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In this throwback, Bob makes fast friends with the hosts of the Truly, Darkly, Creeply podcast cast. Kerry and Quinlan are both actors, comedians and writers by trade. As you can imagine, that combination paired with Bob's love on nonsense turned this hard hitting interview into a lot of laughs. Enjoy!The majority of the funding of our work comes directly from listeners, through our Patreon community. To join Patreon, click THIS LINK. At the $5/month level you'll get access to lots of Patreon Only BONUS EPISODES, Ad Free versions of all episodes, an hour of Patreon Exclusive video content every week, and our new weekly podcast “Pre-Game”, which drops every Wednesday. Not to mention early access to some episodes and the ability to watch and participate in interviews live.Today's Sponsors: Quince – Head to Quince.com/Ruff for free shipping and 365 day returns. Draft Kings – Download the app and sign up with code “Truth” to claim 1000 Flex Spins and check out the exclusive Cashingo game!
Megan Lynch talks with Dr. Ericka Rutledge, St. Louis-based psychologist and author of the adult parody "Goodnight Grind: The Darkly Funny Lullaby for Folks Who've Done Too Much for Too Damn Long"
Plastic never felt so good with Toby's Dinner Theatre's production of Mean Girls. Listen to the talented and very funny performers talk about their love for all things musical!
British singer and songwriter Paris Paloma, a very sharp and thoughtful young artist who considers grief, politics, creativity, love, art, Greek mythology, and power structures in her music and in interviews, has opened for Florence & the Machine, played Glastonbury, and lent her voice to the Tolkien universe. She has built a community – her fairies –over the past few years, from her first EP, 2021's cemeteries and socials (you want dark? Folk-horror-pop? She's got you) to what will be her latest album, The Fatal Flaw, due out in September 2026. [View the artwork for the single “Good Boy”] Paris Paloma offers the anti-AI song “Miyazaki”, about the unstoppable human need to create – and yes, named after the legendary Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki. Plus, she plays an intimate version of her feminist anthem, “Labour”, (which she played with the Resistance Revival Chorus on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2025), in-studio. Set list: 1. Labour 2. Miyazaki 3. Stem the Flow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Gary Dorrien joins me and Aaron to close out six weeks of Theology for Troublemakers with a session that covered more ground than any before it — Kelly Brown Douglas as the fourth womanist founder, the double negative she cut from Resurrection Hope that contains the argument she's still wrestling with, Raphael Warnock as the student James Cone staked his hopes for Black theology on, the last conversation Gary had with Cone before he died, and forty unsparing minutes on Niebuhr's Zionism that ended where Gary needed it to end: Palestinian children are every bit as precious as Israeli children and no less deserving of a decent future. If you want the lectures, the readings, the supplemental interviews, and the discussion guides, head to www.HomebrewedClasses.com. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube Theology Beer Camp 2026 — The God-Podcalypse — hits Kansas City October 8–10, exactly one month before the election. Thirty scholars (Ilia Delio, Cornel West, Diana Butler Bass, Gary Dorrien, and a stack more), thirty God-pods, four post-apocalyptic stages, and the community everyone keeps telling us is the real reason they come back. Come find your people at Theology Beer Camp Join our upcoming online class – THE FUTURE OF RELIGION Tripp and Ilia Delio are teaming up for a brand-new four-week online class, The Future of Religion — for everyone who's read the books, asked the questions, and realized the faith they inherited doesn't quite fit anymore. Together they'll trace religion's evolutionary arc and map what's emerging on the other side. Includes 4 video lectures, 4 live Q&As (replays available), and a community of fellow travelers. Donation-based, pay what you're able (including $0). Live sessions start this month — register at www.thefutureofreligion.com Previous Episodes with Gary or Aaron James Cone Was Right: Gary Dorrien & Charlene Sinclair on Black Theology, the Lynching Tree & the Cry We Keep Not Hearing Sacred Values and Street Power — The Theology of Organizing A Story of Being Saved by Love and Grace the Niebuhr You Thought You Knew What Would a New Abolition Be? Gary Dorrien on the Black Social Gospel, Ida B. Wells & Reverdy Ransom Social Ethics for This Moment What God Do They Worship In There? The Black Social Gospel and the Crisis of American Christianity Theological Ethics & Liberal Protestantism James Cone and the Emergence of Black Theology The Future of Faith & Justice Theology for Action The Sacred, The Political, and Why We're All Vulnerable Gary Dorrien is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University. This podcast is a Homebrewed Christianity production. Follow the Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown, & The Rise of Bonhoeffer podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our Substack - Process This! Get instant access to over 50 classes at www.TheologyClass.com Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Dollar Bin Bandits welcome legendary creator Dan Brereton back to the show to talk monsters, mood, and the long-awaited return of his beloved noir-horror universe in Nocturnals: Darkly. Dan digs into the origins of the new graphic novel, why the Nocturnals characters continue to resonate decades later, and how his lush painted artwork has evolved over the years while still channeling the same spooky pulp energy fans fell in love with in the '90s. We also chats with Dan about crowdfunding, creator-owned comics, and the challenges of balancing storytelling with jaw-dropping visuals. And for listeners looking to join the monster party, the Nocturnals: Darkly Kickstarter campaign is still accepting late pledges: http://kck.st/3NBLP5Z. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Marvin Rush joins us this week on The D-Con Chamber for a wide-ranging conversation about his extraordinary career behind the camera.Best known to Trek fans for helping define the look of The Next Generation era and for directing episodes like Voyager's “The Thaw” and Enterprise's “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II” and “Terra Prime,” Marvin opens up to Connor and Dominic in a way that surprised even us. What starts as a conversation about cinematography quickly turns into stories about the people, pressures, creative decisions, and strange moments that shaped decades of television history.We also spend time talking about his work outside of Star Trek, the changing nature of filmmaking, and what it was really like working through some of the biggest shifts in television production over the years.Each week in The D-Con Chamber, we boldly revisit Star Trek: Enterprise through behind-the-scenes stories, watch-along commentaries, and conversations with the people whose lives were forever changed by the franchise. Whether they are breaking down classic episodes or welcoming special guests from across the Trek universe and beyond, hosts Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer mix laughs, insider perspective, and Trek appreciation in every episode.
