All stories teach a lesson of some sort. Some lessons are very obvious and simple: Tell the truth. Kindness is best. True beauty comes from within. But what makes these morals resonate in a story? Why do they come off as maudlin and sappy in some stories and profound and deep in others? Hosts Timothy…
Read MoreThe Christmas season means Christmas movies, and one constant of Christmas movies is the need to believe. You must have faith in the Christmas spirit, or belief in Santa Claus, or even trust in the promises of God. Each of these are labelled belief or faith, and yet they can make for very different stories….
Read MoreHosts Timothy Deal and Nick Hayden tackle light use of dark subjects in stories, Halloween puns, and fictional ghosts.
Read MoreImagine you’re part of a hunter-gatherer tribe. Who do you value most? That awesome hunter dude who brings home the boar bacon? The guy with the big muscles who tore apart a lion with his bare hands? Or is it the storyteller who tells the myths of your people? This episode, hosts Timothy Deal and…
Read MorePerhaps you’ve sat down for a seventeen-hour session of Monopoly. You roll dice, you take cards, you pay fake money, and you build houses. But you can also imagine yourself as a budding real estate tycoon, trying to avoid jail, consolidating your own personal Potterville in which to squeeze every last penny out of your…
Read MoreEveryone has at least one–a piece of art that they keep meaning to experience someday. You know, things like War and Peace or The Rules of the Game or Der Ring des Nibelungen. But it’s long and maybe it’s boring and you don’t like weird foreign names and, I mean, you could just watch Friends…
Read MoreBooks and movies are not merely entertainment. At their best (and too rarely), they draw us out of ourselves and touch us in deep places, sometimes in a way almost spiritual. Your faithful hosts, Tim and Nick, have decided to take some time to examine thi
Read More“Balder the Beautiful / Is dead, is dead!” These words once caused a young C. S. Lewis to glimpse a scene of beauty and joy. We all have our own memories of a moment in some story that resonated deeply with us with its beauty. What makes such a moment? Wh
Read MoreIn the words of the famous (read: unknown) poem from Alice in Wonderland: He sent them word I had not gone (We know it to be true): If she should push the matter on, What would become of you? And what does this mean? No idea. But, it introduces an importa
Read More