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Last modified: 2024-09-22 04:10:54 PM

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Obscure with Michael Ian Black

It's a book club, but funny!

Comedian Michael Ian Black is tackling a great work of literature: Wuthering Heights.

Join Michael's weekly book club as he reads aloud from a classic and asks people like Jen Kirkman, Mike Birbiglia, Michael Showalter, and even his teenage kids to weigh in with their perspectives. 

Season 1: Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. The book is bleak, but Michael does a lot of accent work.

Season 2: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It's alive, and it's just a big buddy. Also, more accent work.

Season 3: Wuthering Heights. It's a love story? Who knows

Season 4: American Tragedy. Also a potential title of this podcast

Support this show and access bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/michaelianblack


Latest Episodes

Turkey Time

8 days ago Tue, Nov 26th 2024

We're taking some time off for Thanksgiving. In the meantime enjoy the ENTIRE theme to Obscure, composed by the great Craig Wedren. You have always wanted to hear it in full, now is your chance.

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S4 Episode 67 - Your Last "Obscure" Episode of Normalcy

15 days ago Tue, Nov 19th 2024

As your host anticipates the US election, he acknowledges the Harris/Walz campaign for their excellence. Of course, your host had no idea at the time of this recording what the results of the election were going to be and so careful listeners will probably sense some optimism, which will soon be punished. As for Clyde, who cares?

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S4 Episode 66 - A pre-election episode

22 days ago Tue, Nov 12th 2024

As your host contemplates his upcoming dinner, one might detect a misbegotten lightness of being. Misbegotten because he does not what's about to happen in the US elections. NO SPOILERS, PLEASE!!! In Lycurgus, Clyde and Sondra are arm-in-arm as they make their way into the dinner portion of the upper-crust dinner party to which he has been invited. Meanwhile, Roberta Alden is at home, eating a single bean from a can.

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S4 Episode 65 - Party Animal

29 days ago Tue, Nov 5th 2024

Clyde is out there living it up while Roberta sits at home and cries. Well, we don't know that Roberta is home crying while Clyde is out among the Lycurgus jet set (despite the fact that jets have not yet been invented) because Dreiser doesn't even care enough about Roberta to check in with her on this, the moment of her greatest betrayal. Even so, your host would be lying if he didn't admit that he wishes Sondra would develop a lil' crush on him, too.

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S4 Episode 64 - Will You Still Love Me...

1 month ago Tue, Oct 29th 2024

It's our 64th episode of Season 4, your host is sleepy, and it's the fault of Martha. Clyde is partying hearty, with the potential of betrayal! Lots of terrible behavior from everybody!

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S4 Episode 63 - Salad Days

1 month ago Tue, Oct 22nd 2024

Well, Michael and his wife are in a tiff for reasons that are ENTIRELY HIS FAULT. Even so, that doesn't mean he is in the wrong! (He is in the wrong.) Plus, all kinds of angst regarding the weather, dinner, and the misery of his life. Meanwhile, a love triangle is developing there in Lycurgus, NY like a goddamned hurricane - one of which is brewing at the time of this recording.

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S4 Episode 62 - All the Kinky Stuff

1 month ago Tue, Oct 15th 2024

Roberta and Clyde have given themselves over to their most lascivious desires. While Dreiser does not spell out the exact nature of these desires, it's safe to assume they are of the most disgusting, immoral, and degrading activities imaginable. Meanwhile, your humble host indulges in his own disgusting, immoral, and degrading activities up in the wilds of Connecticut. A debased chapter of "An American Tragedy" on today's Obscure.

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S4 Episode 61 - Into the Obscurniverse

1 month ago Tue, Oct 8th 2024

It seems like sin is in the wind as Clyde and Roberta have commenced their intimacies. Both parties find themselves conflicted over this new turn of events. The kids are doing the nasty at night and brooding over it during the day. Is it paradise... or HELL?!?

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S4 Episode 60 - A Room of Their Own

2 months ago Tue, Oct 1st 2024

Danger abounds as Clyde and Roberta dance along a pinhead! How do they navigate this treacherous impasse at which they've found themselves? It's well-nigh impossible. Impossible! Desire is the streetcar upon which they find themselves riding, and you know what happens when Tennessee Williams writes a play about it. These two poor kids want each other in the wurst (purposeful misspelling) way.

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S4 Episode 59 - Why Must We Endure This Agony?

2 months ago Tue, Sep 24th 2024

A true American tragedy occurred right before the taping of this episode of Obscure. How wilI your host continue in light of such awfulness of the dungarees variety? Clyde and Roberta are on the precipice of a break-up as they try to navigate the uncertain boundary waters of sexual adventuring? We know not! Yet they, like your humble host, endure.

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.