Here Be Tygers

Hey all,  This was a somewhat surreal episode for me to return to after we recorded it in what seems such a long time ago (back in 2016). I usually save these for later in the season, but Covid as of late has been cruel to my family and my dad’s back in the hospital with leukemia, so...it’s put me in bit of a reflective state, I suppose.  I mentioned before, in season one, that I’d have my longtime friend, the neuroscientist Nicolas Lori, on at some point in the show. This is this first—and just a part—of our conversation on Karl Schroeder’s Lockstep, a science fiction novel about time, the economy, and the hard choices that we make in life: though in truth it is more of a meditation or delve into notions of self, consciousness, mind and the sorts of gods we construct to make sense of ourselves—or give reasons for the sublime.  So join us today as we give pause for a moment to everyday life, to see how one artist perceived our future could be like.  I hope you enjoy.  -

Joining today: storyteller, game developer and Head of Marketing and Community at Multiverse, Lisa Trott  Hey all,  A fan of the show introduced us to Multiverse, an online video game platform, a few months ago. Since then, we’ve worked with the development team on a number of episodes; which reflects our shared interest, I think, on how stories are told, the means to create, and why worth follows from the lives that we help people make.   So join us today as we talk with Lisa Trott, the Head of Marketing and Community at Multiverse, about interactive games, why folks become a part of your tribe, and building a world that’s for both creatives and entrepreneurs alike.   -J  Show Notes  Pandemic fuels video game industry worth vs sports and film in 2020 Fortnite, Minecraft and the need for shared space in a digital first age  The Hechinger Report, lessons on digital literacy and remote learning from a refugee camp  Environment

Hey all, We’ll be back soon with an incredible season full of new guests (plus those that you’ve met before), fantastic tales, and some dedicated time to questions, ideas and insights on how to use storytelling in your work, play, and everyday life.  Oh, and don’t forget to follow us at our new home on @csuiteradio. -J Support the show (http://www.patreon.com/herebetygers) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/herebetygers/message

Hey all,  This episode was mostly a lark with a few fans of our shows, who wanted a little reprieve from this year and the ways that it sometimes goes. So we decided to watch some movies, games and television shows that were great (and others less so) while we were waiting for new audio gear... And to share a little bit of the levity for which both our end-of-the-year episodes and sibling shows, The Geekly Oddcast and Odder Worlds, are known.  We hope you enjoy, - J Support the show (http://www.patreon.com/herebetygers) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/herebetygers/message

Hey all, As we wind the year down, we wanted to give you a taste of what some our future episodes will be like.  Starting in Season 2, we’ll provide you with three different kinds of conversation on how you can use storytelling to teach, entertain and guide the folks in your work, play and everyday life. During our Interview or Teach episodes, we’ll talk to Creative Entrepreneurs about how to reach out to your market, audience and tribe, connect what you make to what they want out of life, and the trust, impact and legacy that provides.  For the Performance or Entertain episodes, we’ll invite other Creators onto the show to explore what makes for not just a good but the best stories, fiction or not; and how they compel, inspire or drive us towards a better life. Lastly, in our Workshop or Guide episodes, we’ll provide Creatives and Entrepreneurs alike with the tools, ideas and resources they need to find their tale, make it come to life, and bring what they’ve learned (or would share) back to their tribe. And

Hey all,  This is the second half of our conversation on the ‘four essential beats of narrative’: namely, the sad, funny, beautiful and weird. They’re not the only beats that matter, of course. But they often give, direction, flow or a shape to the moments that hold us captive or impact us the greatest. And though we may start with a fairly deep exploration of one of our favorite storytellers, Hayao Miyazaki, the foundational tropes, motifs and narrative elements he plays with—the loss of innocence or exuberant certainty, and the maturity gained in the presence of challenges we must face—are present to some extent in all of the works, from fantastic to horror to literary classics, that we discuss today. As for the ending? Well, we had to leave a little time yet to play. So join us as we see what happens when we have only a title, “Death Leaves Us Stranded”, and a premise as strange. We hope you enjoy. - J Show notes • Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli’s filmography • Katabasis, “descent to the underworld”

