Episode 126: Unnamed Knife Fight Prequel

The holidays are done, and John has got himself a new desk and some opinions about Cheesecake Factory. Ed’s been furloughed and is taking liberties with dinner. He’s also planning a big party at AWP, and you should come. They’ve read a few good books and visited some artisanal web pages. Click through to follow links to Artie Butler, Around Midvale, John’s desk, So Fine, The Show that Never Ends, Abe Vigoda’s status, Joe Pesci’s short speech, Forged in Fire, “Sunny”, and books by Sandra Newman, Sally Rooney, Tory Dent, Catherine Barnett, and Ben Lerner and Alexander Kluge.

Episode 125: Good Enough for Stalin, Good Enough for Santa

Ed’s gotta run—it’s time to take the Cinnamon Bear Cruise. John impersonates a man twice his age by complaining about bureaucracy, and cannot believe what the Elf on the Shelf is actually about. Both of them have written songs about women in clerical roles, and they welcome a guest to the show, Oscar, co-host, with Ed, of the new podcast Water Adventures. They also recommend some new books. Follow links to Cinnamon Bear, Sweet Pea Baking, Punk Rawk Labs, Anniversaries by Uwe Johnson, Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev, and The Word Pretty by Elisa Gabbert.

Episode 124: Collusion of Undigested Beef and the Moon

In this snowy week before Thanksgiving, Ed’s been mushroom hunting and visiting a haunted mansion with his brother, and John’s been making brisket and cooking in a videogame. They discuss getting lost in the woods, creepy houses on creepy roads, synthesizer shops, what to put on popcorn, putting Pernod into a martini, and favorite spicy flavors. Follow links to Big Action Spice Rub, Pittock Mansion, Shades of Death Road and a house for sale there, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Crystal Hot Sauce, Control Voltage, the King Bolete, and All the Rain Promises and More.

Episode 123: Warm Reassurances and March to the Sea

Ed’s birthday cake was consumed by ants. John’s delivering furniture and dining under sexy angels. In this conversational smörgåsbord, they discuss literary road trips, music festivals, meat experiences, and teaching unwoke books. Follow links to Rosie’s Bistro Italiano, Winter in the Blood, 49 Venezuelan Novels (again), The Bemus Point, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, 4505 Meats, “The Making of Ashenden”, The Displaced, Air Traffic, Fishtrap, Terminal Gravity Brewing, potato sidewinder controversy, and the Rotato.

Episode 122: Pigeon Stendhal Syndrome

Ed went to the Winfield Bluegrass Festival, and John went to the New York State Fair. They talk about pigeons, Aaron Neville’s farm, a good meal’s reliance on the right circumstances, why candy and Cool Whip constitute a salad, and the horror of the walking family taco. Follow links to Molly Tuttle, Maren Morris, frillback pigeons, Freville Farm, Aaron Neville, Jimmy Scott, Dizengoff Hummus, frozen limonana, Zahav, Le Pigeon, The Pesthouse, The Buried Giant, Ling Ma on Severance, Diana Khoi Nguyen, John Mahoney, Succession, The Death of Stalin, and the first photograph of a human being. (Sorry that John sounds lousy. Skype updated itself, wiped his settings, and recorded him through the laptop mic instead of his real mic.)

Episode 121: Chive Me Twice, Chive's on Me

Ithaca has stolen Portland's weather, Ed's shed is nearing completion, and John is worried about how much context is too much. Also: Idyllwild nearly burned down, John's watching TV, and Ed plans to go to Missoula and to eat the whole bread bowl. Follow links to Cynan Jones's Cove, Nicole Krauss's Forest Dark, Dominique Fabre's The Waitress Was New, the weirdness of season 2 of Friday Night Lights, Foyle's War, Attic Institute, Jimmy Martin, Motorcyclez on Instagram, Baerlic Brewing, Frickin Fried Chicken, and Charm School Social Club.

