The Projectionist's Lending Library

In 1974, Peter Benchley shocked the world with his story of a Great White Shark terrorizing a small resort community. In 1975, Steven Spielberg did it again, creating in the process the modern Hollywood blockbuster. Jaws is a story that made generations afraid to go into the water.
It’s also the story of a troubled marriage, of a man and a woman just reaching middle age and realizing that youth has passed. It’s the story of a police chief helplessly seeing his wife slip away from him and a woman who needs, just once, to dip her toes into the ocean of infidelity in order to feel alive—to feel anything at all.
And it’s the story of a community trapped between the forces of nature and Capital. It is, in short, a much more complicated tale than shark-bites-man.
Oh, but it’s that too. Because, at the end of the day, all yourtroubles at home or at work or with society somehow stop mattering when you’re between the shark’s teeth.
Today, on The Projectionist’s Lending Library, it’s JAWS.
If you want production details, check out the It was a Sh*t Show podcast.

Come one, come all - step right up to the Projectionist's Lending Library's very own carnival, featuring Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES! Kline and Booth are joined by returning guest Dr. Matthew Wells as they discuss Bradbury's haunted tale of a small town's visit from an uncanny carnival, as well as the later Disney adaptation of it.

A dead man in a famous museum
A series of cryptic clues
A mystery leading to the greatest secret in history
(Well, until the next one)

These are the elements that make up Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, a chunky little thriller following Harvard professor Robert Langdon across a danger-filled Paris. It’s a potboiler, a fantasy, and a Grail-quest. It’s a tissue of pseudo-history and lies. It’s adream that could only have been evoked in the early-Twenty-First Century. It’s also the topic of this month’s episode of TheProjectionist’s Lending Library.

With special guest Stephanie Parker

Music: Marie Magdeleine

Lithe and listen, gentlefolk! The year is 1193, or thereabouts, anyway sometime in the reign of “Good King Richard” (the Lionheart, good for some and not so good for others). The place is merrie olde England—more precisely, Nottingham and its environs, under an enormous, ancient tree. The subject: Robin of Locksley, Robin o’ the Hood himself. You know the basic story—robs from the rich, gives to the poor. It’s a story that’s been told many times and in many ways, a story that’s designed to give its poor listeners comfort in difficult times. Well, I don’t know about you but it sure seems like times are difficult, so perhaps we’re ready for another look at the old bandit. He might still have something to offer.

The time: now. The place: here. The subject: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The podcast: The Projectionist’s Lending Library. Pull on your tights, get out your longbow—we’re going adventuring.

For more on the Robin Hood tradition, check out The Rest is History.
Music: Gems from "Robin Hood." Used under a Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Nathanael and Erik continue their brief foray into medieval verse with the late 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the 2021 film adaptation The Green Knight directed by David Lowery and starring Dev Patel and Ralph Ineson. This episode's music comes from the album In a Medieval Garden by the Stanley Buetens Lute Ensemble, available at the internet archive. Nathanael references this youtube video by Novum in their discussion of the film.