Clerestory
Clerestory
A Walk with Delia Burgess
0:00
Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:01:33
-1:01:33

A Walk with Delia Burgess

Plus feedback from the salon

Delia Burgess and I recorded a podcast while walking in London last month, with lapel mics. I’m interested in audio experiments so this was a fun one to try.

We cover a bit about ⁠⁠Neither/Nor⁠⁠, as well as existentialism versus essentialism.

I left it almost entirely unedited because I liked the ambient sound of ordering at a café, then on our walk through traffic and on the ⁠Parkland Walk⁠⁠. You can even hear the echo as we go through a tunnel. But if you don’t like the slow ambient intro, you can skip about 5 minutes in, to where we start walking and talking.

You can listen to Delia's podcast, ⁠⁠Growing Up with Delia Burgess⁠⁠, on which I’ve been a guest.

A photo I took in 2019, of one of the things Delia asked about on the Parkland Walk

Event with Kate Kirkpatrick

The salon I hosted on Simone de Beauvoir was great! About 25 friends and Interintellect members came.

I was quite nervous, being in front of both a live audience and livestreamed to YouTube. I also have a pretty strong negativity bias, so in the interest of not focusing solely on what I did badly, I’ll publicly post some of the feedback I received, anonymously:

  • “I enjoyed the evening and felt the discussion was alive; it was great to have such a high level of participation.”

  • “The livestream was great quality. I loved the conversation, you're a good host! I hope that you will host more ❤️”

  • “I really liked the event. I thought you did a terrific job of asking interesting questions.”

  • “I really appreciated your question about Melanie Klein! I thought it was structured very well — starting with some broad questions and setting the context before going into the specifics and also pausing for questions from the audience. Just felt like a very nice conversational style — could see the effort that had gone into preparing but it also wasn't rigid which is often a trap.”

  • “We loved coming to the salon! Thank you so much for including us all. I just really made it a great week having come to that. It was just so fun and engaging and informative. And it inspired me to go back to my earlier obsession with salons when I was in grad school.”

  • “I loved the salon. You did great. The questions you had were fabulous and some very good ones from the audience. I really liked Kate and her answers were beautifully thoughtful. A pure joy to hear Beauvoir’s work being discussed so deeply. Thanks for doing it and inviting us along.”

The event was livestreamed; please let me know if you would like to watch the recording and I will try to get you a copy.

Best,

Bryan

Discussion about this podcast

Clerestory
Clerestory
A podcast on the origins of complexity and of selfhood, in poetry and prose. A palimpsest on my recent reading, a rehearsal, a revision, and a repurposing of new and old texts.