"The Wedge" is a key concept for Phil and JF. When exploring weird phenomena—from artworks to ghosts, and everything in between—one tends to emphasize one or the other "end" of the event. At the thin end of the Wedge, the focus is on subjective experience: how it felt, what it was like, and its personal significance. At the thick end, the emphasis shifts to what actually happened, independent of how it was experienced. Though their roles sometimes switch, Phil generally thinks from the thin end, while JF approaches things from the thick. In this episode, they begin unpacking the implications of the Wedge for making sense of reality’s stranger aspects.

Header image by SavidgeMichael via Wikimedia Commons.

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REFERENCES

Weird Studies, Episode 184 on David Lynch

Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats at the UFO Show”

Scene by Scene, 1999 Interview with David Lynch

Weird Studies, Episodes 76 on Henri Bergson’s Metaphysics

Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution

Phil Ford, Dig

Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

Lewis Lockwood, Beethoven: The Music and the Life

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