Nostalgia Trap

Latest Episodes:

News Trap 3.19.25 - Against the Wall Mar 19, 2025

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Today I fall into paranoid android mode, thinking about what it means to "own the libs" from the left in the new Trump Reich. My message to an increasingly marginalized left flank: be careful what you wish for!

Check out John Ganz's terrific Substack, Unpopular Front

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News Trap 3.14.25 - Blowback w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW) Mar 14, 2025

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Trump and Elon Musk are actively working to destroy the global economic order, but to what end? This week Justin and I consider the wacky cartoon reality that Americans inhabit, and speculate about the different forms "blowback" might take when the punishment gets real.

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Ep 407 - A Complete Unknown w Stephen Petrus Mar 07, 2025

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Stephen Petrus is director of Public History Programs at LaGuardia and Wagner Archives and co-author of the book Folk City: New York and the American Folk Music Revival (2015). He joins me to discuss the movie A Complete Unknown, which tracks a brief but critical moment in the life of Bob Dylan, when his rise to stardom intersected with the wider social and political project envisioned by American folk musicians, fans, and organizers.

Check out Dylan's Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie.

For a deeper look at the folk scene from which Dylan emerged, don't miss Martin Scorsese's documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)

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News Trap 2.28.25 - Car's on Fire w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW) Feb 28, 2025

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Our good friend Justin Rogers-Cooper joins me to survey the first month of Trump's presidency, as we play out some of the nastier currents now circling in American and global political culture, from Trump's exoneration of his foot soldiers to the left salivating over Luigi Mangione, and much more. Who's really in control? And what can we anticipate as we head into truly uncharted territory?

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Check out the interview with ACLU executive director Anthony Romero that Justin cites in the episode.

News Trap 2.26.25 - The Way of the Gun (PREVIEW) Feb 26, 2025

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A recent law school event featuring former L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey honestly blew my mind, and made me think a lot about the intersection of crime, law enforcement, reform movements, and political violence. I try to put those ideas together alongside the current culture of J6 pardons and Luigi mania, as we fall further into a chaotic and vengeful national mindset.

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Check out the latest episode of Lawyers in the Attic, with education attorney Meghan Sherry.

News Trap 2.19.25 - Into the Thresher Feb 19, 2025

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There are currently too many news stories to fit into the "ominous portents of a dark future" file, so I've chosen a few of the most flagrant examples of Trump/Musk savagery to share, along with some reflections on how to fight for our minds and for each other as the world heads down the toilet.

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Ep 406 - Work or Die, Part One (PREVIEW) Feb 14, 2025

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I got my first job when I was 15 years old, working at a Pumpkin Patch on a local farm, and it's been all downhill from there. I'm partly joking, but the working world has never been a place of maximum success and happiness for me, and in this episode I try to come to terms with my own job history as a way of exploring the pressures that consume many of us: bosses, bills, weird co-workers, and the dark feeling that American life is often a big depressing rip-off. I've got stories to tell from a lifetime of shitty jobs, from manning the bakery case at Marie Callender's as a teenager to dealing with obnoxious D-list celebrities as a production assistant in Hollywood. As a wise man once said, "work sucks, I know." Here's a few slices of how I found that out.

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Ep 405 - All I Can Say w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper Feb 09, 2025

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The haunting documentary All I Can Say, which chronicles a few vibrant years in the life of Shannon Hoon, the lead singer of 90s grunge rock band Blind Melon, is a slice of deep 90s nostalgia shot on camcorder by Hoon himself before he died of a drug overdose in October 1995. In this conversation, Justin Rogers-Cooper joins me to reflect on Hoon's complicated legacy, the strange power of his intimate pre-Internet video diary, and the larger galaxy of 90s grunge martyrs.

Check out Justin's chapter all about Blind Melon "Shannon Forever: Blind Melon's Bee Girl and Countercultural Afterlives"

And enjoy the entire series of essays here: Happy Nostalgia: Making Connections with the Music of the '90s

Our episode on 90s music with Happy Nostalgia series editor David Humphries: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-401-love-means-research-w-david-humphries/id862194930?i=1000682583975

Our episode on Elvis with Justin, a personal favorite: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-349-i-w-78198738?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

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Ep 404 - Adventures in Adjuncting (PREVIEW) Jan 31, 2025

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I started teaching college history courses in 2005 when I was a graduate student at the City University of New York. Looking back at those early years, I can hardly believe how little I knew about how to teach college courses. As I mark my 20th year of teaching, I thought I would reflect on everything I've learned from two decades of serving as an adjunct professor at a wide range of institutions, from working class community colleges to elite private schools and everything in between. I've changed a lot in these years, and so has the wider political economy and culture of American higher education. In this episode you'll hear my takes on the rise of tech in education, dealing with woke culture (the good and the bad), the slow humiliation of professorial hierarchies, belligerently anti-communist business students, and lots more. I also share some stories of true communion with students and colleagues, moments that make the whole journey, despite its many challenges, incredibly rewarding.

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Ep 403 - Only in Dreams Jan 29, 2025

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David Lynch died earlier this month, and like many others I've been reflecting on his legacy, not only in the wider culture but in my own personal trajectory and identity. In this episode, I focus on the latter. Rather than trying to analyze the larger meaning of Lynch's filmography, I wanted to sort out how his work intervened on my life, in particular considering how ideas of dark magic, synchronicity, and dreams in his films connect with my own weird experience of American reality. So I share some strange stories here, along with stray thoughts on how David Lynch, more than any other artist, somehow captured the uncanny feeling that some dark undercurrent pulsed beneath the surface of American life.

Some reading recs I mention in the episode:

Greil Marcus, The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice

David Foster Wallace, "David Lynch Keeps His Head"

Laura Dern, "You Wove L.A. Into Our Dreams"

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