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In Episode 33 of High Stakes, Tracey Devlyn sits down with author A.N. Caudle to discuss her romantasy, WORTHY OF FATE—an immersive world of killer plants, winged creatures, fated mates, and more. “Darkly delicious, filled with tension, survival, and beautiful destiny!" — Abigail Owen, #1 New York Times bestselling author Author's Website: https://ANCaudle.com Show Notes: https://traceydevlyn.com/podcast Love this episode? Rate it ⭐️ Thumbs Up
In Episode 33 of High Stakes, Tracey Devlyn sits down with author A.N. Caudle to discuss her romantasy, WORTHY OF FATE—an immersive world of killer plants, winged creatures, fated mates, and more. “Darkly delicious, filled with tension, survival, and beautiful destiny!" — Abigail Owen, #1 New York Times bestselling author Author's Website: https://ANCaudle.com Show Notes: https://traceydevlyn.com/podcast Love this episode? Rate it ⭐️ Thumbs Up
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Indie sci-fi collective Darkly Lem — five authors writing under one unified pseudonym — discuss their Transmentation series and the broader Many Worlds shared-universe project. They outline a consequence-driven multiverse of interdimensional societies defined by competing values, political systems, and internal power struggles, contrasting it with the MCU's approach and explaining how they maintain stakes by focusing on worlds and societies rather than preserving characters.They explain how they collaborate through twice-weekly meetings, a large living “bible”, intensive multi-pass editing, and evolving drafting methods including assignment, co-writing, and “exquisite corpse.” They outline how Many Worlds began as Cadwell Turnbull's project and has grown to over 20 authors, and aims to connect short stories and novels via a meta-narrative.We also discuss multiversal traveler mechanisms, personal proxies, identity “meshing,” and the complexities of social governance and different times and scales of a society's development.Books of his we discuss: Transmentation: Transience, Transmentation: Transgressionhttps://www.manyworldsforum.com/alternatefutures.substack.comalternatefutures.co.uk
The Passion of Darkly Noon kicks off our tenth season celebrating Brendan Fraser History Month, which feels appropriate because it is a film that we only ever became aware of through these annual celebrations.We venture deep into The Forest of this film and eventually make it out the other side to find a deeper appreciation for the Brendan's abilities as an actor as he takes on one of his scariest roles yet. We also do our best to figure out the message the film is trying to send with its ethereal fantasy storytelling and what we can do to be better after having experienced this parable.
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For Amy, being a doctor was supposed to mean winning at life. Helping people. Saving lives. Having a secure job. Earning good money. Tick, tick, tick, tick. But now, in her second year in a city hospital the reality is a world away from Amy's med school dreams. She is finding out that people don't always want to be 'helped', the pay barely covers rent, her hours are ridiculous, her favourite patients are getting sicker, and her surgical trainee boyfriend has recently gone shy on proposing.What Amy does have are the friendships forged by dealing with recalcitrant patients, endless nightshifts, and crying in the emergency department bathrooms. And a belief that maybe, underneath it all, it's a job that's still worth doing.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Kerry Jewell about giving the reader the complete hospital/medical training experience, why the idea of being a doctor isn't necessarily the reality, and how cynicism, sarcasm and black humour are all part of the job.
For Amy, being a doctor was supposed to mean winning at life. Helping people. Saving lives. Having a secure job. Earning good money. Tick, tick, tick, tick. But now, in her second year in a city hospital the reality is a world away from Amy's med school dreams. She is finding out that people don't always want to be 'helped', the pay barely covers rent, her hours are ridiculous, her favourite patients are getting sicker, and her surgical trainee boyfriend has recently gone shy on proposing. What Amy does have are the friendships forged by dealing with recalcitrant patients, endless nightshifts, and crying in the emergency department bathrooms. And a belief that maybe, underneath it all, it's a job that's still worth doing. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Kerry Jewell about giving the reader the complete hospital/medical training experience, why the idea of being a doctor isn't necessarily the reality, and how cynicism, sarcasm and black humour are all part of the job.
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On episode 150 of the Director Watch Podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter discuss the next film in their Charles Burnett series, To Sleep with Anger (1990). Welcome back to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, the boys attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema's greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you've got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. After breaking through with Killer of Sheep and My Brother's Wedding, Burnett made a massive statement, and the best film of his career, with To Sleep with Anger. In following a family whose world is rocked by an old friend coming in and turning their world dangerously upside down, the director chose to explore the internal emotions of those closest in our lives, and how we've spent years building up anger, resentment, jealousy, rage within ourselves, only for our worst impulses to come out when pushed to expose them. Darkly funny and harrowing, Burnett made an independent film statement that defined the time, and his career. Ryan and Jay break down the film, their thoughts on Danny Glover's performance, how this film mirrors Burnett's past work, the families battle with the good and the evil, seeing their world through the eyes of a child, and how the indie film world looked like in the 1990s. You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more. You can also listen on the AwardsWatch YouTube page. This podcast runs 1h19m. The guys will be back next week to conclude their series on the films of Charles Burnett with a review of his film, The Annihilation of Fish. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let's get into it. Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and "B-3" from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).
