week, both of whom are twitter acquaintances. On twitter Bradley Coufal goes by @yelbley and Jehu goes by the handle @ReThePeople. Both of these tweeple are Marxists, and they are both involved in the Occupy Wallstreet movement.

What is presented here are two short conversations: first you'll hear my conversation with Bradley Coufal and then I'll play my discussion with Jehu. Both of these interviews have been cut considerably for time this week. A lot of good stuff ended up on the cutting room floor in order to focus in on Occupy Wall Street and the challenges facing the movement.

It's Monday, October 31st (Halloween) and I'm Douglas Lain, the host of this podcast.

Last week I took down the donate button and I'm no longer seeking donations. One worried listener wrote since then to ask if I'd stopped asking for maws planning on going on hiatus or ending the podcast, and I want to assure everyone that Diet Soap isn't going anywhere. I've only stopped asking for donations in order to shift over into asking you to read my book "Wave of Mutilation." You can buy a copy of my novella from Amazon, or if you're feeling the pinch of the New Normal then email me for a free PDF. Reading my latest book and reviewing it for Amazon is currently the best way to help me and the podcast.

You can listen for the fifth excerpt of my novella at the end of this episode,

Music in this episode includes Chris Isto White's interpretation of Charlie Parker's Confirmation.

I also want to encourage everyone once again to get ahold of my book Wave of Mutilation. You can get a free PDF copy from me or buy a copy from Amazon.

The guest this week is the author and podcaster Jon Armstrong. Jon Armstrong is a novelist. His first novel, Grey, was published in 2007 and was short-listed for the Philip K Dick Award. That same year, Jon was also nominated for the Campbell Award for Best New SF Writer, and this year Jon's first short story entitled "Aisle 1047" was published in the esteemed genre digest Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story explores the plight of a far future Mouthwash Girl who has to learn to put the product first, and it fits in nicely with the Late Capitalist theme of the Diet Soap podcast.

I want to thank Jason C and Babafemi M for donating to the podcast this week. Their copies of my surrealist memoir Pick Your Battle are in the mail and jetting their way. And for now I'm no longer asking for donations to the podcast. If you'd like to help the show you'll find links to my various books on Amazon, including my newest novella "Wave of Mutilation." Later on, in the new year, I'll put the donate button back but for now I'm giving it a rest on that front. However, I'd still ask you to follow me on twitter, to find me on Facebook, to stumble-upon my podcasts, and to use the wayback machine to find the first version of my blog at douglaslain.com.

The music you're listening to right now is the Vitamin String Quartet covering Nirvana's hit Come as you Are, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Jon Armstrong discuss his Mouthwash Girl.

The sound and music clips this week include a segment from Daft Punk's Technologic, Steve Reich's Drum Music, and the Boards of Canada's Aquarius. You also heard an excerpt from my novella "Wave of Mutilation."

This week I took a break from Occupying Wall Street but that subject will return in the weeks to come. For now though I'll just say that the music you're listening to right now is Glenn Gould performing Bach's Fugue of Praeludium No.22 in B flat minor, but in just a moment you'll be listening to another Titanic Factoid from my wife Miriam.

The guest this week is the Journalist Margaret Kimberley. Ms. Kimberley writes a weekly column for the Black Agenda Report called Freedom Rider and she is a regular guest on this podcast as well. Whenever something major happens in the world of late capitalist politics, whether it's something depressing like putting Social Security on the chopping block as President Barack Obama did during the debt ceiling crisis over the summer or something hopeful like the Occupy Wall Street movement I will usually ask Ms. Kimberley to comment, and I was pleased she was willing to speak with me on Friday, and not too surprised that we both agreed that Occupy Wall Street, even with its limitations, is a movement that points the way for the rest of us.

I want to thank Bruce P and Peter L who donated last week to the podcast. I'm announcing their names twice because I've gotten behind on shipping out my book Pick Your Battle and I want to let you know that those books will be on their way to you this week. I also want to thank everyone who is following me on twitter and on Facebook, or through the Diet Soap community page on Facebook, and let you know that I really would like to hear from you if you have any questions about what goes on here on the podcast. Also, I should point out that if you'd like to get a signed copy of Pick Your Battle I believe this is the last week. My plan is to take most of the remaining copies to OccupyPortland and leave the box of books in the library tent there.

However, have no fear, my newest book entitled "Wave of Mutilation" is both available in audio form at the end of the podcast and in dead tree version through Amazon, and I will make signed copies available to people who contribute to the podcast sometime next month.

As you can tell I'm pretty enamored with the political moment and with Occupy Wall Street, and I've planned to get in touch with some people who are involved with the movement directly, but I should also point out that interviews with Daniel Coffeen, Jon Armstrong, Jason Horsley, Ted Friedman, and Jon Meade are in the can as they say, so I'm going to try to sprinkle those literary and philosophical conversations in alongside future podcasts about this movement, and we'll just have to see how long it takes me before I've cleaned out the archived material I have now.

The sound clips in this episode include a short excerpt from my visit to the Occupy Portland campground, a group called the Wrong Trousers performing a song entitled "I've Dreamt the Future," the Twin Cities Labor Chorus singing Solidarity Forever, and an excerpt from the dirty part of my newly released novella "Wave of Mutilation."

This is a podcast that sees and wants to seize the Late Capitalist moment. On Diet Soap we consider what it would mean to #occupyingeverything and we attempt to realize philosophy. The guest this week is Brendan Cooney and we'll be finishing off the second part of our conversation about Crisis theory and three Marxists thinkers. We discuss David Harvey, Rick Wolff, and Andrew Kliman. There is also an interesting conversation about the role of theory and the need for political movements, a conversation that seems dated to me now that #occupywallstreet has found its legs.

