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Off the Chain Episode 14

Episode 14: Poetry, Expert Testimony, Small Talk, Ask OTC, Unchained Melodies, and Charles Reznikoff

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This week Dave and Steel are joined by their friend Katie (a female nurse!) to discuss a huge panoply of things, including Steel’s love for poetry, Katie’s college softball career, A League of Their Own, the return of the brontosaurus, Wonder Woman’s freaky creator William Moulton Marston, and the difference between anabolic and boring steroids. Katie also leads the guys through a set of rapid fire ‘lightning round’ questions, and they take listener questions about home buying, flu shots, and high school math classes, and then share some great music from Cayetana, Lucius, Blackstreet, Alice Boman, and Jason Isbell, and Steel shares two poems from the criminally underread Charles Reznikoff: “[During the Second World War …]” and “Te Deum”.

Poetry

Three of the life-changing poets that Steel talked about:

  1. Charles Reznikoff
  2. Lorine Niedecker
  3. George Oppen

And here’s a bunch of articles about Emily Dickinson’s “Master” letters:

Expert Testimony

Katie’s Indiana University softball athlete page

A League of Their Own

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcN392H2jx0&t=5s

Small Talk

The Brontosaurus is back! (an article by Elif Batuman in The New Yorker) William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman, was a weird dude. Exhibits 1, 2, and 3. More on the difference between boring steroids and anabolic steroids.

Unchained Melodies

Cayetana — Hot Dad Calendar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXou1u2Oa5g

Lucius — Wildewoman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNMu0OOEkF0

Blackstreet — No Diggity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KL9mRus19o

Alice Boman — Lead Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSwAX3r897k

Jason Isbell — Cover Me Up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkHyP3hpB5c

Book Wisdom

This week Steel read two poems by Charles Reznikoff: the first an untitled vignette, and the second a short poem called “Te Deum” (a Latin phrase literally translatable as ‘Thee, O God’).