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Notes and Links to Lisa Lee's Work Lisa Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, North American Review, Sycamore Review, and elsewhere. Her essay on racial invisibility and erasure in the writing workshop was featured on Bitch Media's feminism & pop culture podcast Popaganda, on the episode “Writing About Race.” Today, March 31, is Pub Day for her novel, American Han. Buy American Han Lisa Lee's Website Review of American Han from Kirkus Reviews At about 1:40, Lisa discusses the exhaustion and excitement that comes with Pub Day and the book's unveiling At about 4:45, Lisa gives info on publishing and buying her book At about 5:40, Lisa and Pete shout out meaningful writers in her life and talk about her book events coming up At about 6:15, Lisa responds to Pete's question about her language and reading life in childhood and into young adulthood At about 9:00, Lisa cites Housekeeping by Robinson and Everett's Erasure as changing her perceptions of what writers At about 10:30, Lisa expands upon the greatness of Percival Evertett, homing in on Erasure At about 13:20, Pete reads a generic definition of han and compares it to a word like saudade that is virtually untranslatable At about 14L15, Lisa responds to Pete's questions about the meaning(s) of han At about 16:00, Pete sets the book's exposition, and Lisa expands on the narrator Jane's mindset at the beginning of American Han At about 20:45, The two discuss the competitiveness within the family and expectations of Jane's mother At about 21:45, Lisa responds to Pete asking about the quote that Jane has succeeded “despite” her mother, not “because of” her mother At about 25:15, Pete cites the Korean folk tale of Chun in talking about parental-child relationships and sibling relationships At about 26:05, Lisa responds to Pete's question about empathy/sympathy for her characters At about 29:05, Lisa reflects on Pete's wondering about han and intergenerational traumas in the book, and expands upon differences in han's impact in contemporary Korea and among members of the Korean diaspora At about 33:30, Pete highlights a memorable scene that At about 34:05, Pete riffs on the "manosphere" and connections to Kevin, the narrator's sister, and his misogyny; Lisa speaks on Kevin's background and sense of han and sense of gender identity At about 40:15, Lisa and Pete discuss the book's timing and pacing and flashbacks At about 42:40, Pete highlights an important and well-drawn scene about an alternate way of being mother and daughter At about 43:55, Lisa expands on a Korean custom of associating parents with their children through different forms of address At about 45:40, The two reflect on children as the parents' “identity” At about 46:40, Pete points out the independence of the mother and father at a point in the book where Kevin's horrific act shakes up the family At about 47:35, The two discuss the importance of a family vacation and ideas of “let[ting] the lid off” At about 48:10, Pete asks Lisa about ending the book as she does, with a flashback, and with the tone that she uses You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow Pete on IG, where he is @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where he is @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both the YouTube Channel and the podcast while you're checking out this episode. Pete is very excited to have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. His conversation with Jeff Pearlman, a recent guest, is up now at Chicago Review. Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting Pete's one-man show, DIY podcast and extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content! This month's Patreon bonus episode features an exploration of formative and transformative writing for children, as Pete surveys wonderful writers on their own influences. Pete has added a $1 a month tier for “Well-Wishers” and Cheerleaders of the Show. This is a passion project, a DIY operation, and Pete would love for your help in promoting what he's convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com. Please tune in for Episode 335 with Toni Ann Johnson, who won the 2024 Screen Door Press Prize for Fiction with her linked collection, BUT WHERE'S HOME? (UPK 2026). In 2021, she won the Flannery O'Connor Award for her linked short story collection LIGHT SKIN GONE TO WASTE (UGA Press 2022). The collection was shortlisted for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, and also shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize. A novella, HOMEGOING, won Accents Publishing's inaugural novella contest in 2020 and was released in May of 2021. She is also a screenwriter with a number of produced projects to her credit including, Ruby Bridges (ABC), Crown Heights (Showtime), The Courage to Love (Lifetime) the TV pilot, Save The Last Dance (Fox Television), and the feature film, Step Up 2: The Streets (Summit Entertainment). The episode airs March 31 or April 1. Please go to ceasefiretoday.org, and/or https://act.uscpr.org/a/letaidin to call your congresspeople and demand an end to the forced famine and destruction of Gaza and the Gazan people. You can also donate at chuffed.org, World Central Kitchen, and so many more, and/or you can contact writer friend Ursula Villarreal-Moura directly or through Pete, as she has direct links with friends in Gaza.
