Episode 31: Microphone Council Got You Too

Ed and John settle in for a nice long chat about John's tendency to enter into interpersonal conflicts and the quirks of his teenage children. Ed explains why you get mad when you bump your head, and then shares a little country wisdom. He also performs a dramatic reading of the Hibbards' Corner Community Center summer music schedule. Follow links to Ernst Jünger's The Glass Bees, Hibbards' Corner Newsletter, and Frank Clark, the Country Parson.

Episode 31: Microphone Council Got You Too

Episode 30: Hater Studies

Alice Bolin returns to the show to talk with Ed and John about nail art and other handicrafts, the dangers of flirting with nerdy boys, when not to help a girl who has fallen on the sidewalk, having librarians for parents, pressure cooking, and how to properly dislike things. Follow links to John's detractor at the Chicago Tribune, the nail polish of Pretty Little Liars, James Wood's review of the Rachel Kushner book, Good Eats with Alton Brown, and the new novel from Urban Waite. We apologize for the crackling on John's track, no idea how that happened. It didn't sound that way at the time.

Episode 30: Hater Studies

Episode 29: Nuclear Truffle!

Ed and John crumple newspaper whilst discussing situations made just for you, the Mikado, the difficulty in killing a man, horsey money, and the difference between Flannery O'Connor and Bil Keane. Then they analyze the comics and Ed changes a diaper. Follow links to the Logo programming language, the lyrics to "Flea Brain" and "Chicken Payback", and Jonny Hart's religiosity.

Episode 29: Nuclear Truffle!

Episode 28: Hermits and Sheriffs

Ed and John are back after a travel hiatus and get back into the swing of things with a conversation about dinner parties good and bad, cheeselike shreds, pipe smoking, the Phelps family of Topeka, KS, literary sanctimony, and more. Follow links to the Dickens Character Name Generator, magnetic putty, the rainbow house, the Korean monster movie The Host, Daiya Cheddar Shredzzzz, and books by Rachel Kushner, Alice Notley, and Karl Knausgaard.

Episode 28: Hermits and Sheriffs

Episode 27: Last Supper of Puppies

This week Ed takes John on a tour of the latchhook art in his house; then they discuss John's recent essay on Salon.com suggesting that contemporary literature is boring, and that young writers should read less of it, and watch more TV instead. Also, John talks about feeling sentimental after a rock show, and Ed describes his dream wherein a statue is erected in honor of his failure and he is called an "untalented blimp." Follow links to John's essay, Walter de Maria's "Meaningless Work", The Comedy, Bennett Sims's A Questionable Shape, and NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names.

Episode 27: Last Supper of Puppies

Episode 26: A Good Segue from Pig Trotters

This week Ed and John are joined by Jeremy Holt, guru of knife care, pressure cooking, and seventies soft rock. Follow links, lots of them, to La Caja China, Topeka's Top of the Tower, Punk Rawk Labs, Delonghi toaster ovens, Ambrosi Brothers Cutlery, menudo, Fagor pressure cookers, Donny and Joe Emerson's "Baby", Blondie Chaplin's 1977 solo album, Barbara Keith's "Detroit or Buffalo", and KISS on the Jerry Lewis telethon.

Episode 26: A Good Segue from Pig Trotters

Episode 25: The Signal Faded Somewhere Around Ritzville

Ed and John hit an important kiriban with episode 25 and celebrate by talking about books on tape, wide shoes, gala dining, brunch, brupper, and the proper ingredients for the Tardy Leprechaun (sloe gin and pickle juice). Follow links to Northlake Tavern & Pizza, Voula's Offshore Café, Wide Shoes Only, Split Lip Rayfield, and Maw.

Episode 25: The Signal Faded Somewhere Around Ritzville

Episode 24: Pig Face with an Egg on It (Live from AWP)

On this Very Special Episode of the podcast, Ed and John steal an abandoned booth at the 2013 AWP Conference in Boston, MA and converse live and in person before an unwitting audience of thousands. Many unexpected guests happen by. Hilarity ensues. (AWP photo by Robb Cohen stolen off the internet.)

Episode 24: Pig Face with an Egg on It (Live from AWP)

Episode 23: Executed by James Wood

Behold! It's Episode 23, wherein Ed and John debate the merits of eating stew in a restaurant, the chill you get from wolves, pajamas, hunting, AWP, and Bret Easton Ellis's soft, soft hands. Follow links to, yes, the history of pajamas, the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, the mountain lion hunter on whom the tables were turned, the films of Zach Godshall, and the poetry of Catherine Barnett. And, by the way, the killer was Duncan McKensie, he listened to Marty Robbins, and he ate steak, french fries, salad, milk and orange sherbert.

Episode 23: Executed by James Wood

Episode 22: I Hate the Monorail and I Hate You

Ed and John welcome guest Christine Scharrrrrr, I mean Scharrer, Seattle architect and salonista, for this Very Special Episode featuring the war that destroyed the book group, pirates in the café, wincing at buildings, quitting the senate, and absolutely nothing about vegetarian cuisine. Follow links to the pirate controversy on Craigslist, Christie's place of employment, Schtickers, Kona Kitchen, Café Racer, the Modern Seinfeld twitter feed, and Linda's Tavern, where Christie is no more eating "brunch" than she is advocating trickle-down economics.

Episode 22: I Hate the Monorail and I Hate You