PODCAST

Upper Middlebrow

A podcast in which we discuss high-craft works of popular culture

arts books

All Episodes

1:15:16

Episode 94: “Chewing Glass” or Tim Krabbe’s The Rider

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/09/22

Tim Krabbe's novel is barely a novel. It is a thinly veiled autobiogrpahical essay, with fictional details and composite characters, allowing the author to navigate his story just to one side of the fiction/nonfiction divide. The lads ponder why it does not fall into the "bike porn" genre, and why the images of teeth and glass continually emerge.

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1:27:36

Episode 94: “A Swiftly Flattening Universe,” or Cixin...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/09/08

The lads wrap up Cixin Liu’s sprawling and massive Three Body Trilogy, building something that somehow seems to transcend traditional literary structures and devices. We look back at how far this particular plot has wandered from whence it came, and both Jesse and Chris are impressed at Liu’s ability to continue adding obstacles and stakes without letting the book fall apart. Still, there is a lot of plot to find a way through—does the grandness of the project match the execution?

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1:22:39

Episode 93: “Post Humanity Blues,” or Cixin Liu’s...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/08/18

The final installment in Cixin Liu’s trilogy is long. And strong. We begin in the “deterrence” era, in which humans and Trisolarans enjoy a truce enforced by mutually ensured destruction. But all things must pass, and when the truce breaks, humanity gazes at the possibility of its own destruction. Death’s End is part interstellar chase, part Cold War allegory and introduces a new anti-villian, Sophon, who is perhaps Liu’s greatest creation. Bagg finds the characters are less realistic humans, and

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1:29:14

Episode 92: “It’s So Dark,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/07/25

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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55:32

Episode 91: “All Chess Pieces, No Chess,” or Cixin...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/07/10

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

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Episode 90: “An Egg Slicer Through a Supertanker,” or...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/06/26

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

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10:06

Review: John Scalzi’s “When the Moon Hits Your Eye”

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/06/23

Jesse Dukes offers a quick review of popular science fiction writer John Scalzi's newest novel, "When the Moon Hits Your Eye". While he initially put the book down after reading the first chapter, due to frustration with the absurd premise, on a second read, Dukes found that the book has its charms.

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1:07:24

Episode 89: “A Creeping Awareness” or Cixin Liu’s The...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/06/16

The Three Body Problem begins with an inexplicable series of tragic mysteries, most notably, that physics as we know it has stopped working. Slowly, the reader is given enough clues to start to suspect various causes, although halfway through, we still don’t really know what’s going on. Dukes has read it before, and Bagg has not, so they lads compare notes as to their experience of the creeping awareness of the disturbing truth dawning on the characters.

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1:08:23

Episode 88: “Creation’s Folly,” or Mary Shelley’s...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/06/05

The boys wrap up their discussion of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and come away somewhat ambivalent: this is clearly a work of importance, imagination, and invention, but it feels…unfocused. We posit that the undeserved press and social pressure clouds what is otherwise an incredible meditation on creation: what are a creator’s responsibilities to their creation, and what effect does the fulfillment (or neglect) of those responsibilities have upon the created?

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30:49

Digression: Solo Canoe Sailing on Long Lake

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/06/02

Friend of the show Justin shares another update, as well as his foray into what he terms Contemporary Victorian Episolary Short Travel Non-Fiction. Justin is paddling a solo canoe (and often carrying the canoe) along the 700 Mile Northern Forest canoe trail, and we are digressing from our regular programming to share his dispatches. We are pleased to include Justin's drawings of canoe sailings rigs including the standard rafted canoe rig. And the author's innovative solo canoe sailing

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43:11

Digression, From the North Woods with Justin Reich

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/05/22

We reach Upper Middlebrow education expert Justin Reich on the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, at the edge of mobile phone reception. He gives us a dispatch, mid journey, from a rather literary setting. Justin is finishing his sabbatical with nothing but a canoe, a backpack, a couple of paddles, and aluminum pole (for poling up river) and a canoe portage cart. The North Woods in May bring long days, rainy weather, and if you're lucky, few black flies, and reasonable water level. From the

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1:06:41

Episode 87: “A Dude who Made a Dude,” or Mary...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/05/19

Mary Shelley was 18 when she started writing Frankenstein, which many consider the first science fiction novel. Over the next twenty years, she revised the book several times, and the version she left behind remains a remarkable work of imagination. Shelley is amazingly inventive and talented, but the lads find th novel to be hard going, and a slow starter. They wonder at the use of framed narratives, and how long the book takes to give Frankenstein’s creation a voice.

