F.A.C.T.S. : Flo and Carra Talk (about) Stuff

Hi everyone, we hope you are hanging in there and are wishing all of you well.  We recorded this episode before the pandemic became prevalent here in the U.S. and many of us went indoors and apart from one another (this was recorded in a blanket fort in Flo's living room! Think of it!) so just to recognize here that everything is strange and uncertain and we are thinking of all of you.  In this episode we discuss human pool tables, Russian ice slides, the Blow Hole Theatre and Jane Austen vs. Brontes (thank goodness we have Austen AND the Brontes and don't actually have to choose though).  

We learn to better appreciate our pockets, about 18th century sly boys, chin straps for wigs, chewing and sucking louses and much more on this week's Friday Fact Check!

Hey listeners, what's YOUR dream wigscape?  DM  or email us and let us know! We discuss Powder Rooms! Big Wigs! And codpieces, a "Pandora's box of nightmares," as Flo says.  Apologies for the several minutes in which we describe bodily wounds, pus and blood.  Also I just found out that the adjective to describe something that is oozing with pus is actually purulent.  As it should be. We'd love your comments! 

Flo talks about Crash, Texas, hard hats and rollercoasters!  

This week Flo tells us about every human's lurking desire to smash things, Head on Joe, the Crash in Crush, and the joys of learning new things.  Also all of the accents.

There's nothing like a fact check about sin eaters, eternal damnation and delicious bread people to say we love you!  Happy Valentine's Day!

Join us for Episode 2 of Season 3 in which we discuss sin eating, trading one's soul for a few pennies and a meal, and the joys of vinyl.

Join us for a very thorough fact check about the Necropolis Railway and apologies for the occasional bad audio feels.  We are relearning how to speak into a microphone!

Flo takes us on a wild ride on London's Necropolis Railway and tells us about grave recycling, fancy railroad amenities and the importance of taking is slow when mourning.  Also...kittens!

Flo and Carra return from what we thought would be a short break and turned into a very, very long break. We're back and so happy to share new content with you! 

This is a strange and silly fact check recorded in a car during a slight snow squall.  We learn about octopodes, the difficulties of being interred with one's companion animals, and the etymology of curd.  Here's a link to some NYS regulationsabout pet and human burial : https://www.dos.ny.gov/cmty/pet-cremation.html

Happy holidays!  Welcome to an episode featuring both of us singing (listen after the sign off!), carols, curds, moggies, and more!  Hey Clever Hans!  Hey Paul the octopus!  Hey Jim the Wonder Dog and Oscar the hospice cat! We appreciate all of you amazing creatures and wish all of you a very healthy and love-filled holiday season, whatever you may be celebrating.  See you next year for a Friday Fact Check! 

We welcome special regular guest Charles Dickens back to the studio and discuss the complexities of tracking life expectancy.  

So. Much. Filth.  In this episode we're up to our knees in facts about dead horses, night soil, Barren Island, garbage lands, and astounding amounts of overconsumption.  Please send us comments and episode suggestions at our Instagram and email!

Hurray! It's a Fact Check on Civil War embalming! 

During a flurry of feline activity, Flo talks about the U.S. Civil War and the birth of modern embalming.

There's not a lot of questions to fact check this Friday but there is a big apology! 

Come for this very enlightening episode on radioactive spas, radioactive shoe insoles, corsets and toothpaste!  Also we learn some labor history!

We learn about the most gruesome results of being startled ever, preurination, the powers of hawthorn, and how vampires first arrived in the U.S.  

Here's a spooky semi-factual episode for you that includes discussion of blood bags, ear helixes, vampire pumpkins, rabid cows, and skeletal muscle and in which Flo comes to the conclusion that vampires are "literally upstanding citizens who just want to tailor your clothes."  Join us! 

Flo and Carra discuss fleas and flea-based entertainment.  Topics include blood meals, sclerites, microminiatures and pulgas vestidas. 

Rerun!  Flo and Carra journey into the cold truths and ethical complexities of  death and dying on Mount Everest.  

Hurry for a few weeks of reruns! Flo and Carra are on podcation so here's a past episode all about Victorian Beauty practices, and lots of arsenic.

We discuss rat kings and Flo warns our rodent listeners against snuggling in the winter.  

We've got all the bells and whistles this week on our safety coffin fact check! Learn about Bavarian tartes, how loud it is inside my house in the summer, and help us figure out why coffins were sealed shut! 

Join Flo and Carra as they talk about Safety Coffins and the fear of being buried alive!