Hey all, What you’re about to hear is the first half of a much longer conversation on the four essential beats of narrative and how storytellers have used them both now and in the past to compel, inspire, repulse or attract.  As you listen, I invite you to think of your favorite stories—fiction or not—and why they’ve had such an impact. Then consider the most powerful moments you’re reminded of, and how you were moved from the first beat to the last. Oh and this was recorded during my recovery from cervical spine surgery. So if you hear a bit of a lisp at times (due to a few numbed or dead nerves), that’s why. I hope you enjoy. - J Show Notes  • Everything’s Coming up Podcast, now Round Springfield! • The former Cinefamily movie theater • Den of Geek on The Adventures of Pete and Pete • The Color out of Space, by HP Lovecraft; now a movie starring Nicholas Cage • The Caves of Steel series by Aasimov • Some iconic action films mentioned: Terminator 2, The Matrix, Die Hard, Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dolla

Joining today: two of the three Brothers Herman, engineer Dave and medical ethicist & philosopher Steven, with all of their knowledge combined  Xenobiology. Astrobiology. And all of the fictional kinds. The worlds we imagine, define, are teeming to full with strange and unusual life: beings who either don’t follow the rules that we know—or out of necessity create new order in their time.  But how do you make them seem real, do you ground our encounters with them in the world(s) that you write? How do you know what they think, hear, feel, would convey of their own deep, ineffable mind? Join us today as we touch on a few of your fictional favorites like the fae, alien kinds, and artificial beings or life that only in the uncanny valley can survive. And the numinous fear, sense of majesty or plain awe that we feel at meeting that which we cannot describe. - J Show Notes Descartes, “I think therefore I am...” Hobbes defining the second law of motion  NASA research on exobiology Tardigrades as Star

Joining today: intuitive healer, animal whisperer / human guide, and host of Motivational Addict, Julie Saillant Although animals feature prominently is many of the stories we tell—as fully detailed characters with their own folklore and lives, as other peoples or tribes within the world(s) where we dwell, and even sometimes as a proxy for ourselves—we often find it hard, ‘in real life’, to know what they’re thinking as well.  But every so often we can hear, gain a sense, for what goes on the mind of the creatures who give us a hoof, gentle claw or long thoughtful sigh: perhaps to remind us that this is their world, their home and their life too; and that maybe—just maybe—it would be nice if we picked up a bit from our sties. Join us today as we talk with intuitive healer and animal whisperer / human guide Julie Saillant about our friends of all stripes and the moments they ask for or provide us with kindness. - J Show Notes Veterinarian James Herriot’s memoir, All Creatures Great and Small A few recent

Joining today: engineer, pop culture critic, and host of Odder Worlds, Dave Herman Why do we stop? Cease to continue with the things that we love, that we create? That keep us up in the morning, at odd hours, throughout our everyday?  Confusion. Inertia. Fear of what’s still to come—or yet may. If you want to create, as a hobby, profession, form of personal expression or as the eminent biologist E.O. Wilson might say, to live in a not-as-of-yet fully inhabited space—then you’ll know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed by the things that you make. Or by what they both want and need in order to be sustained. So we’re going to talk about fears today. And how, one step at a time, we can turn those shivers you feel in your feet everyday to a walk to a trot to a leap down the road that leads to ‘what may...?’. And, if you’d like some help with any of that right now, you can go to https://www.20minutestobrilliance.com/tygers to sign up for your complimentary session today. - J Show Notes two different takes on Pe

In the first half my conversation with Dave, we talked about the four elements of narrative pacing: the premise, your beats, what the audience ‘sees’ and where those should lead. Today we’ll take a deeper look into the heart of things, or rather, ‘the heart of the scene’: that moment from which all of your beats will drive to or flow. This ‘heart’, as we’ll show, usually taps into what a character cherishes, wants or desires above all else (even in a slight way), reveals some truth of the world, or brings some nuance or insight on either to light. It’s also why I like to say that in the stories we write, there’s no such thing as ‘a lunch of dry toast’; not when you can find so many wonderful things in even the smallest or quietest scene—you just need to ask yourself ‘what if...?’ and see where that goes. - J You can also follow our shows on Twitter @BrothersHerman and @jcertherealist. Here Be Tygers supports #BlackLivesMatter and other organizations that would put an end to injustice, discrimination and po

