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In episode 58, Ed and John talk about thinking by talking, foods that keep you up at night, the writing of Heinrich von Kleist and Franz Wright, and the lyrics of Ace Frehley. Ed reads a couple of poems and John lets the cat out of the room. Follow links to Legend, Just A Taste, On the Gradual Construction of Thoughts During Speech, Michael Kohlhaas, Kindertotenwald, "To Myself", and New York Groove.
This week, Ed and John reflect upon death, particularly as it is represented in the frigid dream-space that is the refrigerator. They also talk about tinted eyeglasses, author bios, and dirty dishes, and Ed recounts that one time Ian Frazier stole his whiskey. Follow links, lots of them, to LED carpet, what the crisper actually does, Robert Walser, the menu at Pepy's Galley, The National Mustard Museum, William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man, Rudolph Wurlitzer's Nog, Percival Everett's and James Kincaid's A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, and "Professor" Michael Martone's Michael Martone: Fictions.
Ed's back from his long journey exclusively through the United States of America. So he and John discuss Anne Carson, old videogames, New York fashions, Google's new DOS monocle, and breakfast for dinner. Follow links to Cycladic civilization, Kristen Schall is a Horse, @DrFNFurter's five-year tweet, Niagaravation, "Notes on Camp", the perfect tee shirt, Atari's Journey Escape, and the sharks of Lake Nicaragua.
With Ed on the road, John called up LB alum Alice Bolin for a conversation about vanity and self-disgust, why men are so into history, the power of the dead girl on television, cooking the same two things for yourself again and again, letting people buy you dinner, and living where your favorite writers wrote. Follow links to Howard Blum's American Lightning, Alice's LARB article "The Oldest Story: Toward a Theory of a Dead Girl Show", and Missoula's Pearl Cafe.
Ed's in Wichita and John is sitting in a ray of sunshine, and they talk about the Golden Ratio, indie rock shows, the eccentricities of the very wealthy, saying that writers are "good," and the zoo. Special guest Brad Allen drops by to talk about the pressures of being executive director of the Lawrence, Kansas public library. Follow links to Zumpano, poems by Zubair Ahmed, Evan S. Connell's The Aztec Treasure House, The Donut Whole, LaMar's Donuts, Kirby's Beer Store, and Birds 'n' Brass.
Ed catches a break from his son's impending terrible twos in order to chat with John about hoodies, cabbage rolls, bad salads, what to wear in Seattle, a very good egg sandwich, and writing at the mall food court. Follow links to The Shmenges' "Cabbage Rolls and Coffee", Filson Outerwear, and Inglehoffer wasabi mustard.
Ed had a bad AWP and John has new glasses again. They discuss the problems of attending a conference held in your home town, the horribleness of the United States Postal Service, the radical sexiness of the open kitchen, sauerkraut juice, and edible tableware. Follow links to Lookmatic, the Missoula avalanche, Frank's Kraut, The New York Times's no-knead bread, and Les Murray's The Daylight Moon.
This week Ed is podcasting from the kitchen, just after his final visit to the only lions in Seattle. John is recovering from his horrific visit to a local restaurant, and cowering at home from Ithaca's annual Chili Fest. Together, they discuss frozen chili, the enchiladas of Everett, the invisble man who controls the economy, elephants and orangutans who are strangers to Ed, and changing a stranger child's diaper. Follow links to the New Mexicans Restaurant, Peter Mountford's The Dismal Science, guys selling meat door to door, and the Prison Talk forums.
In their arbitrarily landmarkish fiftieth episode, Ed and John discuss the sentimental conditional (also known as the habitual mood), sentence pajamas, the 2014 AWP Lunch Box Podcast Dining Guide, Ed's secret anxieties, and the world's greatest imaginary poet. Follow links, lots of them, to Philip Seymour Hoffman's Esquire interview, The Complete John Lillison, Chiang's Gourmet, Restaurant Roux, The Seattle Seven, Bluefin Sushi & Seafood, the lyrics to "Ghostbusters", Will Wiles's Care of Wooden Floors, the books of Magnus Mills, and Steve Orlen's This Particular Eternity.
After their longest hiatus to date, Ed and John come back strong with a conversation about unemployment, Scottish bands, lists that John is on, pens, Spider-Man, Moses Lake, WA, and methods of drafting literary works. Ed disses a famous poet and John reads from a poem of Ed's that he forgot about. Follow links to The Hazey Janes, the notable people of Phillipsburg, NJ, Karas Kustoms pens and other metal things, and The Sand Bar.
