Upper Middlebrow Podcast Por Upper Middlebrow arte de portada

Upper Middlebrow

Upper Middlebrow

De: Upper Middlebrow
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A podcast in which we discuss high-craft works of popular culture Arte Historia y Crítica Literaria
Episodios
  • Episode 92: “It’s So Dark,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, Part II

    Episode 92: “It’s So Dark,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, Part II
    Jul 25 2025
    The boys carve through the second half of Cixin Liu’s sprawling, imaginative, and haunting The Dark Forest. Bagg has questions about how much we can trust our author and the characters he uses to make his plot work, while Dukes identifies the fact that the most important “character” in this novel is humanity itself. Regardless of your opinion of this quixotic book, you cannot dispute the ambition of its author—and his ability to transform his imagination into an ever-expanding epic.
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    1 h y 29 m
  • Episode 91: “All Chess Pieces, No Chess,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, Part I

    Episode 91: “All Chess Pieces, No Chess,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, Part I
    Jul 10 2025
    The premise of the Dark Forest, that Humanity must make a secret plan stored in our hidden thoughts to defeat an enemy that can spy on our every move, is wonderful. But the lads find the action in the first half a bit tepid, as Cixin Liu builds sets up the chess pieces we expect he’ll start knocking down in the second half of the book. There are some hot spots, and wonderful moments, including a depiction of the best group photo ever taken, but you have to read through a lot of narrative chaff to find htem. Here is the video of a six year old watching Star Wars for the first time with his Dad. Hint, at the end, the kid says “It’s the most amazingest thing I’ve ever saw in my whole entire, whole entire, whole entire, whole entire life.” And here is the Hildebrandt Brothers poster art for Star Wars, using models who were not actually Carrie Fisher or Mark Hamill.
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    56 m
  • Episode 90: “An Egg Slicer Through a Supertanker,” or Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, Part II

    Episode 90: “An Egg Slicer Through a Supertanker,” or Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, Part II
    Jun 26 2025
    The lads host their first UMB Official Sports Update as Jesse manages to survive a weekend of ultimate frisbee before getting into the second half of Cixin Liu’s sprawling and ambitious The Three Body Problem. The UMBers revisit some of our old friends, like Neal Stephenson’s habit of setting up narrative chessboards for a long time and eventually letting the game unfold, examining if Liu’s narrative setups have plausible payoffs. They also identify some of the “hapless protagonist” effect they’ve seen before in The Diamond Age and The Arrest, and talk about Liu’s claim that his work does not allegorize IRL history and action. Despite some misgivings, Jesse is excited for his third time through the subsequent two books, and Bagg is also looking forward to discovering how the earth responds to the Trisolaran “problem.”
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    Menos de 1 minuto
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These two charmers are funny, smart, and know their way around books. Give it a listen!

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