May 14, 2021
Alec and Nick discuss the self-invented concept of the Bloomin’ Onion Brain, conceived while drunk on a trip to Lake Gaston, NC. The discussion situates the dippable dish as a figure of Dionysian abstraction, wherein frenzies of self-forgetting give way to a primal unity that we experience in music and social life. Outback Steakhouse, intermedia works, the “groove,” the “para-textual,” composers Robert Ashley and C. Spencer Yeh, and philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, and Gilles Deleuze are all examined within the context of this new concept.
Opening skit: Matthew McConaughey voice reading over “The Backyard” from “Private Parts” by Robert Ashley (1978).
Opening and closing theme music: Xander Seren