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1:00:38

Episode 86: “A Study in Structure,” or Arthur Conan...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/05/09

The lads go bananas over Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes mystery, "A Study in Scarlet," published in 1887. We meet the mercurial Sherlock Holmes and his by turns skeptical then credulous biographer, Dr. John H. Watson, late of Afghanistan. The short novella or long short story wastes no time in driving towards the solving of its central mystery, but then makes a strange swerve into the American West and a bout of extended exposition. Chris and Jesse spend a rollicking hour discussing the

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1:17:57

Ep 85, “Science vs. Evil” or Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”,...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/04/28

Bram Stoker arrays his crew of brave companions against what they've finally realized is an ancient un-dead evil. And the author seems to be elling us something about the nature of the human capacity for scientific inquiry, and love.The lads detect a bit of the old "chessboard problem", the name we've given to an author's struggle to create a compelling third act while artfully tieing up all the character arcs and loose ends established in the first acts. But Bram Stoker's inventiveness and

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2:19

Save the Date: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Live Taping,...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/04/24

Join us Thursday, May 19th at 4pm PDT / 7 PM EDT for a live viewing and taping of Anthony Minghella's 1999 masterpiece, The Talented Mr. Ripley. Dukes and Bagg think of this as the BEST of the many excellent Tom Ripley films. It stars Matt Damon Tom Ripley, and the amazing cast includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Jude Law, and Cate Blanchett. This event will be Live on Discord, which is something we've never tried before, so join us as we pioneer a new type of live podcasting

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1:05:53

Episode 84: “Unnatural Intimacy,” or Bram Stoker’s...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/04/17

Neither of the lads had read Stoker’s classic gothic novel, published in 1897, and they suspect that many readers are in the same boat. Over 100 years of vampiric pop culture have made Stoker’s masterful compiling of folklore fade into the background, but the book that launched a thousand bites is bracing, inventive, funny, haunting, and innovative. Chris and Jesse talk about atmosphere, forced intimacy, the anxieties of Victorian society, and the grand missed opportunity of Dracula’s cancelled

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1:23:06

Episode 83: “I Made a Friend, and Now He’s Dead” or...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/04/07

Chris and Jesse watched this movie together nearly 20 years ago, and it made an impression, due to John Malkovich's memorable, creepy, and charming take on Tom Ripley. Director Calvani seems to enjoy making this Ripley seductive, so that the viewer realizes with horror that we kind of like him, and just like poor Jonathan Trevanny, might find ourselves similarly drawn into his schemes. We have a Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/upper_middle_brow And a Discord

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1:20:23

Episode 82: “Cocaine was Invented for Times Like...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/03/31

The lads get all aughty with Roger Spotiswoode’s charming and unthreatening Ripley, Underground, where Tom Ripley is a glib opportunist instead of the darker, unpredictable Ripleys. The result is an entertaining romp that feels a little like going to a Bare Naked Ladies show: you probably won’t go again but it was fun while it lasted. It’s a welcome addition to the Ripley Cinematic Universe, bringing back an air of fantasy to Highsmith’s invention.

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1:18:07

Episode 81: “LA Light, LA Darkness,” or Robert...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/03/24

UCLA professor Peter Lunenfeld joins us to talk about Robert Altman's neo-noir based on Raymond Chandler's novel. Some reviewers call the film "satirical" but we argue, it's more a riff than a satire. It treats the source material lovingly, even as it updates it to match the 70's zeitgeist. Our guest Peter argues that the elusive Courry Brand cat food is a metaphor for the film, something that is labelled one way, but containing the unexpected.

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1:08:02

Episode 80: “Frames, Trains, and Burning Automobiles”...

Upper Middlebrow ·

2025/03/17

The American Friend is loosely based on Patricia Highsmith’s third Tom Ripley novel Ripley’s Game. But Wim Wenders plays fast and loose with the source material, borrowing elements of another novel Ripley Underground and referencing Easy Rider, Rebel Without a Cause, and other cinematic forebears. The visuals are beautiful, and even if the plot is a bit puzzling, the lads find the mood of the film compelling. We have a Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/c/upper_middle_brow And a Discord

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