Ward has issued about ten releases of lyric-driven, stylish pop since 2003. We discuss the title track from Leonard at the Audit (2020), "Titans" from Diminish (2018), and the title track from Pulling Out (2008). Intro: "Sabbath" from Ward White Is the Matador (2014). End: "Bubble and Squeak," also from the new album. For info see wardwhite.net.

Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.

L.B. Jefferies has the perfect girlfriend—beautiful, intelligent, wealthy—but too perfect, he insists, for marriage. And so he spends his time spying on the love lives of his neighbors, and ropes his girlfriend into this project as well. Which, strangely enough, turns out to be a really effective form of couples’ therapy. What’s the connection between voyeurism and what Jefferies calls “the intelligent way to approach marriage”? Wes and Erin discuss Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window.

Thanks to CranioDsgn for permission re-purpose his poster for the cover art.

Subscribe: (sub)Text won’t always be in the PEL feed, so please subscribe to us directly: Apple | Spotify | Android | RSS

Bonus content: The conversation continues on our after-show (post)script. Get this and other bonus content at by subscribing at Patreon.

Follow (sub)Text: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Do we owe parents our gratitude for our upbringing? What if they haven’t done such a great job? And anyway, perhaps we inevitably resent all the forces that have shaped the characters that confine and limit us. If so, the quest for filial gratitude is ultimately hopeless. It could even be a kind of madness: a foolish attempt to transcend the same formative forces that we resent in our parents, to be “unaccommodated,” free of the “plague of custom.” Wes and Erin discuss William Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Subscribe: (sub)Text won’t always be in the PEL feed, so please subscribe to us directly: Apple | Spotify | Android | RSS

Bonus content: The conversation continues on our after-show (post)script. Get this and other bonus content at by subscribing at Patreon.

Follow (sub)Text: Twitter | Facebook | Website

An advantageous marriage is Elizabeth Bennet’s only potential escape from a foolish mother, a disinterested father, three very silly sisters, and a house that’s entailed away to her idiotic cousin Mr. Collins. But she turns down fabulously wealthy Mr. Darcy because he’s prideful—and maybe a little prejudiced. But then, so is she. How do we know if two people are well-suited to each other? What makes a successful match? Is Mr. Collins actually the perfect man? Wes and Erin discuss Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Subscribe: (sub)Text won’t always be in the PEL feed, so please subscribe to us directly: Apple | Spotify | Android | RSS

Bonus content: The conversation continues on our after-show (post)script. Get this and other bonus content at by subscribing at Patreon.

Follow (sub)Text: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Thanks to Abbie Smith for allowing us to repurpose her poster for the cover art. And thanks to Tyler Hislop for the audio editing on this episode.

On A Short History of Decay (1949), a pessimist/existentialist somewhat text from the most famous Romanian philosopher.

Cioran's short essays touch on art, humor, God, salvation, time, nostalgia, mourning, death, disease, suicide, revolt, freedom, Buddhism, Daoism, and the role of the philosopher.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

Mark's Partially Examined Life co-host Seth joins us (i.e. Mark and Mary) to introduce Seth to improv and continue introducing philosophy to Mary.

We discuss Seth's attraction to depressing texts, act out couples' therapy and monster beauty parlor, and open up a few philosophical cans of worms: Is truth relative? (Hint: no!) Does outer beauty reflect inner beauty?

Hear more at philosophyimprov.com. Support the podcast and listen ad-free at philosophyimprov.com/support.

Continuing on selections from this late Platonic dialogue. Starting in Book 4, Plato's characters are discussing how to create a new state ("Magnesia") from scratch. What sorts of laws should it have?

We talk about marriage laws, the nocturnal council, how the law is argued for that everyone has to believe in gods, and more.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsor: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health.

For our Emmys/back-to-school episode, we cover the pinnacle of the current network sitcom landscape: The six-time 2025 Emmy nominated 4-year-old sitcom Abbott Elementary. Yes, it lost this year but has won in the past.

Mark, Lawrence, Al and West-Philly-resident Sarahlyn discuss the show's Philly-ness and how it integrates cringe humor with realistic depiction of how messed up it is for schools to be so underfunded. Is this a "black show"?

Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for this and nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop for only the tiniest per-month financial pledge, or you can sign up directly with Apple Podcasts for a subscription for ad-free and bonus material for three of Mark's podcasts together on the Mark Lintertainment Podcasts Channel.

Sponsors: Get 50% off Claude AI Pro at Claude.ai/pmp. Try the Stuck in the '80s podcast at sit80s.com.