On this week's episode of Drew Blood's Dark Tales, author P.D. Williams delivers two unnerving tales of strange roads, false intentions, and the danger of assuming you know exactly what kind of world you're walking into. First, four blues musicians set out for Clarksdale and find themselves pulled into a night that feels increasingly wrong with every mile. Then, a smug online do-gooder goes looking for praise, gratitude, and easy content, only to discover that some acts of charity come with consequences he never saw coming. Darkly funny, eerie, and laced with menace, this is an episode about detours—moral, physical, and otherwise—and what may be waiting at the end of them. “Long Way” by P.D. Williams — When a group of traveling blues musicians heads for Clarksdale in 1936, a breakdown on a lonely Mississippi road leaves them stranded in the dark and far from help. As the men press onward through an increasingly unnatural night, what begins as a simple detour turns into a harrowing encounter with forces far beyond their understanding. A haunting blend of historical atmosphere, folklore, and cosmic unease, this story charts a nightmare journey into the unknown. “Kind” by P.D. Williams — Jared has built an online persona around public generosity, turning staged acts of compassion into content for clicks, praise, and profit. But when one of his self-serving charity stunts leads him into unfamiliar territory, he finds himself face-to-face with people who are not nearly as eager to play along as he expected. Darkly funny, sharp, and increasingly menacing, this story explores performative kindness, exploitation, and the danger of underestimating those you think you can use. To watch the podcast on YouTube: http://bit.ly/ChillingEntertainmentYT Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/DrewBlood If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://bit.ly/DrewBlood Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Photography is a technology of contradictions. It is at once mechanical and mysterious, even magical. It furnishes evidence of presence while being a token of absence. It can show us proof but can't, without accompanying narration or context, make us understand. And perhaps most perplexing of all, it is an imperialistic technology which, paradoxically, atomizes the world and democratizes all events and experiences, making each viewer of photographs the owner of a facsimile-world in his or her head. Wes & Erin discuss two essays from Susan Sontag's collection, “On Photography,” “In Plato's Cave” and “America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly,” and ask what constitutes photography's “ethics of seeing,” and whether Sontag suggests an alternative comportment towards the camera, the subject, and the photographic image. Upcoming Episodes: Withnail & I; Waiting for Godot Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website
Caleb returns to the Flyin' Solo series as he jumps into the second part of his series looking at all the books he read/listened to in 2025! Join him as he looks at the books on his free-reading list (meaning the books not apart of the Through the Looking Glass, Darkly book playlist). This episode was recorded on Dec. 30th, 2025. Email the show at thenoviceelitists@gmail.com Books included in this episode: 1. Aliens: Phalanx (2020) [Scott Sigler] 2. My Sweet Audrina (1981) [V.C. Andrews] 3. The Only Good Indians (2020) [Stephen Graham Jones] 4. The Glass Hotel (2020) [Emily St. John Mandel] 5. Dune: House Atreides (1999) [Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson] 6. Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) [Jules Verne] 7. The Godmakers (1972) [Frank Herbert] 8. Meg: Hell's Aquarium (2009) [Steve Alten] 9. False Gods (2006) [Graham McNeill] 10. Star Wars: Truce At Bakura (1993) [Kathy Tyres] 11. Sphere (1987) [Michael Crichton] 12. Aliens: Bishop (2023) [T.R. Napper] 13. Project Hail Mary (2021) [Andy Weir] 14. The Running Man (1987) [Stephen King] 15. Trouble with Lichen (1960) [John Wyndam] 16. Origins (2011) [Steve Alten] 17. Alien: Out of the Shadows (2014) [Tim Lebbon] 18. Galaxy in Flames (2006) [Ben Counter] 19. One (1988) [Richard Bach] 20. Foul Play Suspected (1935) [John Wyndham] 21. Sea of Tranquility (2022) [Emily St. John Mandel] 22. The Day of the Triffids (1951) [John Wyndham] 23. Chocky (1968) [John Wyndham]
Photography is a technology of contradictions. It is at once mechanical and mysterious, even magical. It furnishes evidence of presence while being a token of absence. It can show us proof but can't, without accompanying narration or context, make us understand. And perhaps most perplexing of all, it is an imperialistic technology which, paradoxically, atomizes the world and democratizes all events and experiences, making each viewer of photographs the owner of a facsimile-world in his or her head. Wes & Erin discuss two essays from Susan Sontag's collection, “On Photography,” “In Plato's Cave” and “America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly,” and ask what constitutes photography's “ethics of seeing,” and whether Sontag suggests an alternative comportment towards the camera, the subject, and the photographic image. Upcoming Episodes: Withnail & I; Waiting for Godot Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website
Darkly comic crime thriller by D.C. Jackson. When Kerry makes the snap decision to assume her dead sister's identity, she doesn't think through the consequences of posing as a dentist.And those consequences turn out to be pretty fatal... Cast: Leanne … Gabriel Quigley Kasia … Leah Byrne Bob and Toby… Grant O'Rourke Stewart … Jonathan Watson DI Hickman … David Ireland Jaconelli … Gavin Mitchell Studio Production: Andy Hay and Gav Murchie Production Coordinator: Ellie MarshOriginal music and sound design: Fraser Jackson Additional keyboards: Tony Graham A BBC Audio Scotland Production directed by Kirsty Williams
This episode dives into one of the strangest modern consciousness experiments ever proposed. Starting with cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman's provocative idea that reality may function like a computer desktop interface — an evolutionary illusion designed for survival rather than truth. We'll explore a bizarre experiment popularized by Danny Goler in which participants under the influence of DMT have claimed that lasers can help random patterns resolve into stable, angular symbols under the right conditions — as if making the hidden code behind reality visible. Are these visions simply the brain's hyper-connected visual cortex generating patterns, or could they represent the possibility that our everyday reality may be a carefully rendered illusion?Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.