Joining today: humorist, game maker and the host of Odder Worlds, David Herman There’s a moment in every story’s life where it will go a different way than the one you had in mind. When that’s done well, it can lead to a great or even wondrous surprise.  But sometimes the premise, the beats, and the end destination just don’t align: what you expect doesn’t lead anywhere, the moments that should have been are not there, or you don’t know how—at this place—you’ve arrived. What do you do when the tale that you’re trying to write, when the pacing you’d need (or perhaps like) doesn’t fit within the inevitabilities that you find?  Join us today for the first half of our conversation on a few tales that we’ve engaged with or made and how they create, sustain (and sometimes break) narrative flow. - J Show Notes Infamous, the game: a five minute summary for those who haven’t played Prototype, cutscenes and gameplay  An earlier piece I wrote on Character Development Hogfather review by Lunarian Press The Lit

Joining today: filmmaker, documentarian, and Executive producer of Alive Inside, Michael Rosatto-Bennett I’ve held on to this interview for awhile. I had plenty of reasons: it was old, it was too noisy, it was live; I wasn’t sure of where it would go—none of them ‘right’.  But that’s the funny thing about grace. It doesn’t come when you’d like, just in the moments between; when you listen, you wait, you hold something too small on its own to survive.  Our guest today has a few stories about forgiveness and change, transformation and sacrifice. And those moments between when you find, as the celebrated mystic and poet, Khalil Gibran, of the wisest (and blind) man should write: "I am an astronomer.” His hand to his breast. "I watch all these suns and moons and stars.” - J To learn more about Alive Inside, the documentary and foundation, you can visit their site or connect with them on Facebook. You can also follow our shows on Twitter @BrothersHerman and @jcertherealist. Here Be Tygers supports #BlackL

Joining today: William Howell, Senior Creative and Multimedia Producer for the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition, and Mark Daniel, a research associate at IHMC and their exoskeleton pilot Earlier this year, I had a chance to meet with two remarkable people: IHMC’s Mark Daniel and Billy Howell. They’d just finished speaking at the Podfest Expo in Orlando, where they presented a machine—a part of the team’s collaborative research—that could help a man to his feet, that could give to his legs, to his knees that ability to, again, work. Having watched my own father struggle with such things after a brutal car accident, with where the one step should lead or how the body should turn, it was incredible to see and to hear how much we’ve learned in just a few short years. But the science here is only one half of the story: the other is a tale of friendship, compassion, and indomitable spirit. One that I don’t want to spoil too much of before you listen to it as I did, for the first time. Oh, and this episo

Joining today: practicing evangelical, Masters of Divinity in spiritual formation, and the host of Halfway There, Eric Nevins The words around ‘faith’—that belief in numinous, the eternal, the ethereal, the strange—are often fraught with our own experience of how others would frame it. There are dogmas and proofs, liturgies, claims; but the journey we take is a personal one—sometimes with great struggle or of uncertain length. For Eric Nevins, a practicing evangelical, Masters of Divinity in spiritual formation, and the host of Halfway There—a show about ordinary Christians who sometimes feel lost or ‘on their way’—that journey began with learning to listen; to tell the difference between knowledge and wisdom, between love and intractable certitude—between the questions intended to guide and those meant to dissuade.  So join us today as we talk about magic and miracles, art, science and faith, and the many, many ways that a truth reveals its shape. - J Show Notes Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury 

Joining today: former Air Force colonel, Health Coach and stage-four ovarian cancer survivor, Deanna Won How do you choose—do you define—who you are and what to do when you have only a month left to ‘your time’? When the doctors describe to you symptoms, procedures and what your few weeks in hospice will be like? For Deanna Won, a former military colonel, scientist and trained fighter, that decision to want, to survive, to take back her autonomy, chase her dreams, regain her life started with one simple moment:  “This cancer is not me, but it is mine.” Oh, and this wasn’t planned, but the Hebrew word for 18 is chai, as in “l’chaim” the cheer or phrase for ‘to life!’. - J Show Notes Rami Shapiro’s take on Ecclesiastes, The Way of Solomon Gam Zeh Ya’avor or “This Too Shall Pass”, on Breaking Matzo Works by or about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on the Internet Archive The Institute for Integrative Nutrition Remembering Oliver Sacks, RadioLab episode  Rabbi Elliot R. Kukla on ‘choosing life’ To learn

