Episode 63: The Pig is My Hostage

When is the right time to bring your child to the county fair? What are the names of all the counties in Kansas? How do you drive a car? Is that thing a mango or a bagel? Don't ask Ed and John. In Episode 63, they discuss poet laureatehood, running for office, thwarty bakers, and mermice. Follow links to Scriabin's Mysterium, New Jersey's counties, Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Elissa Washuta's My Body Is a Book of Rules, Alice Bolin's new essay on The Awl, Diagram magazine, and Kubel's.

Episode 62: Super Silly All the Time

This week Ed and John end up actually talking about writing, but not before inventing the ice cream sandwich, addressing the smell of Southern California bodies, getting a face tattoo, and reading Julia Clare Tillinghast in the voice of Andy Rooney. Follow links to Bruce Smith's author photo, Dorothea Lasky's "I Am Eddie Murphy", Tillinghast's B.I.B.L.E., "Banquet", and "Looking At", John's essay on The Cramped, Butterick's Practical Typography, and the source of "They too tired!"

Episode 61: What Is this Place with Mayors and Kings?

John's back from Scotland, and Ed's in Idyllwild, bemoaning the flaws in his fellow man. They discuss the rich variations in Scottish cuisine, Pablo Neruda, poet voice, and the vulnerability of the diaper changer. Follow links to halloumi, haggis, neeps, and tatties, the Idyllwild Summer Arts program, Neruda's "Toward an Impure Poetry", Rich Smith on poet voice, and Justin Bieber's "Backpack."

Episode 60: Fife and Kent Are Adjacent

This week, Ed needs glasses, John can't stand the corporeal world, and both are drinking pretty decent coffee. The songs of Alex Chilton and John Darnielle are discussed, as is the best way to put George Washington out of his misery. Follow links to Mary Kay Letourneau, A Man Called Destruction, the Darnielle songs "No Children", "Palmcorder Yajna", and "Cruiserweights", Wolf in White Van, and tickets for The Triggering Town Review.

Episode 59: New Listeners, Unicorns, Informed Voters

This week, Ed and John lament various things about America, including the Bowe Bergdahl thing, the American Indie Rock thing, and the losing your keys thing. Also: pant loss, daddy's giant ship, art pokin', and eating at museums. Follow links to questions about peonies, Billy Sothern, the American Museum of Natural History Food Court, the Mitsitam Cafe, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Food Court, and food at the National Zoo.

Episode 58: A Bro Mainsplaining Couchlock

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.

Episode 57: To Keep Us All Crisp

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.

Episode 56: How a European Eats a Pancake

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.

Episode 55: Bob Is a Steak Freak

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.

Episode 54: People Have Been Setting Fires Out Here

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.

Episode 53: A Bunnymen-Blowfish Grand Guignol

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.

Episode 52: The Lonely Bully

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.

Episode 51: Where the Drummer Puts His Beer

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.

Episode 50: I'm Dan Aykroyd, Keep Your Money

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.

Episode 49: They Spray Lizard Cloud

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.

Episode 48: Slim Shadings

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).

Episode 47: Televonic Threads

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.

Episode 46: Submarine Doctor Books

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.

Episode 45: Mendin' Pipe

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.

Episode 44: How Can I Contribute to the Avant-Garde Today?

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.