Episode 120: Honk for Pigeons, Roll Slow for Ducks

Ed has to go build a shed with his father-in-law, so let this short episode be your sountrack to America's imminent demise. Hear about Ed's misbegotten road adventures and social media replacement plan, and John's amateur upholstery, covers gig, and and bumper-sticker grievances. Follow links to Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, The Lyres, Valley View Auto, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Blue Heron Rescues, and adoptable pigeons.

Episode 119: A Way to Soften Up Old Birds

John's new desk is kinda sticky. Ed's new desk is a large pile of books. They talk about John's move, funeral eats, Ed's hurt foot, the joys and pitfalls of rotisserie chicken and old houses, and some restaurants and books. Follow links to Rachel Cusk's Kudos, Sebastian Castillo's 49 Venezuelan Novels, Mother Foucault's Bookshop, Rodney Koeneke, Fred Haefele's Rebuilding the Indian, Elizabeth Bishop's "The Bight", The Terror, A. P. Bio, Neverwinter Nights, 24th and Meatballs, and Pizza Jerk.

Episode 118: Analogous Taco Situation

Smelly ants are emerging from Ed's ceiling, and John is trying to eat fewer carbs. Not no carbs, just fewer. They talk about harmonicas; artisanal ice cream sandwiches; quitting a band and committing even harder to a band; what you get when you slice off a bit of pyramid; a bunch of books; and the imminent demise, or perhaps eternal eminence, of Donald J. Trump. Follow links to the Hohner 280/64, the Dead in Ithaca, frustum, The Iron Horse in Missoula, Andrew Martin's Early Work, Nicolas Freeling, Nicholas Blake, Mount Hood Meadows, Trader Joe's Sublime Ice Cream Sandwiches, Ruby Jewel, and Phở Oregon.

Episode 117: Lentilly-Ass Jowls

Ed's back from AWP in Tampa and sleeping peacefully, and John has brought a delicious beet dip to dinner for his low-carb friends to eat. They talk about Thai food, dessert hummus, archiving a writer's papers, eggs, Hershey's Gold, the boundaries of obscenity, and our glorious leader Donald J. Trump. They do not discuss the feature film The Florida Project. Follow links to Wat Tampa, Brian Hall's Fall of Frost, ambulance-chaser William Mattar, the Zero Bar, Joey Sweeney and the Neon Grease, Za'atar beet dip, Off the Cob chips, Good Hangups, and Taco vs. Burrito.

Episode 116: Little Peggy Guggenheims

Ed and John are joined by frequent guest Alice Bolin, to talk about her forthcoming book, and also about good bookstores in Memphis, songs you write to sing at home, Los Angeles, terrible jokes, remote hoarding, ill-conceived cookbooks, and the state of Florida. Follow links to Joy Williams's Ill Nature, Karyna McGlynn's Hothouse, Alissa Nutting's Tampa, Debra Lafave, "I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl", Elegant Meals with Inexpensive Meats, Xanadu Music and Books, Burke's Book Store, Two Rivers Bookstore, neural networks recognizing sheep, "Sheep" by Robert Francis, The Arrow Book of Jokes and Riddles, and belt balancers.

Episode 115: She's on Horse Time Now

Ed's thinking about getting a non-poetry job, and John has been living in an alien-infested space station for three weeks. They discuss Ray Bradbury, smokey cheesers, chocolate chip cookies, keeping your car alive, and café menus from distant towns; John describes his dream about a haunted hallway, and Ed describes his dream about getting a ride home from Paul Reiser. Follow links to books by W. S. Merwin, Jonathan Dee, Zadie Smith, and Mary Gaitskill.

Episode 114: The Night that Larry Freaked Out on Pickled Fennel

Christmas is coming, and John and Ed are decorating their trees with ornaments and lights. Ed played a gig that went just right, and John is a little embarrassed at his collection of LPs. They discuss the feminist divorce ballads of the seventies, guitar amplifiers, the tension between the sentence and the line in poetry, typography, and the Microsoft spaghetti horror. Follow links to Boon's Treasury, Aimee Mann's "I've Had It", Truck Stop Love, Frank Zappa's "Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me", Helen Reddy, John's random poem idea generator, Polina Barskova, poets writing during the siege of Leningrad, and Trebuchet.