Darkly comic crime thriller by D.C. Jackson. When Kerry makes the snap decision to assume her dead sister's identity, she doesn't think through the consequences of posing as a dentist. Turns out they're pretty catastrophic…Cast: Leanne … Gabriel Quigley DI Hickman … David Ireland Bob … Grant O'Rourke Stewart … Jonathan Watson Jaconelli … Gavin Mitchell Kasia … Leah ByrneStudio Production: Andy Hay and Gav Murchie Production Coordinator: Ellie MarshOriginal music and sound design: Fraser Jackson Additional keyboards: Tony Graham A BBC Audio Scotland Production directed by Kirsty Williams
Otis Jiry's Scary Stories Told in the Dark: A Horror Anthology Series
In this chilling installment of Scary Stories Told in the Dark, Malcolm Blackwood invites listeners into a night of psychological horror where the most terrifying things are not monsters lurking in the dark, but the choices people make when grief, rage, and temptation press in from all sides. Featuring Mak Ralston's “All Hands Are Red,” this episode descends into a world of contradiction, private pain, and quiet moral collapse, where justice and vengeance begin to resemble one another in all the worst ways. Darkly intimate, unnerving, and steeped in dread, this is a tale for anyone who's ever wondered what it really takes to push an ordinary person past the point of no return. To watch the podcast on YouTube: http://bit.ly/ChillingEntertainmentYT Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link! http://bit.ly/ScaryStoriesPodcast If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: http://bit.ly/ScaryStoriesPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Episode 89 From An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope Mark McGuinness reads and discusses an excerpt from Epistle II of An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. https://media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/content.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/89_From_An_Essay_on_Man_by_Alexander_Pope.mp3 Poet Alexander Pope Reading and commentary by Mark McGuinness From An Essay on Man Epistle II By Alexander Pope Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise, and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little, or too much:Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused, or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,Correct old time, and regulate the sun;Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,And quitting sense call imitating God;As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,And turn their heads to imitate the sun.Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule –Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! Podcast Transcript In the early 18th century, Alexander Pope's poetry was known to every cultured person in England. He was a fashionable, successful, wealthy writer and the preeminent poet of his age. He was also a canny businessman who published his translations of Homer via subscription, an early form of crowdfunding, and they sold so well he built himself, an extravagantly large villa in Twickenham – and its famous subterranean grotto still exists today. His political satires were so sharp and topical that he was rumoured to carry a pair of loaded pistols when going for a walk, in case one of his targets took violent exception. Phrases from his poetry are still proverbial: ‘hope springs eternal', ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread', ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing', ‘To err is human; to forgive divine', ‘What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed', and also the title of the movie, ‘eternal sunshine of the spotless mind'. But these days, Pope has really fallen out of fashion. He's seen as archaic and artificial. In an age when formal poetry is out of fashion, for many people he represents the worst kind of formal poetry: his very regular metre and full rhymes sound clunky to our ears. His rhyming couplets are undoubtedly clever, but that's part of the problem, because these days we associate poetry with emotions and self-expression, so cleverness is seen as a little suspect and somehow inauthentic. And I'll be honest, for a long time, I had that image of Pope. He represented everything the Romantics rebelled against at the end of the 18th century, and as a young poet I was on the side of the Romantics, so I had no interest in Pope. However, a few years ago, I challenged myself to have another look at his work, and what I discovered was a really sharp and thought-provoking and witty and formidably skilful poet, who in certain moods, is an absolute pleasure to read. And he doesn't fit every mood, but then there aren't many poets who do. So turning to today's poem, An Essay on Man is one of Pope's major works, it's about 1,300 lines long. As the title suggests it's a meditation on the nature of what he called mankind, and we call humankind, we have to make allowance for the historic focus on the male as representative of the species. It's also a didactic poem, he's not just reflecting on the subject, he is telling us what we should think about it. Which again, is a deeply unfashionable stance for poets these days, at least when they are on the side of a conservative or establishment position. And he does this in the form of a series of verse epistles, verse letters, which are addressed to Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke. The epistle form also means that the poem addresses the reader in a very direct manner, as you would expect in a letter. His basic stance, which we find in many of his poems, is of a reasonable man writing for a group of like-minded people, trying to establish some sort of common sense, shared ideas and principles, in a world where these need to be debated and defined and defended. This was the world of the coffee house and the salon, where people came together to debate, sometimes in very robust fashion. It came to be known as the Augustan age in English literature, by comparison with the satirical and political poetry of the age of Augustus Caesar. OK looking more closely at the poem itself, the excerpt I just read is from the second Epistle, and one of the first things we notice is what Milton would have called the ‘jingling' rhymes: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride, It's pretty unmistakeable isn't it? One pair of rhymes after another. And in case you're wondering, yes, these rhyming couplets do go on all the way through the poem, and indeed all the way through most of Pope's work. And not just in Pope: for over a century, from about 1650 to 1780, this was a hugely popular verse form. They are known as heroic couplets because they are associated with epic narrative poems, such as John Dryden's translations of Virgil and Pope's translations of Homer. Each line is in iambic pentameter, the familiar ti TUM ti TUM ti TUm ti TUM ti TUM, with two lines next to each other forming couplets, and the poem proceeding with one couplet after another. The form can be traced back to Chaucer, who used rhyming couplets for many of his narrative poems. But by the time of Dryden and Pope it had evolved into a tighter couplet form, described as closed couplets, meaning that they were typically self contained, with a sentence, or a discrete part of a sentence, beginning and ending inside the couplet. For instance: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. That stands on its own as a single thought, a unit of sense, ending with a full stop. And the full rhyme of ‘scan' and ‘man' means the couplet snaps shut at the end – this is the closed couplet effect we associate with heroic couplets. In the next couplet he introduces the idea of man as a creature of ‘middle state': Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: And then another couplet elaborates on the sense of being pulled in different directions: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, So the poem proceeds one unit of sense at a time. The couplets are like Lego bricks, and Pope used them to build just about anything he wanted: literary and philosophical discourse here in the Essay on Man and in his Essay on Criticism; mock-heroic social comedy in The Rape of the Lock; actual epic in his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey; and satire in The Dunciad. It's easy to see how this could become monotonous, and in the work of most poets of the time, it did. But Pope's great achievement was to take this established form and perfect it, sticking very strictly to the formal pattern, while varying the syntax, the grammatical patterns, with great subtlety and complexity, to keep the reader on their toes. Let's take another look at the first couplet. Notice the little pause in the middle of the first line, after ‘thyself': Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; This divides the line into two parts, conveying the dramatic tension in Pope's argument: he's saying that humans are ambitious for knowledge, they want to ‘scan' God, to examine him, but they should really focus on self-knowledge. This tension between opposites is known as antithesis, it's a rhetorical pattern we looked at back in episode 58 about one of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets, and it's very common in Pope. And the tension is resolved in the next line, which is all one phrase, with no pause: The proper study of mankind is man. Have another listen to the couplet, to hear how the tension is established and then released: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. So when all of this comes together, the tension and release, the regular rhythm of the metre and the full rhymes clinching the couplet, it has the effect of making the words sound truer than true. The following couplet picks up on the antithesis, and extends it into paradox: Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: An isthmus is a narrow strip of land between two bodies of water, so standing on it, you could easily feel precarious and threatened. ‘Darkly wise' means ‘dimly wise', possessing a little knowledge, but not enough for full understanding. And ‘rudely great' means ‘powerful but coarse and unfinished'. And I think we can recognise what Pope is saying from our own experience – that sense of knowing enough to know how little we really know; of having great potential, but struggling to fulfil it. And isn't it delightful how Pope compresses all those feelings into these neat little paradoxes: ‘darkly wise and rudely great'. In another famous line, he describes true eloquence as ‘What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed', which is exactly what he achieves here. We can also note that ‘darkly wise' and ‘rudely great' are not only antitheses expressed as paradoxes, they are also an example of another rhetorical pattern: parallelism, where similar structures are repeated with variation. In this case ‘darkly' and ‘rudely' are both adverbs and ‘wise' and ‘great' are both adjectives, so grammatically they are identical, which suggests both similarity and difference in mankind's relationship to knowledge and power. The next couplet uses a more elaborate parallelism: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, So both lines say ‘With too much something for the something else'. It's hard to miss the pattern, isn't it? And notice