Fascinating Nouns

I Ate His Heart: A Forensic Psychologist’s 12 Years Treating a Cannibal

What does a forensic psychologist learn after more than a decade treating a man who killed another person, cut out his heart, cooked it with onions and canned vegetables, and performed a Catholic-inflected ritual over the body? In this Halloween episode of Fascinating Nouns, I sit down with Dr. Nathalie Von Zelowitz — author of I Ate His Heart, published by Feral House — to find out.

Von Zelowitz has spent 30 years working in the French prison system, treating some of the most dangerous and psychologically complex individuals in the country. Her book follows her work with Bernard, a man whose crime was rooted not in psychopathy but in a deeply primitive response to perceived threat — a belief that by consuming his victim’s heart, he could absorb his power and neutralize the danger of the “evil eye.” It is a story about the origins of civilization, the psychology of taboo, and what it actually means to rehabilitate someone who has done the unthinkable.

The conversation covers the Armin Meiwes case and consensual cannibalism, Freud’s Totem and Taboo and the founding myths of human civilization, the surprising parallels between cannibalism and Catholic transubstantiation, the ethics of AI as a safe outlet for dangerous urges, and whether Bernard — now approaching possible release to a halfway house — is truly a changed person.

I Ate His Heart is available now at feralhouse.com and wherever books are sold.

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At one point in time, slide charts were so popular that they popped up in many Hollywood films!  Listen as Nanette and I discuss the charts in Plan 9 From Outer Space, Dr. Strangelove, and Ocean Pacific.  For those keeping score, that’s Ed Wood, Peter Sellers, and John Wayne all holding “perrygrafs”.  Plus we discuss a few of the ones commissioned by the biggest con artist in American history.

American Slide Chart: The Carol Stream, Illinois Company That Has Been Quietly Running the Analog World Since 1970

Most people have never heard of American Slide Chart. But if you’ve ever spun a cocktail mixing wheel, used an HVAC sizing chart, or received a popup college acceptance letter, you’ve almost certainly held one of their products without knowing it.

In this episode of Fascinating Nouns, I finally fulfill a 14-year obsession by sitting down with Nanette Keir, the creative force and public face of American Slide Chart, to explore the full history of the company and the industry it inhabits. From Perrygraf — founded in 1934 by Lester Perry in Maywood, Illinois, and so synonymous with the product that “perrygraf” became the generic term for a slide wheel — to the bootstrap founding of American Slide Chart by James E. Johnson in 1970, to the moment in 1988 when American Slide Chart became so successful it bought back its parent company and became the largest producer of slide charts in the world.

Along the way the conversation covers the Oughtred Society (the secret underground organization dedicated to the preservation of slide rules and calculating devices), the surprising and poignant story of company president Julie Anne Johnson, the tactile analog comeback driven by digital fatigue, and why volvelles and popup polyhedrons might be having their moment again.

This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in print history, information design, Chicago business history, analog technology, or the quiet persistence of companies that do one thing extraordinarily well.

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In this bonus episode, Scott and I discuss the importance of Fire Walk With Me, how Mark and David timed The Return to debut almost 25 years to the day after the finale of season 2, the hidden darkness of Twin Peaks, and how Mark Frost is a prolific sports writer.

Twin Peaks Untold: The Real Story Behind TV’s Most Influential Show

Few television shows have left a mark on popular culture as deep and lasting as Twin Peaks. Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost and premiering on ABC in 1990, Twin Peaks didn’t just tell the story of who killed Laura Palmer — it rewrote the rules of what television could be, pioneering serialized storytelling, dream logic narratives, and the kind of obsessive audience engagement that defined prestige TV for the next three decades.

In this episode of Fascinating Nouns, I sit down with Scott Meslow — senior editor at The Week, culture contributor at GQ and New York Magazine, and author of A Place Both Wonderful and Strange: The Extraordinary Untold History of Twin Peaks — to explore the real behind-the-scenes story of the show: how Sheryl Lee was hired as an extra and became the soul of the series, how the Red Room was invented out of a contractual obligation (and a hot car), how ABC forced the reveal of Laura Palmer’s killer before the creators were ready, and whether David Lynch and Mark Frost actually knew who the killer was from the very beginning.