Ed and John usher in the third calendar year of the podcast by discussing firearm cuisine, the demise of Ithaca's indoor pork food truck and the rise of its Szechuan restaurant, madness, barfing, football, and what is gonna be big in 2014. Follow links to the death of Mikhail Kalashnikov, Belly, Spicy Asian, John's cover of Alice's song, and Larkin's "Church Going" (accompanied by a tiny dancing man).
Ed and John are back with a new conversation about magic tricks, writer movies, television and pain, the looming significance of Santa Claus, and holiday travel. John ends the show with some dramatic readings from twitter. Follow links to A Fine Madness, Architecture for Travelers, The Art Guys, books on sentence diagramming, and Bob Ross.
Thanksgiving is over and Ed's mic broke, so he and John talk about holiday cookin', beds and breakfasts, Ed's penchant for a nice spritz and a ritual heating, and whether or not John should own a van or take in lodgers. Also John reads a Natalie Shapero poem. Follow links to Natalie's "A Moving Poem", Michael Robbins's 2013 poetry not-picks-exactly, Bob Garfield's Times piece on negative book reviewing, some nice pictures of the Oregon High Desert, ground cherries, Red Fang's "Prehistoric Dog", Mapcrunch, and GeoGuessr.
It's November, time for homemade twinkies and Canadian pornography! Ed and John discuss haircuts, eyeglasses, antique ventriloquist's dummies, Ovid on Florence Henderson, and hiding your vices from others. Follow links to "In Too Deep", by Lisan Jutras, The Room trailer, The Disaster Artist, horn-rimmed glasses, Alasdair Gray, David Abrams's "Like a Salmon Swimming Downstream", and the Authentic Twinkie Maker.
It's been a while since Ed and John have recorded a conventional episode of the podcast, and it's good to be back. Not that you'd know it from this overly serious discussion of experimental writing, earbud loss, cannibalism, and failing to get Barry Hannah's signature. Follow links to Seoul Taco, the Siege of Leningrad, Outlier slim dungarees, The Dorothy Project, Sparklehorse's "Little Fat Baby", and Hugo's letter to Simic.
In this, the second episode recorded before a live audience in Missoula, Montana, Ed and John chat with Seattle writer, teacher, and baker Kate Lebo, author of A Commonplace Book of Pie, and fiction writer and essayist Robert Stubblefield. Ed wonders what it would be like to have money, John recalls writing entire novels during other people's smoke breaks, and Robert finally did bring us the pears the following day.
In the first of two episodes taped before a live audience in Missoula, Montana, Ed and John are joined by novelist Andrew Sean Greer, then discuss the precursor of internet pornography, what money should look like, the greatest natural line break ever spoken, field roast, and a variety of simultaneously metaphysical and scatalogical topics.
This week, Ed and John express amused dismay at Canadian novelist David Gilmour's awful interview on the Random House blog. They also discuss the effect a single ten-minute saxophone note has on a poetry reading, the brutal murder of the Chipwich, the soysage deception, and their respective weekend trips to Seattle and New York. Follow links to the Gilmour piece, circular breathing, the It's-It, the Chipwich, Wegmans Don't Be Piggy Meatless Sausage Style Crumbles, and the lady who plays a goat.
Ed and John are back from Seattle with a plan to spread the good news about YouTube's viral non-hit "What Kind of Eggs You Like?" They also talk about the relationship, if any, among pop Oceans, whether "Christian" and "Out-and-Proud" are moods, angry Quakers, and the perils of defending poetry. Follow links to the world's greatest YouTube video, Kevin Young's essay "Deadism", Donald Barthleme's "The first thing the baby did wrong…", Marc Maron's WTF podcast, and the new Starry Mountain Sweetheart Band album.
This week, Ed and John do it live in front of a double-digit crowd at Seattle's Bumbershoot music festival. Guests include pedal steel guitarist Abilene Slim, poet Matthew Dickman, and poet and food writer Sarah Galvin. Featuring many dirty jokes, reviews of festival food, funny and disturbing poems, English lords, and musical excursions. We apologize for the massively overloaded recording here—the talking sounds good but the music, sadly, is distorted. We'll try to get it right in Missoula next month.