how the couplet form is perfect for laying out two ideas that seem to counterbalance each other perfectly. So we're only six lines in and Pope has put his finger on a central conundrum in human existence, and conveyed it with at least three rhetorical patterns nested inside each other – antithesis, paradox and parallelism. Not only that, he's handled the metre and rhyme with great skill, wrapping each thought up in the neat little bow of a rhyming couplet. And if your mind is starting to boggle, welcome to the world of Pope's verse: elegant, authoritative and very, very clever. When we look closely, there's a lot going on inside every single couplet. He's like a watchmaker, working at a tiny scale, making an instrument with great precision and balance, that keeps perfect time, and chimes beautifully. And Pope's contemporaries would have found it easier to follow the sense than we do, because they were used to reading this kind of stuff. But I'm sure the poetry would often have given them pause, even if only for a moment, as they read. And my guess is that they would have enjoyed this slight difficulty, and the pleasure of making out the sense, with the little dopamine hit of understanding. Like unwrapping a sweet before you can pop it in your mouth and taste it. So I hope we're starting to see why Pope is the undisputed master of the heroic couplet. Even T. S. Eliot had to admit defeat, when he wrote a passage in this style for The Waste Land, only for Ezra Pound to point out tactfully that he couldn't compete with Pope, and draw the red pencil through it. But the form is more than simply one couplet after another. When he stacks them together, they create verse paragraphs, longer units of thought, that function very like paragraphs in prose. So having established the idea of man caught between opposing forces, he goes on to elaborate on the theme to dazzling effect: He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much: The couplets are individually brilliant, and cumulatively overwhelming, both in terms of the mental effort required to tease out their meanings, and the tension between action and inaction, divine and bestial impulses, mind and body, birth and death, reason and error. And I think that's why I find this line so funny: Whether he thinks too little, or too much: It feels like he's throwing his arms up and laughing and admitting that he's overthinking it all. The verse paragraph ends with three more couplets, where he sums up the nature of man: Chaos of thought and passion, all confused; Still by himself abused, or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Although Pope is describing a ‘chaos of thought', his own thinking is always sharp, however convoluted his argument becomes. So he sticks to the themes of power and knowledge, undercutting man's pretension by saying he is ‘Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all', and ‘Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled'. And he ends this paragraph with another rhetorical device, the tricolon, which uses three parallel elements to build to a conclusion: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! We're familiar with this pattern in famous quotes from Julius Caesar, ‘I came, I saw, I conquered', the US Declaration of Independence, ‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness', and Shakespeare: ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen!' Here, Pope uses it with typical precision, since if someone is both the ‘glory… of the world' and it's ‘jest', i.e. the butt of its jokes, then that makes that person a ‘riddle': The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! So this sums up the nature of man, and sets up the jesting irony of the next verse paragraph: Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun; If this were the start of the poem, we might be forgiven for taking Pope's words at face value, but in the light of what has gone before, it's pretty clear that ‘wondrous creature' is a mocking criticism. He was writing this in an age where Newtonian physics was in the ascendancy and people were full of enthusiasm about the new discoveries in science and the possibility of understanding and mastering the physical world. And given that we are still living in a so-called age of reason, I think his criticisms of scientific overreach are still relevant, and the joke is still funny, when he talks about instructing the planets in what orbits to follow, correcting time and regulating the sun. As if measuring were full understanding, let alone complete power. But Pope doesn't confine his criticism to scientists. He also has philosophers in his sight: Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; He clearly doesn't have a lot of time for Plato's first principles. Neither is he impressed by the contemporary vogue for what we would call Orientalism: As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. It's possible that he had in mind the whirling dervishes of Persia, or maybe this is just a caricature of his idea of ‘Eastern priests'. So obviously this is a joke that hasn't aged so well. OK he ends this verse paragraph with a final jab, which restates the idea from the opening couplet in bluntly comic fashion: Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule – Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! It's hard to imagine a more apt image of intellectual presumption than trying to teach Eternal Wisdom a thing or two, but just in case we miss the point, Pope rams it home with relish: Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! And this is another characteristic aspect of Augustan poetry, particularly the satirical kind, that it can be very crude and direct, with a passage of sophisticated argument followed by a line or two where the mask drops and the insult is laid bare. And no, it's not big or clever, but let's face it, sometimes it can be deeply satisfying. One more little detail, which I can't help wondering about: notice how both of these couplets, conveying the same basic idea in very different tones, both hinge on the word ‘thyself': Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule – Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! So that word ‘thyself' could be used to refer to various individuals, and knowing Pope, I wouldn't be surprised if he intended all of them at once. Firstly, the phrasing sounds proverbial, in which case each couplet is an injunction to mankind at large. Secondly, it could refer to the reader, any reader, of the poem, whether Viscount Bolingbroke, an 18th-century wit, or you and me, reading the poem together on this podcast. It could also refer to the specific targets of Pope's criticism, such as the overreaching scientists or philosophers. I think Pope may also have had in mind a target nearer to home: himself. W. B. Yeats wrote in one of his essays, ‘We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry'. And it's entirely possible that Pope is doing both at once: we've seen the brilliance of his rhetoric, in puncturing the pretensions of his fellow men and women. Yet by making poetry as well as rhetoric, he is arguably arguing with himself as well. It was of course be entirely right and proper and expected for a Christian such as Pope to admonish himself as well as others, for the many and various sins he describes in An Essay on Man. So from a moral viewpoint, I think I'm on pretty safe ground in suggesting that ‘thyself' includes Pope. But I would go further, and say that the idea of a brilliant mind that is not quite brilliant enough to fully understand itself may have been a deeply personal subject for Pope. Because what we have here is an extremely clever warning about taking cleverness to extremes. Maybe the irony was not lost on Pope. As he wrote in another poem, An Essay on Criticism, ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing'. So perhaps as we hear this passage again, and enjoy the sparkling wit and scurrilous attacks on others, we can also detect a note of self-reflection, and self-accusation, that makes it a little more poignant than it first appears. From An Essay on Man Epistle II By Alexander Pope Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;The proper study of mankind is man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise, and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little, or too much:Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused, or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,Correct old time, and regulate the sun;Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,And quitting sense call imitating God;As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,And turn their heads to imitate the sun.Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule –Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! Alexander Pope Alexander Pope was an English poet and translator who was born in 1688 and died in 1744. As a Catholic he was barred from university and public office, so he educated himself and forged a brilliant literary career, becoming the leading poet of Augustan England, celebrated for his razor-sharp satire and polished heroic couplets. Early success came with An Essay on Criticism and The Rape of the Lock, followed by monumental translations of Homer that made him financially independent. His later works, including The Dunciad, attacked dullness and corruption. In An Essay on Man, he explored human nature, providence, and moral order with epigrammatic clarity. He lived at Twickenham, where he created a famous garden and grotto. A Mouthful of Air – the podcast This is a transcript of an episode of A Mouthful of Air – a poetry podcast hosted by Mark McGuinness. New episodes are released every other Tuesday. You can hear every episode of the podcast via Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favourite app. You can have a full transcript of every new episode sent to you via email. The music and soundscapes for the show are created by Javier Weyler. Sound production is by Breaking Waves and visual identity by Irene Hoffman. A Mouthful of Air is produced by The 21st Century Creative, with support from Arts Council England via a National Lottery Project Grant. Listen to the show You can listen and subscribe to A Mouthful of Air on all the main podcast platforms Related Episodes From An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope Episode 89 From An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope Mark McGuinness reads and discusses an excerpt from Epistle II of An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope.Poet Alexander PopeReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessFrom An Essay on Man Epistle II By Alexander Pope Know... Occupied by Tim Rich Episode 88 Occupied by Tim Rich Tim Rich reads ‘Occupied' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness.This poem is from: Dark Angels: Three Contemporary PoetsAvailable from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK... Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Episode 87 Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Mark McGuinness reads and discusses ‘Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold.Poet Matthew ArnoldReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessDover Beach By Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies...