Whether you’re a longtime Twin Peaks fan, a student of television history, or simply curious about the show that inspired everything from The Sopranos to Lost to Severance, this conversation is essential listening.

A Place Both Wonderful and Strange is available now wherever books are sold.

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In this bonus episode, we discuss the Albert Belmont, the 1800’s version of George Costanza, how the sex party in Eyes Wide Shut was actually based on a real Rothschild ball, and the origins of Jewish Space Lasers.

What if the world’s most famous conspiracy theory is built entirely on myths, misquotes, and a pamphlet from 1846? In this episode of Fascinating Nouns, host Daniel J. Glenn sits down with author Mike Rothschild — yes, that Rothschild — to dig into his book Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories, and trace the Rothschild myth from a Frankfurt Jewish ghetto all the way to Jewish space lasers and Alex Jones.

Mike Rothschild — former conspiracy theory researcher, debunker, and author of The Storm is Upon Us about QAnon — walks through the real history of the Rothschild banking family: how a family living in a walled ghetto used a loophole in medieval Christian lending law to build one of the most powerful financial empires in European history, how they helped finance the defeat of Napoleon, and how a fictional pamphlet from 1846 invented the story that Nathan Rothschild manipulated the London Stock Exchange after Waterloo — a story that became the foundation of nearly every modern anti-semitic conspiracy theory.

They also get into Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM, Alex Jones and his pivot from folksy truth-seeker to conspiracy profiteer, the Iraqi dinar scam, why the Kitty Genovese myth matters, QAnon’s debt to 19th century pamphlets, Bohemian Grove, Jekyll Island, and why the real power brokers aren’t secret at all — they’re hiding in plain sight.

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Tea Krulos’s book/Documentary American Madness

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In this bonus episode, Eddie and I discuss the Zodiac ciphers, his possible identity, and the existence of the REAL Zodiac killer, a guy who killed by using astrology.

What if the Zodiac Killer never existed? In this episode of Fascinating Nouns, host Daniel J. Glenn sits down with former Port Authority NY/NJ officer, 9/11 first responder, and author Eddie McNamara to dig into his book Zodiac Actually: The True Story of a Fake Serial Killer — and the case he makes is more convincing than you might expect.

Eddie McNamara spent years tracking down court records, interviewing criminals, and piecing together what the actual evidence says about the Zodiac killings — and what he found is that the five canonical Zodiac murders, when examined individually rather than as a connected series, look a lot less like the work of a criminal genius and a lot more like a series of unrelated crimes that got stitched together by bad police work, credulous media, and the human desire for a better story.

They dig into the Lake Herman Road murders — where a likely suspect named Dave Magris confessed to being present, drove the right car, owned the right gun, and was already on death row for another murder — and how the police essentially looked away because a drug dealer wasn’t as exciting as a supervillain. They also explore the Lake Berryessa stabbing, where a 250-pound man in a hand-sewn executioner’s hood with sunglasses clipped to the outside decided to stab two people in broad daylight instead of using the loaded gun in his hand — and then drove 27 miles to call the wrong police department.

Plus: the Kitty Genovese myth, the Vietnam spitting story, Woodstock liars, a vegetarian cookbook with the greatest title ever, and whether Eddie won a film festival award over Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room”.

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*Disclaimer* This episode goes blue. You’ve been warned.

What do a rubber chicken, a Tibetan singing bowl, and a hula girl figurine all have in common? They all have deeply, deeply messed up thoughts — and Elisabeth Saake is here to tell you exactly what they are. In this episode I sit down with author and associate publisher Elisabeth Saki to dig into her two wildly funny books: House Plants and Their F*cked Up Thoughts and Tchotchkes and Their F*cked Up Thoughts — and to figure out exactly what is going on inside her head.

They talk about why house plants hit a cultural nerve that Tchotchkes couldn’t quite match (spoiler: it’s because they’re alive), the anonymous co-author hiding behind the pseudonym Carlyle Christoff, the one aloe plant entry that walked the line perfectly, and why a rubber chicken that understands advanced particle physics but can only say “squawk” might be the most poignant thing in either book. They also get into why people take joke books way too seriously, the surprisingly vulnerable experience of being an author, the therapeutic value of dark humor, and whether Elisabeth’s next book — P is for Perimenopause — is actually a children’s book alphabet or something far more unhinged.

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