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Ed starts out quietly, but gets gradually louder, in this episode featuring stolen cars, novel revisions, cafe con leche, bowling alley food items versus bowling alley snacks, the four points of view in fiction, and possible locations for the Okey-Panky AWP meetup. Follow links to Lynnwood Bowl and Skate, San Fernando Roasted Chicken, Cafeteria La Mejor (again), The Diagram, Grumpy's, The Chatterbox, and Wide Awake Bakery.
It's early for Ed, as usual, and that puts him at a disadvantage, like the giraffe that doesn't realize he's in a race with Carl Lewis. He and John talk about the death of a fine diner, talking with Martin Amis about Hitler, the blurring line between the real and the imagined, and people who think people are stealing their ideas. Follow links to Snydermind, Little Pete's, Ed's Instagram, and the Okey-Panky teaser post.
Here's a low-key holiday episode for ya. John forgot to buy his kids Christmas gifts and envies old men's hair; Ed got a migraine and resents Boston stealing Thin Lizzy's riffs. They talk about Christmas eats, chicken and waffles, the US postal service, and lying to Heidi. Follow links to Jess Stoner's "Blues on Wheels", "The Frog and Peach", fingertip ratchet, sticky date pudding, Cajun Foreplay spice rub, honey-glazed tarragon carrots, Bertha the tunnel-boring machine, Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak", and the cocktail called The Okey-Panky.
John has an awkward social situation he needs advice about. Ed's back from Port Townshend, where he taught poetry on a schooner. They discuss the satsuma, veterenarians, the shame of the big and tall store, pornographic video games, and the mechanic's moods. Follow links to Elisa Gabbert's top lit tweets of 2014, S.EXE, Sound Experience, Dixit, Gerald Stern's Stealing History,Judith Moffett, The Lincoln Street Diner, and The Hudson Point Cafe.
This week John is joined by LB alum Alice Bolin to discuss making your own pizza, the gender minefield of the restaurant party, adulterated beverages, romantic entaglements with other writers, getting paid, and the new online literary magazine John, Alice, Rhian, and Ed are starting. Follow links to the Fireball FAQ, The Counting Room, Alice's long reading, Okey-Panky, the No Comment! sweatshirt, Durga Polashi's Instagram, Fantagraphics's Nancy reissues, A Nest of Ninnies, Ashbery's "The Skaters" and Alice's essay on it.
Ed and John have returned after long sojourns to discuss the dude on the airplane tail, pie, Seattle's great Danish bakery, hatchets too nice to use, Thanksgiving, lard, and the irresistibility of drunk poets. Follow links to the old Alaska Airlines logo, the new one, forum discussion of Chester Seevek, John's hotel pics, Kate's Whiskey Maple Pecan Pie recipe, Larsen's Bakery, Mike and Mike's Guitar Bar, Reuben Reuben, A Fine Madness, and poetry by Mark Nowak, Wong May, and Etel Adnan.
John's about to head Ed-ward (Edwardward?) on his book tour, and Oscar's about to enjoy his first fully cognizant Halloween, on which he will watch his father eat candy. Ed and John talk about writing habits and whether John's peculiar manuscript is a book, and Ed tells the joke about the hog and reads a Galway Kinnell poem. Follow links to Chess King, John's tour schedule, Merritt Tierce's Love Me Back, Mike and Mike's Guitar Bar, and "Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock".
John's been to New York City and Ed's been to Port Townshend, and they talk about what they ingested there, including cocktails, liqueurs, cafe con leche, and soup dumplings, aka XLB. Also, Ed won an award and played a song about a hearse, and John does not have Ebola. Follow links to Kung Fu Little Steam Buns Ramen, Cafeteria La Mejor, Sidetrack Distillery’s lemon verbena liqueur, Pegu Club, Xiaolongbao, Chiang's Gourmet, The Boobie Trap, the other Boobie Trap, Peter Bagge, and "Lawn Dart."
Ed has a bee in his bonnet about baby boomers and John doesn't know if the work is better or worse than it seemed while doing it. Also, Ed makes coffee, insults a museum volunteer, and gives John false hopes about a new Pavement record, while John investigates prison Orangina, recommends a coffee maker, and watches a movie inside a movie. Follow links to fermented juice, "Slang in America", the world's saddest website, textile artist Gina Phillips, the Bonavita BV1800, "Rubber Biscuit", and The Shining in Twister.
Ed has returned from bluegrassish festivities in Winfield and John's bete noire has surfaced again. They touch upon the mysteries of eggplant, America's greatest museums, and the proper relationship to the self-soiled child. Follow links to Dr. Mutter's Marvels, "Rainbow Stew", Bill Poss, The Mutter Museum and the MJT again, "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home", The Most Hated Man in Books, and Dick versus Lem.
John looks like the Unabomber and Ed's trying to write songs. They talk about extremeist groups, TED talks, the Zima of independent rock, Stephen Crane and Hart Crane, Jane Austen, and the noticing of small things, like, for instance, visibly hungover people in animal costumes. Follow links to Dean Ween on Guitar Moves, the socialist recording studio in the Lawrence Public Library, Skunk, the poems of Eric McHenry, Oaks Park, Tavern Books, and The Common.
Ed and John have nothing to say in Episode 65, so they talk unceasingly for 75 minutes about John's workday lunch habits, using a pepper mill as a microphone, eating pizza in the street, cheesemaking Mennonites, and several excellent new books. Follow links to the Temple of Zeus soup recipes (again), types of chefs, Pyrex storage bowls, Coppelia, queso Chihuahua, Fast Eddy's in Tok, Alaska, and books by T. R. Johnson, Alfred Starr Hamilton, Ann Leckie, and Ben Lerner.
This week, John talks about his Philadelphia dining experiences and Ed contemplates the aftermath of the Triggering Town Review performance. Also: what are Dutch babies? Why do all high school students have Corvettes? And why don't your parents understand baba ghanoush? Then we abruptly cut off with a little song. Follow links to Underdogs, Vietnam, the Crown Victoria Bar, M. Shanghai, the Dutch baby, Marrakesh, Ed's song "O Fire", and John Pontrello and Pepper Proud singing "Lou's Got the Flu."
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.
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!"
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."
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.
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.
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.