Horror Hill: A Horror Anthology and Scary Stories Series Podcast
In this unsettling episode of Horror Hill, host Erik Peabody presents a darkly decadent tale from Ambrose Ibsen—one that begins with ambition and appetite, and ends somewhere far more disturbing. When a struggling chef with dreams of greatness crosses paths with a seasoned mushroom hunter guarding his best-kept secrets, an unexpected discovery promises to change everything. Darkly atmospheric and disturbingly visceral, this episode explores temptation, ambition, and the terrifying cost of indulging in something you don't fully understand. Pull up a chair. Dinner is served. To watch the podcast on YouTube: http://bit.ly/ChillingEntertainmentYT Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/HorrorHillPodcast If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://bit.ly/HorrorHillPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Darkly comic crime thriller by D.C. Jackson.Kerry's living a life of quiet desperation. Her identical twin appears to be affluent and successful. When Kerry turns to her sister for help, the consequences are worse than she could possibly have imagined, for both of them…Cast: Leanne and Kerry … Gabriel Quigley Bob … Grant O'Rourke Kasia … Leah Bryne Stewart … Jonathan Watson The Minister … Gavin MitchellStudio Production: Andy Hay and Gav Murchie Production Coordinator: Ellie MarshOriginal music and sound design: Fraser Jackson Additional keyboards: Tony GrahamA BBC Audio Scotland Production directed by Kirsty Williams
Darkly comic crime thriller by D.C. Jackson. Kerry's living a life of quiet desperation. Her identical twin appears to be affluent and successful. When Kerry turns to her sister for help, the consequences are worse than she could possibly have imagined, for both of them…Cast: Leanne and Kerry … Gabriel Quigley Bob … Grant O'Rourke Kasia … Leah Bryne Stewart … Jonathan Watson The Minister … Gavin Mitchell Studio Production: Andy Hay and Gav Murchie Production Coordinator: Ellie MarshOriginal music and sound design: Fraser Jackson Additional keyboards: Tony Graham A BBC Audio Scotland Production directed by Kirsty Williams
2026 is in full swing, but before we close the door on 2025 Caleb has one again sat down to discuss the books he read/listened to during the prior year. This will once again be a multi-part series as he was devouring many different books this year. But before he jumps into it all, he'll kick off the series by looking at the books on his 2025 reading playlist, Through the Looking Glass, Darkly. This episode was recorded on Dec. 30th, 2025. Email the show at thenoviceelitists@gmail.com Through the Looking Glass, Darkly reading list: 1. 1922 (2010) [Stephen King] 2. American War (2018) [Omar El-Akkad] 3. Wuthering Heights (1847) [Emily Bronte] 4. Secret Window, Secret Garden (1990) [Stephen King] 5. To the Center of the Earth (2020) [Greig Beck] 6. Alices Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass (1865/1871) [Lewis Carrol] 7. The Library Policeman (1990) [Stephen King] 8. Cell (2006) [Stephen King] 9. Frankenstein (1818) Mary Shelley 10. The Sun Dog (1990) [Stephen King] 11. No Country for Old Men (2005) [Cormac McCarthy] 12. When the Sleeper Wakes (1899) [H. G. Welles] 13. Cujo (1981) [Stephen King] 14. The Terror (2007) [Dan Simmons] 15. Jane Eyre [Charlotte Bronte] 16. Pet Semetary (1983) [Stephen King] 17. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2016) [Ian Reid] 18. Emma (1815) [Jane Austen]
Morning news and commentary and an interesting talk with author and journalist Johanna Neuman. Wrote a piece in the Blaze about the breakdown around us. Darkly comic novel written about the founders comes out in May. Link to that on my show blog!
As always, the Coode Street Motel Six bestrides continents, so after briefly comparing notes on the weather in Perth and Chicago, Gary and Jonathan get down to it and chat about the subjects of the moment. How do you talk about books and what was the weather like? The importance of settings in fiction, especially regarding climate and weather, and the broader question of whether readers can ever fully appreciate a setting dissimilar to their own and how book reviewers might take this into account. This includes a brief discussion of translated fiction—a welcome new category in this year's Locus Awards. Anthologies and activism The significance of advocacy anthologies that may reflect anything from feminist SF (as in Vonda McIntyre and Susan Janice Anderson's Aurora: Beyond Equality (1976) to antiwar works to promoting the New Wave. Books we're looking forward to In a new segment, we list a few books that we are looking forward to that will be published in the coming weeks. Jonathan talks about A.G. Slatter's A Forest, Darkly, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Pretenders to the Throne of God, Paul McAuley's Loss Protocol, and A.D Sui's debut The Iron Garden Sutra. Gary's list includes Rebecca Roanhorse's River of Bones and Other Stories and The Best of Adrian Tchaikovsky, a novella by Ian McDonald, Boy, with Accidental Dinosaur, and nonfiction study of SFF by Ada Palmer and Jo Walton, Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
In this chilling episode, humanity clings to survival in the shadow of a catastrophe that refused to stay buried. Safe havens come with conditions. Miracles arrive with strings attached. And the line between protector and predator grows thinner with every passing day. As civilization flickers in the ruins, listeners are invited into a world where salvation wears a reassuring smile, science promises second chances, and hope may be the most dangerous temptation of all. What does it mean to be human when memory can be erased, bodies rebuilt, and the future engineered by unseen hands? Darkly philosophical, quietly devastating, and steeped in moral unease, this episode asks a single, unsettling question: If something offers to save us—should we ever stop to ask why? To watch the podcast on YouTube: http://bit.ly/ChillingEntertainmentYT Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/FearFromTheHeartland If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://bit.ly/FearFromTheHeartland Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This week, wrap yourself in barbed wire with us and talk confusing reference with allegory, American fairy tales, and barns for gooning in 1995's THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON! linktr.ee/swimfans patreon.com/swimfans Theme by Padlock: http://padlock.bandcamp.com/
This week, we open the Starfleet personnel file for Admiral Jonathan Archer, a detailed biographical memo written by Star Trek: Enterprise writer/producer Michael Sussman for the fan-favorite episode "In a Mirror, Darkly." It was only meant to be a quick background graphic, so how did it evolve into a fan-favorite bit of canon? And why did Mike sneak "President of the UFP" into the character's résumé without telling the showrunners? Larry welcomes Mike to The Trek Files to revisit the creation of this in-universe bio, share behind-the-scenes memories from the final days of Enterprise, and unpack how a throwaway idea from 2005 became the seed of a new series pitch, Star Trek: United, which imagines Archer in his presidential years. From secret nods to The West Wing, to collaborating with Andy Probert on "Space Force One," this episode is a crash course in how Trek canon can be built with equal parts creativity and chaos. Documents and additional references: Starfleet Personnel File: Archer, Jonathan The Trek Files Season 14 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!
This week, we open the Starfleet personnel file for Admiral Jonathan Archer, a detailed biographical memo written by Star Trek: Enterprise writer/producer Michael Sussman for the fan-favorite episode "In a Mirror, Darkly." It was only meant to be a quick background graphic, so how did it evolve into a fan-favorite bit of canon? And why did Mike sneak "President of the UFP" into the character's résumé without telling the showrunners? Larry welcomes Mike to The Trek Files to revisit the creation of this in-universe bio, share behind-the-scenes memories from the final days of Enterprise, and unpack how a throwaway idea from 2005 became the seed of a new series pitch, Star Trek: United, which imagines Archer in his presidential years. From secret nods to The West Wing, to collaborating with Andy Probert on "Space Force One," this episode is a crash course in how Trek canon can be built with equal parts creativity and chaos. Documents and additional references: Starfleet Personnel File: Archer, Jonathan The Trek Files Season 14 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!
This week, we open the Starfleet personnel file for Admiral Jonathan Archer, a detailed biographical memo written by Star Trek: Enterprise writer/producer Michael Sussman for the fan-favorite episode "In a Mirror, Darkly." It was only meant to be a quick background graphic, so how did it evolve into a fan-favorite bit of canon? And why did Mike sneak "President of the UFP" into the character's résumé without telling the showrunners? Larry welcomes Mike to The Trek Files to revisit the creation of this in-universe bio, share behind-the-scenes memories from the final days of Enterprise, and unpack how a throwaway idea from 2005 became the seed of a new series pitch, Star Trek: United, which imagines Archer in his presidential years. From secret nods to The West Wing, to collaborating with Andy Probert on "Space Force One," this episode is a crash course in how Trek canon can be built with equal parts creativity and chaos. Documents and additional references: Starfleet Personnel File: Archer, Jonathan The Trek Files Season 14 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!
