Several years ago, I had an honors student in an Exploring the Bible course, along with his twin brother. Austin and Brenden begged me to start up a Hebrew course just for them, and when eventually I did, Austin Schwartz enrolled in it, and struggled through. He jumped into a number of other courses I taught, and then, when it came time for his senior honors thesis, he asked me to be his advisor, even though he was double-majoring in English and Theater.
This was Austin’s proposal: a readings course in apocalyptic literature. His artifact would not be something boring like a thesis paper. He would produce and publish a podcast chronicling our reading adventures. He even had a name for it: The World Needs a Little Talk.
We had different ideas of apocalypticism. He picked things like The Watchmen and short stories about zombies. I insisted that he read Bede and the Mystery Plays. Our visions overlapped in some surprising ways. He asked me to read Good Omens (which I did not really enjoy for its too-clever irreverence) and I made him watch the original Omen to show him where all the best bits of that book were stolen from. (He was not as impressed with The Omen as I had hoped he would be). Here, at least, there was some Scripture or fantastically-imagined Scripture for us to talk about. Then he suggested that we watch another film, this one about the Rapture, titled This Is the End. This one hit the bull’s-eye for both of us: end-of the world disasters, biblical riffs, and … outrageous comedy.
We talked about keeping The World Needs a Little Talk going after his graduation. It was fun, forced me to read something besides commentaries, and we really enjoy spending time together. However, our busy lives swept us along with more pressing concerns. He got married to his sweetheart, I started a number of other projects, and our podcast sat on the shelf for a good bit, collecting digital dust. Austin even left the last few recordings unpublished.
Then, at the beginning of last semester, I begged Austin to get it going again, and providentially, he said that he was just about to suggest the same to me. We were both excited for a number of films we had seen over the summer. Superheroes seemed to be the theme du jour. I double-dipped with my Sacred Realms podcast, because Austin brought out different perspectives.
In this second season of The World Needs a Little Talk, we’ve finally hit our stride. Austin has matured a good bit. (So have I). We’ve broadened the themes quite a lot, visiting Narnia together for a few episodes, and chatting about short-stories by Shirley Jackson and O. Henry. This season has featured a handful of live performances on the Newman stage.
The best thing about the new episodes is that Austin and I feel even more comfortable with one another. We’ve become great conversation partners. I’m convinced that the best episodes are the ones where we’ve taken tangents far afield from the subject matter, and just gotten caught up in having a little talk. I’m grateful to Austin for reviving the podcast, and I’m delighted to share it here with you on my blog. Please give it a listen.
One word of warning: Austin and I do feel extremely comfortable with one another, and that means that the language gets blue from time to time. This isn’t a kid’s show. Please take that into consideration!