Episode 113: There's a Haint in My Scarecrow

Back from Thanksgiving travels, Ed and John discuss school library preoccupations, works in progress, the toxicity of twitter, rock and roll reunions, bookstores and record stores, and John's encounters with death and renewed life. Also, Ed has some thoughts about John's novel-in-progress. Follow links to Borne, The Sou'Wester, Michael Hurley, Mother Foucault's, 24PearlStreet writing classes, and TopCityMotherland shirts.

Episode 112: Schröedinger's Heartbreaker

Ed's headed for the Harry Potter Orchestra, and John is trying to throw a tennis ball through a brick wall. Together, they talk about a controversy involving pizza, no-league baseball, date night at a mediocre restaurant, fasting for Yom Kippur, Tom Petty and Kazuo Ishiguro, and wet-hop ale. Follow links to the thorn, Geoff Edgers on "American Girl", 101 American pizzarias, the Portland Pickles, the Rockland Boulders, Matthew Dickman's "Lents District", quantum tunnelling, the Delani/Sonnabend Halls, Plus, The Unconsoled, Ithaca Beer Company, wet hops, and White Dialogues.

Episode 111: Sprigs to Mind

Ed has volunteered to help kindergartners punch numbers into a keypad, and John is gearing up for a holiday fast. They discuss Trump's war against football, school lunches, library book marginalia, whether or not to trust seafood, how to cook a lot of scallops all at once, and the cryptozoology of Australia. Follow links to Rachel Ingalls's Mrs. Caliban, The Department of Homeboy Security, chef Jamie Shannon, Tim the Yowie Man, the Canberra Air Disaster, and The Screen Door.

Episode 110: Fragile Feelings of Tentative Growth

Ed's writing in coffee shops before the rainy season begins, and John doesn't know what to do with his rosebush. They discuss the challenges of writer social media, aversion to your old apartment, prize resentment, Twin Peaks: The Return, tiny chairs at the kindergarten, putting hot dogs in miso soup, and fryin' up a fennel bulb. Follow links to Danielle Steel's desk, the Airstream Poetry Festival, Heart Coffee Roasters, and See See Motor Company.

Episode 109: Americana Elsewhere in the World

Ed and John briefly land simultaneously at home, and get on the horn to reflect on the pressing issues of the day, such as a 65-year old barbecue chicken recipe, eating cereal with drool in it, why food suggestions are totalitarian, and teaching poetry in prison. Follow links to Cornell chicken on Atlas Obscura, Act V from This American Life, David Grann, Kevin Young's Bunk, Paul Maliszewski's Fakers, Antaeus, the stories of R. D. Skillings, and Elif Batuman's The Idiot.

Episode 108: She Puts A Lotion in Some Baskets

Ed's had a root canal and couldn't be happier. John's 47 and has a new microphone. They talk about John's upcoming book tour, the pleasures of not very good television, the greatest product placement of all time, the Pinesburger, writer/artist dialogues, and New Jersey Pronunciation. Follow links to S. P. Dinsmoor's Garden of Eden, The Log Cabin Motel, Fortitude, A Ford advertisement in Designated Survivor, Glenwood Pines, Andrew Sean Greer's Blue Lusitania, Jeff Vandermeer's Borne, and Receipt by Carl Adamshick and Andy Buck.

Episode 107: The Roast Grasshopper Economy

Ed's in training for the Oscarlympics, John's bemoaning the global rise in dangling modifier tolerance, and the Skype Stormtroopers are on the march. Nevertheless they manage to discuss coffeemakers, the literary form disappointingly known as flash fiction, career regrets, Vladimir Putin's magic Antarctic potion, and postapocalypse eats. Follow links to the Spring Writes Literary Festival (and hamster ball video), Sorry Meniscus, One Hundred Apocalypses, Know the Mother, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, The Frog and Peach, and We Gon' Be Alright.