Suddenly, on many fronts at once, President Trump and his allies are demonstrating how central sheer sadism is to his agenda—and to how MAGA conducts politics. Trump just unleashed a hateful rant to the media about Somali immigrants to set the stage for a coming campaign to arrest them en masse. Meanwhile, MAGA excitement over the Caribbean Sea bombings is spiking: Pete Hegseth tweeted out a deeply sadistic cartoon celebrating these extrajudicial killings. A prominent MAGA personality just declared her desire to see bombing victims “bleed out.” And MAGA figures are raging at reporters who broke the story of the follow-up strike killing two men in the water. We talked to Paul Waldman, who has a good piece on his Cross Section Substack about all of this. We discuss the centrality of hate and bloodlust to Trump-MAGA politics, how the administration's social media strategy utilizes sadistic imagery, and why the public backlash to all these depravities is heartening. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Suddenly, on many fronts at once, President Trump and his allies are demonstrating how central sheer sadism is to his agenda—and to how MAGA conducts politics. Trump just unleashed a hateful rant to the media about Somali immigrants to set the stage for a coming campaign to arrest them en masse. Meanwhile, MAGA excitement over the Caribbean Sea bombings is spiking: Pete Hegseth tweeted out a deeply sadistic cartoon celebrating these extrajudicial killings. A prominent MAGA personality just declared her desire to see bombing victims “bleed out.” And MAGA figures are raging at reporters who broke the story of the follow-up strike killing two men in the water. We talked to Paul Waldman, who has a good piece on his Cross Section Substack about all of this. We discuss the centrality of hate and bloodlust to Trump-MAGA politics, how the administration's social media strategy utilizes sadistic imagery, and why the public backlash to all these depravities is heartening. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Suddenly, on many fronts at once, President Trump and his allies are demonstrating how central sheer sadism is to his agenda—and to how MAGA conducts politics. Trump just unleashed a hateful rant to the media about Somali immigrants to set the stage for a coming campaign to arrest them en masse. Meanwhile, MAGA excitement over the Caribbean Sea bombings is spiking: Pete Hegseth tweeted out a deeply sadistic cartoon celebrating these extrajudicial killings. A prominent MAGA personality just declared her desire to see bombing victims “bleed out.” And MAGA figures are raging at reporters who broke the story of the follow-up strike killing two men in the water. We talked to Paul Waldman, who has a good piece on his Cross Section Substack about all of this. We discuss the centrality of hate and bloodlust to Trump-MAGA politics, how the administration's social media strategy utilizes sadistic imagery, and why the public backlash to all these depravities is heartening. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Award-winning author, Sue Hinkin, discusses her new release, THE SNAKE HANDLER'S WIFE. When a run of bad luck strikes her ranch, Lucy turns to her partner's estranged daughter to help take care of her four-year-old son. She soon discovers the young woman is married to a charismatic cult leader who wants to take everything from Lucy…including her life. “Darkly riveting and disturbingly real…”—BestThrillers.com Listen in as we chat about why some find cults attractive, the importance of learning how to grieve, and how she was able to weave scripture into the story. (And don't miss the moment Sue introduces a little friend who totally freaks me out!) https://www.mariesutro.com/twisted-passages-podcast https://www.suehinkin.com ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sue Hinkin is the author of the award-winning thriller series, The Vega & Middleton Novels, featuring the investigative team of Los Angeles TV news journalist Bea Jackson and best friend, photographer Lucy Vega. BestThrillers.com called Lucy and Bea one of the top female detectives of 2023. A former Cinematography Fellow at the American Film Institute, Hinkin was a TV news photographer like her character, Lucy. Now living in Colorado, she was voted Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Writer of the Year. She enjoys spending time with her family, including cats, dogs, flowers, and her young twin granddaughters who love climbing everything, insect collecting, chocolate, and a good book. All those things seem to run in the family...
Darkly comic, heart-warming drama by award-winning writer, Christine Entwisle.Toots is an octogenarian living unhappily in a care home. She wants more outdoor days, she wants her allotment back and she wants to see her chickens.A doctor is sent to assess Toots. But she's menopausal and struggling with a variety of unhelpful symptoms. And when the doctor forces open Toots' window to relieve a hot flush and then forgets to shut it, Toots makes a break for it.Cast:Toots… Susan Jameson The Doctor… Rosie Cavaliero The Policeman… Dennis Herdman Trevor…Danny HughesSound Design by Craig DormerDirected by Kirsty Williams
Are you perhaps looking for a perfectly pleasant podcast? Well, unfortunately, we read Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. We were joined by artist, poet, and Kait's roommate KL (they/them) to unpack all of Dexter's astonishingly awkward alliteration. Listen to this … Continue reading →
We love a good tear jerker here at WGS, we just didn't plan for 3 in a row! This episode features a very good friend of ours, Nora! Long time listener, Long time disappointed in us. She brings to the table Trois excellent choices while also having us guess the theme to this trio of films. Wander Darkly (2020), Small Things Like These (2024) and Widow Clicquot (2023). Full of heartbreak, love, and depression, we go in depth, and talk with Nora as she listens to the ramblings of this trio of fools. As always, Subscribe, like and comment!
This is a significant chat as we get into the workings of another species that lurks in the shadows, they are not "aliens" from another planet and for those that have been on this journey of deep exploration this may be a gratifying experience that brings in new data regarding these "others" amongst us. Nathaniel's new website: https://parasymposia.comTips are most welcome:buymeacoffee.com/niishOur website:https://thecosmicsalon.comI want to thank the producers of this show:Meredith Walako (Scheduling, bookings, and social media manager). Myra. Cale Darnegie. Lalita Karoli. Jorge. Susan Jenkins. Kerry Hoyal. Sarah Etta. Lizz Radican. Claire Cathcart. Steven Mercer. Pamela Holdahl. Jake J. Vanek. WiseNightOwl. Marcey Shapiro. Noël Jeanette. Melanie Poe. Jason Lambson. Neil Macnaughton. Mark Boettcher. Kate Kukulkan. Jane F. Kim Simone. Everlong,Niish-
Please take our membership survey! We want ideas and input! https://bit.ly/3ILfsz3 Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: author of Darkly, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and others, Marisha Pessl! Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask AI” and audio rebuses. Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts! "The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas. Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions. Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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