Joining today: Julia Perch, a Russian-American psychiatrist, illustrator and writer of the upcoming novel, Umbra Julia and I first met in an online writing group, where she confessed that she was struggling with some friends and family who felt that her story was either a work of witchcraft or inspired by the devil. As a tremendous believer in the power of dreams, imagination, and what lives on in the emptiest places of our minds, this hurt her deeply. But still, she was inspired to write; to share the new and weird spaces that her characters occupied. So join us tonight for a conversation on surreal fiction, Otherness, character ‘arks’ and archetypes, and how the languages we speak can affect the tales that we write. - J Show Notes Paris in the Twentieth Century, by Jules Verne Butler-Bowdon’s summary on the Collective Unconscious and Jungian Archetypes Ebert’s review of The Twelve Chairs, with Dom Deluise, Ron Moody, and Frank Langella The State of Weird, by Helen Marshall, a brief historical revie

As promised, we return this month with the second half (and finale!) to our adventures in Microscope: a storytelling game about all the ‘big things’ that happen and the smaller scenes between.  So join us tonight as our mad flight resumes with multiple clones, flavors of ice cream, androids, and the consumption of our would-be saviors. - J Show Notes • “The Girl from Ipanema”, orig. by Antônio Carlos Jobim & Vinicius de Moraes; performed by NOVA • Rules for playing Microscope with your crew, family or team  • How to make your own Neapolitan Ice Cream Cake  • “Memo to Human Resources”, by They Might Be Giants • How to know if you’re an android: on Rossum's Universal Robots  You can follow our shows on Twitter @BrothersHerman and @jcertherealist. Like what you hear and want to show your support? Leave a review on your app of choice, share the show with a friend, or subscribe for more on Patreon.com/herebetygers. The Magician, written & performed by Immersive Music Kudos to @BrothersHerman for the fi

Occasionally, Dave, Pablo, sometimes Stephen, and I get up to shenanigans.  This is one of those times. Microscope is a game of what’s true and not right about the world. And what follows from that, as a tale—as a narrative—that we define. Or at least it should be, in practice, in theory. Until we tried. With apologies to candy, teeth, Star Wars/Trek, Battlestar Galactica, androids and anything else that I forgot tonight. Here’s the first half of what happens when we make a soon-to-be-real tale of migration come to life.  We hope you enjoy,  (...and stay subscribed ;p) Oh and just a heads up: this episode is mostly raw and unfiltered, hence the R rating this time. - J Show Notes You can follow our shows on Twitter @BrothersHerman, @MyopiaPodcast, and @jcertherealist Like what you hear and want to show your support? Leave a review on your app of choice, share the show with a friend, or subscribe for more on Patreon.com/herebetygers. The Magician, written & performed by Immersive Music Kudos to @Brothers

Joining today: entertainer, co-host of The Geekly Oddcast, and host of Odder Worlds, David Herman What if an advent was something left behind by the gods, as proof that your gift had been recognized? Or currencies an acknowledgement of the relationship between those of great need and those with great power or verve? If what you were worth was measured not by success but the work?  We’ve spoken before about what makes an ‘earth’. But the things that make that work—currencies, faith, presence, the ‘rules’ of the world—deserve their own light. So join us tonight as we talk about building roads, the internet, pamphleteering and the printing press. And then maybe, in what little time is left, on that rarest of elusive pigments:  Kobold blue. We hope you enjoy. - J Show Notes • “The Revolutionary Power of the Black Panther”, by Jamil Smith • Themes, values and motifs related to the weregild • “Maitreya and the Wheel-turning King”, a translation  • A short history in Blue: cobalt, indigo, and the porcelain trade •