Welcome to the Friday Fact check in which I do not have any facts to offer you. We are always excited to learn about them though so if you do have any facts, please email or DM us on Instagram.

This week Flo and Carra discuss morgues in the 19th c. and feel a little icky afterwards.  Also the audio file is filled with the sounds of summer and also lots of shrieking.  We hope you continue to listen and please send us comments and suggestions on the Instagram or at thefactspodcast@gmail.com

Join Flo and Carra as they fact check the Wakes episode, and as they talk about the wonderful @FuneralConsumer Josh Slocum, the brilliant Dr Karen Smith (ethicschick on Facebook) And how wonderful the Funeral Consumers Alliance is! Check them out at Funerals.org

Join Flo and Carra as they discuss the different ways that people hold Wakes.

Does blood in a bowl burn?  Can I get a caffeine high from drinking someone's blood right after that person drank green tea?  All of this and acetone on today's Friday Fact Check! 

This week Flo and Carra discuss way more than you ever probably wanted to know about spontaneous human combustion.  Charles Dickens!   Misogyny!  The wick effect!  Women in the decline of life!  We realize we don't understand how digestion works!  Apologies for the rustlings of paper and the sudden wind storm. Please send us your ideas about SHC and any ideas for future shows at thefactspodcast@gmail.com

Flo and Carra do a collaborative episode on Victorian mourning practices.  Watch out bog oak and weepers cuff, here we come! 

Join us as we fact check our lightning episode!

Join us as we discuss lightning, fear mongering, rubber soled bathroom shoes and Sha Na Na.

A brief fact check on the tarantula hawk episode that Flo is eager to leave far behind her

Flo and Carra discuss tarantula hawks  and topics include Schmitt's Pain Index, brood nests, shaking pedipalps, aposematic communication, hanging out at the lek, and what it would be like to "just lie there and be a host for something." It's all slightly unpleasant and yet we hope you enjoy this week.

This week Flo fact checks the menstruation episode and we realize how much more we want to learn.  

Join Flo and Carra as they discuss many menstrual wonders!

Today we fact check questions about St. Catherine of Siena's stigmata, levitation, communion wafer-catching abilities, and incorruptible head and thumb.  Please send us any info you have on the story behind the thumb! 

Also drink those cups of pus/life right down to the dregs, listeners.  Flo and Carra talk about St. Catherine of Siena and other holy anorexics with many digressions and questions and mixed feelings and sometimes a little revulsion.  We'd love to hear your comments on this show! 

Join us as we fact check the Boston Molasses Flood Episode!

Join us as we talk about the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919!

Join us for this brief and belated Friday Fact Check in which we tell you about the word puckle and wonder about spermaceti funerals. 

This week Flo and Carra find 2 of our favorite things coming together when we learn about bees being fed funeral candy!  Also mellification!  Honey embalming! Bertram Puckle! Lots of bee-related PSAs!  

Flo and Carra fact check all things mummy! You can google Mummification of Transference to learn how you and your animal friends can be mummified!

This week Flo and Carra talk about VIP afterlife figurines, cat mummies, gory organ removal stuff, how "delicious and cedary" those dry stuffed bodies must have been, and contemplate what we'd need for the afterlife.  Also we try to answer many questions about organ liquefaction. Send us your ideas about organ liquefaction and what you would want to be in your tomb at thefactspodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter at @thefactspodcast and Instagram at floandcarratalkaboutstuff.  

Spoiler : the 1st Magic 8 Ball is a rodent who chews on your cheese in highly significant ways.  Also Johannes La Chapelle, songs that are stuck in our heads, and talking genitalia.  Send us your suggestions and comments! 

Flo and Carra discuss the ancient origins of ventroloquism and wow, is there so much to fact check.  Magical frogs?  Charlie McCarthy?  Cheese divination?  Crespolu the demon?  Bird-human relationships? Come get it all at Flo and Carra Talk About Stuff!

We learn more about Ozzy Osbourne's creaturely gustatory experiments on the Friday Fact Check!  And fact checking the fact check, I said that the infamous bat eating Des Moines Iowa concert occurred in 1980.  It was 1982. Ever diligent, ever yours, Flo and Carra

Oh zoinks!   With the fuzziest parts of our heart we are here to talk about the resilient beauties who worked, voluntarily and involuntarily,  in 19th-20th century sideshows. Thanks to Joice Heth, to Zip, to Maud Stevens, and Katie Sandwini and the 7 Sutherland sisters, and all the countless unnamed people who endured difficult situations for other peoples' entertainment. Also much time is spent discussing hamster dance troupes and home funerals. Please write to us with your suggestions and comments.