🎙️
My favorite classicist is William Arrowsmith, and he has a lot of, if not comforting, let’s call them useful things to say about Western society throughout this interview. I wish this was anything close to what most podcasts are today.
Some favorite excerpts:
“A society that still produces human faces”
“Americanization is a word that simply means there are problems that we’ve confronted before they’ve come here.”
30:18: “The question is, how is this [sudden overpresence of leisure] time to be used?”
Response: “in somma,” [young man laughs] [irony, heavy, so goddamn witty — means “honestly” in Italian]
Soft “questo cazzo” from young man in the background
“Look, what I’m trying to say is that I believe like the devil in the humanity and the life [thumping the table gently for emphasis] and the vigor of the Classics, and it seems to me they have a great deal to say to any Italian who would bother listening to them; there’s a real tradition there, and nothing to me is more heartrending than the spectacle of a writer who, out of hostility—and understandable hostility—to the old humanistic tradition of Italy, cuts himself off from that heritage. …But not just a cutting-off, it’s the problem of how to admit to the benefits of a vital culture. Those who have been essentially disenfranchised for centuries, they are either going to establish a new culture which will appall all of us who love the past and what it created, or, uh … or Italy will go the way of, you know, France, and England, and all those other countries. [laughter from the group; recording ends]”
“…[noise on the microphone, perhaps a cut for food arriving? Silverware in the bg after pickup] Only because, you can only forgive something you love. It gives you so much, that when it fails to give it to you any longer, the only possible response is falling out of love, or forgiving.”
Mar 1, 2025
Related Recs
It can get so tiring consuming media because its a 'classic' or it's 'necessary to understand x'. Improving taste and furthering your education is obviously a great thing but it can be worn out just like any other thing! Hence, my preference for the 'nevermind' podcast, it feels like I'm in on a conversation with friends which is the -ultimate- form of expanding your horizons because it doesn't require effort!!! Finding things you can go to for comfort is a great way to find spark. "It's the little things" as they say...
Feb 16, 2025
🎧
Extremely digestible and entertaining history podcast in a thick Italian accent
Sep 15, 2024
📓
I think the first podcast ever? über academic but Melvyn Bragg is sharp as a tack.
Feb 29, 2024
Top Recs from @ars3n
☕
going out is expensive and afternoons & evenings can be busy, invite someone over to your place before noon and make a pot of coffee — enjoy company for company’s sake 🥂
Apr 13, 2025
dishing with my husband at the Mexican restaurant around the corner is my new Mass 👯💕
Apr 3, 2025
she kills the man who assaults her and gets away with it [I am so sick of Western canon destroying any woman who ever fights back] :)
Feb 19, 2025