Waste Books

Join us this time as we discuss the first half of Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic, Dune. Overview Ten years after Lord of the Rings, twelve years before Star Wars, and nineteen years before David Lynch’s godawful adaptation, Dune holds true as perhaps the greatest science fiction epic of all time. Frank Herbert’s masterwork of a novel (and five sequels) realizes through the mythos and mystique of the planet Arrakis (a.k.a. Dune) the fertile intersection of ecological, colonialist, feminist, Marxist, religious, and philosophical debates compacted in this prophetic, addictive, and somehow familiar journey through the most unfamiliar of worlds. Dune is heavy without pretension, enjoyable without ease, and immersive without the escapism that cheap science-fiction promises: fantasy without the reminders of why we choose to look elsewhere for answers.                 The journey that readers and the characters themselves take on this hostile planet begins with Herbert’s hero Paul Atreides being initiated into the ri

Join us this month as we discuss Mary Shelley's seminal sci-fi/horror novel, Frankenstein. Overview It was one fateful summer night in the year of 1816 that young Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin found herself near Lake Geneva in the company of fellow romantic authors Lord Byron and her future husband Percy Shelley. Due to the unpleasant nature of that year’s summer, they were confined to Byron’s villa for much of their time there, reading German ghost stories and exciting their imaginations. This led to Lord Byron’s suggestion that they each write their own ghost story. From this, a monster was created. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a classic horror tale that follows the exploits of one Victor Frankenstein, a noble young gentleman from Geneva, Switzerland. At the ripe age of seventeen Victor must simultaneously cope with losing his mother to scarlet fever and leaving the nest to journey off to study at a neighboring university. In his turmoil, Victor becomes obsessed with natural philosophy, alchemy, and other

Join Eric, Phil, Dan, and Cooper as they discuss Don DeLillo's spectacular novel, White Noise. Overview Published in 1985, White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, a college professor who teaches Hitler Studies at the college on the hill in the quaint little town of Blacksmith. Babette, his fourth wife (by his fifth marriage), and a collection of their children live a life characterized by trips to the supermarket, cycles of laundry, and time spent in front of the television. After a manmade environmental disaster threatens the town, the way that they relate to themselves and the world around them seems to be challenged, for a temporary period at least. Things eventually return to normal for Jack Gladney, Babette, and their brood, but they soon find themselves embroiled in a plot of back-alley pharmaceuticals. In terms of thematic content, by any measure the novel is certainly a product of its time. Grappling with issues such as environmental destruction at the hands of mankind, the disintegration and

Join Phil, Wendy, Eric, Dan, and Jordan this month as they talk about the trip that is Be Here Now, by Baba Ram Das. Overview In 1967, a disillusioned Harvard professor named Richard Albert journeyed to the foothills of the Himalayas to seek a spiritual solace the West failed to provide. Originally a lecturer in the field of psychology, Albert travelled to Mexico with fellow professor Timothy Leary, (of LSD fame) experimenting with then unacknowledged psilocybin mushrooms and aided Leary in testing and assessing the value of the psychedelic drug LSD. Never satisfied and eventually rejected by the faculty at Harvard, Albert found a lasting state of peace not through recreational drug use but the religion, philosophy, and mysticism of the East. His name change to Ram Dass is a tribute both to his guru’s influence and the importance of meditative practices in uniting with the immediacy of the universe.             Be Here Now is a record of this journey and the point of arrival, ripe with illustrated thoughts

NOTE: This fest no longer associates with Richard due to his alleged sexual misconduct, but we did interview him before anything came to light.    We’ve got a lot to share with you about the 5th annual, all-ages, D-I-Y Richard Dreyfest, August 11th and 12th at eight venues across Downtown Billings. In this episode, you’ll hear interviews with some of the Montana-based and out-of-state musicians, visual artists, poets, and comedians performing at this 2-day event, along with an extra deluxe, super coveted interview with the man himself. We’re also gonna be sharing samples of the artist’s work, little vignettes of what life’s like for them in the days leading up to the festival, and more. For more information on Richard Dreyfest, visit waste-division.org, where you can find artist interviews, discounted presale tix ($15!), and schedule information.   Produced by Brie Ripley. Music: "Do the Nelz" by Idaho Green "Daydream" by Bull Market "New Day Shine" by Noise Noise Noise "Prairie is an Island" by M

NOTE: This fest no longer associates with Richard due to his alleged sexual misconduct, but we did interview him before anything came to light.    This Sunday, we’ve got a podcast coming out that will feature interviews with bands, comedians, visual artists, and poets who are part of the upcoming, 5th annual Richard Dreyfest. We’re sharing tracks from some of the three dozen bands playing this two-day, all-ages, DIY event. Those tracks will be available for you to stream, or download so that you can start getting hyped for the fest, which is taking place August 11th and 12th in 8 venues across Downtown Billings. We’ll also be sharing a very special interview… We’ll have that podcast available for you to stream on Waste-Division dot org, and ready for you to download on iTunes, podbean, or wherever you get your podcasts, this Sunday. For more information, visit our website, www.waste-division.org. Produced by Brie Ripley. Music: "Do the Nelz" by Idaho Green "Daydream" by Bull Market "New Day Shine"

In this episode we talk about Haruki Murakami's novel, A Wild Sheep Chase. Overview “The thing is you’re looking for something two-dimensional and not quite real. It never lasts. But you can’t expect something unreal to last anyway, can you?” The ordinary, desultory, and nameless protagonist of Haruki Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase is not the character one immediately wants to identify with. At times incorrigible, mostly helpless, and constantly at a loss for understanding his farrago of a life, Murakami throws our “hero” out of his mundane Tokyo life and into a phantasmagoric raft of characters, situations, and – sheep. Accompanied by his newfound girlfriend (endowed with supernatural ears), the hapless lead meets with a nefarious rightwing organization demanding that a certain oddly marked sheep be found – or else. More schlemiel than samurai, the two then embark across the country, finding a conspiracy worth of secrets that align the sheep’s history with Japan’s checkered past. With the protagonist’s anx

In this episode we discuss Samuel Beckett's oddball novel, Watt. Overview Be prepared for Watt. Few novelists find the ability (or gall) to include the syncopated musical notation of three croaking frogs or a two-page description of the twenty ways four objects in a room are positioned. There are sentences written backwards, a man who eats the same meal every day, and an unseen dog that has its origins explained for longer than any other scene in the novel. This unseen dog’s story begins to feel more real than most of the surreal novel, and these moments clarify that amidst the abysmal tones and purgatorial drudgery, Beckett is trying to tell you the most important fact about life. The story about the peculiar protagonist, Watt, is not a direct one. All that can be said of the plot is that our Watt ventures to a manor in the Irish countryside where he works for an obscure duration for obscure reasons, eventually leaving having learned nothing. Watt works for a Mr. Knott, even more enigmatic than our “hero”

In this episode we talk about Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, relating it to the Coen Brothers' film rendition and existentialism. Overview The highway that is No Country for Old Men gets you lost even though the two-lane blacktop never deviates in direction. It’s just that that first wrong turn screwed everything up and turning back now is as impossible as turning back time itself. For those who’ve seen the Coen Brothers film, the novel No Country for Old Men is just as blood-soaked and cerebral as the silver screen ever portrayed it. Only a novelist as commanding as Cormac McCarthy can juxtapose sobering meditations on determinism and entropic decay with brutal tableaus of grisly violence along with their lurid aftermath on the body and soul. Because McCarthy is such a deliberate writer, aiming for palpable precision over entertainment, the violence he depicts is rendered all the more visual, all the more real in its considerations to weighing each word in measurements of time and mass. Violenc