The show has moved to Mondays because I've found part time work for the Oregon Symphony and will have to put the shows together on the weekends. Also, that move back to the Symphony might mean that the podcast features even more Classical music. We'll see.

Diet Soap has been on hiatus for the past few weeks, but I want to thank Andrew M, Pieter L, Michael T, David B, and Bruce P for donating in the last few weeks. It's great to get so much support even though the podcast was shut down due to technical difficulties. My old iMac died just before Steve Jobs shed his mortal coil, but now I've got a little Mac Mini. What I'd really like is a Linux machine made out of recycled wood and spit that will upgrade itself using nanotechnology. Anybody know where I can find one of those for the price of an iPad? Anyhow, copies of Pick Your Battle are still available through the end of this month, and Bruce P and Pieter L will be receiving copies of the book soon (the other donors had already received copies).

In other news, a few things have happened since the last podcast. I mentioned #occupywallstreet at the start, and I have to say that while I was skeptical about the movement as it was described by Adbusters over the summer, I have to say that the movement has already transformed itself and is getting stronger. At the end of this episode Cooney comments that there is no movement of radicals who could use and transform radical theory. That might have been true when he said that a month or so ago, but it may not be true anymore. We'll see.

I'd promised to include excerpts from my upcoming novella Wave of Mutilation on the podcast until I'd finished reading the whole story, and I'll return to that. But in an effort to get this podcast out I'm skipping that segment this week. The music you're listening to now is El Cholu by Tosca Tango which is the theme from the Linklater film, waking life, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Brendan Cooney and I discuss how to #occupywallstreet

The music and sounds this week include music from Tosca Tango and Waking Life, the human microphone at #occupywallstreet chanting the words of my hero Slavoj Zizek, Brendan Cooney's youtube video What is Capitalism, Arturo Toscanini conducting the Internationale in 1944, and an advertisement for #occupywallstreet.

I've decided that Diet Soap is the podcast of Late Capitalism, and in that vein the guest this week is Brendan Cooney. Cooney is an autodidact and youtube star, his videos include The Political Economy of Superman, What the Hell is Money, and his Law of Value Series. Cooney and I take a look at three other youtube stars and their theories about the crisis of Late Capitalism. We examine three other Marxists: David Harvey, Rick Wolff, and a little known value theorist Andrew Kliman.

I want to thank David B for his generous donation to the podcast. And if you've been thinking of donating to the podcast now is a good time because I still have copies of my book "Pick Your Battle: Your Guide to Urban Foraging, Hollywood Movies, Late Capitalism, and the Communist Alternative (a memoir)" left. A donation of $6 or more is a way to get a copy. Starting in mid October I'll make my next book, a novella called 'Wave of Mutilation' available through the podcast. This book has been called 'brilliant,' 'incredible,' 'non-linear,' 'obsessive compulsive,' 'hyper-real,' and 'incomprehensible.' One critic was so taken by the work that he reread the book twice before writing in to admit that he'd been beaten and would have to hang up his pen. Anyhow you'll be hearing excerpts from 'Wave of Mutilation' in the weeks to come. You'll get to hear the whole story such as it is.

This episode spends some time on David Harvey and Andrew Kliman. Next week we'll take on how Late Capitalism hits the fan, underconsumptionist theories and the phenomena that is Rick Wolff. It was fun talking to Cooney and interesting editing this episode together.

This is an audio excerpt from my upcoming book entitled "Wave of Mutilation." Excerpts will be included at the end of each episode of Diet Soap and on their own in an attempt to promote the October release of the book from Fantastic Planet Press which is an imprint of Eraserhead Press.

Here is some advance praise for "Wave of Mutilation":

"In Wave of Mutilation, you will find echoes and shadings of J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Tim Powers and Walker Percy (which is stepping in some high cotton). Lain shares an obsessive fascination with the interface between technology and psychology, and has a keen eye for sharp juxtapositions (as in the contrast between eroticism and hygiene). But what I admire especially is his grasp of the subtle and pervasive mood of paranoia and melancholy that haunts our digitalized era—an elusive sense of spiritual desolation complicated by the ghostly infestation of forces and presences we can never really understand. An intellect and a questioner of literary forms, Lain is also a husbanding, fathering advocate for the Everyman in us all. The result is curiously human and intimate—down to earth, even as the universe falls apart in our hands." -Kris Saknussemm, author of Zanesville and Enigmatic Pilot

The guest this week is professor Jodi Dean. Ms. Dean is the author of Blog Theory, the force behind a lecture entitled the Communist Horizon, and a blogger herself at the blog icite.com. She was nice enough to make the time to discuss her hypothesis that Democracy, Anarchism, and Liberalism are the three impediments we face during a time when Capitalism is in crisis.

I want to thank Brian R, and Thomas J for donating to the podcast in the last week. And let them and Martin F and Chris M know that copies of my surrealist memoir entitled Pick Your Battle: Your Guide to Urban Foraging, Hollywood Movies, Late Capitalism, and the Communist Alternative will be sent out in tomorrow's mail. There are still plenty of copies of the memoir left and anyone who would like a copy and who has yet to get one should consider donating, but the big news in terms of books associated with the podcast is that starting with this episode I'll be reading excerpts from my next book, a book entitled Wave of Mutilation at the end of each episode. In mid October that book will be out from Fantastic Planet Press. That's an imprint of the Bizzarro publisher known as Eraserhead press and available through various online vendors such as Barnes and Noble and Amazon. I hope to make signed copies of that novella available through the podcast as well.

I should point that you can follow me on twitter and facebook, and that my own blog douglaslain.com is now the official blog of the Diet Soap podcast (I'm retiring dietsoapcast.com). You can email me through the blog.

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