Let The Cat In

The Cat gets spooky and kooky with a very special guest: author, screenwriter, living encyclopedia of all things Halloween, the one and only, the delightful, Lisa Morton. While Aaron dreams of Hal Bodner, and Kaaron writes about four hairdressers, Joseph drinks whisky, eats haggis, and invokes the spirit of the dead Rabbie Burns. Lisa brings a totem. Curses are discussed, and cursed objects, with an aside concerning the online cursed doll market. Also ritual as a language, the foundations of comedy, and the sadness of dead shopping malls. That terrible moment you realise you're part of a folk horror ritual you didn't consent to. Kaaron remembers Marilyn Monroe's grave. Aaron discovers a cursed cabinet. Joseph hurls his body out into the void. Lisa finds her old teacher's book. Everyone wonders about dread mechanisms.

Snips and snails mentioned in this episode include:

• Lisa Morton's Life On The Edge (1988)
• The origins of Burns Night
• Donna Tartt's The Secret History
• Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat gets cosy in the cubby house with special guest, author of All The Murmuring Bones, The Path of Thorns, Castle Full of Blackbirds, and more – so much more! – Angela Slatter. While Joseph reads another bogus biography and Aaron holds in a sneeze, Kaaron is delighted by a biscuit tin. Angela revisits the traumatising books of childhood. Solipsism is discussed, as is Nabokov's dream Russia, and the USA of his imagination. Places of the imagination with no real-world existence. The idealisation of a place that becomes more real than the place itself. A toothless man is the telling detail. Not to mention, all the reasons why children should – nay, must! – be traumatised with dark tales. Aaron and Angela resurrect the ghost of Myrtle. Joseph makes a misguided commitment. Kaaron loses a ham bone.

Note: The story Joseph is thinking of is in fact The Happy Prince, which is a fairy tale written by Oscar Wilde – not Hans Christian Andersen at all.

Grimaces and grimoires referenced in this episode include:

• Lila Azam Zanganeh's The Enchanter
• Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
• Angela Slatter's Flight
• Struwwelpeter
• Encarta '95

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat gets titular in the first episode of a brand new season, with special guest Jason Nahrung, Australia's number one vampire and author of Blood and Dust and The Big Smoke. While Kaaron takes a creepy clown as her plus one and Aaron gets unwholesomely into napkins, Joseph gets a lift with a stranger to knifey-town. Jason shares his abiding love of New Orleans, and everybody learns about the life of pirate Jean Lafitte. Titles are discussed: titles from nowhere; titles by consortium; titles as a story's guiding light. The comfort of titles on a bookshelf. The dangers of writing as a tourist. Everyone agrees you shouldn't be a wanker. Kaaron and Aaron fall out over Love Story. Jason wonders where you got dem shoes. Joseph gets into jazz—wankily. Everyone agrees on the Bloody Mary.

Po-boys and beignets from this episode include:

• Harlan Ellison's I have no mouth and I must scream
• Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea
• Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange
• Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs
• Spoon's Lafitte Don't Fail Me Now and The Agony of Lafitte

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat gets confessional in this last episode of Season 2, with the triumphant return of star special guest... Aaron Dries. While Kaaron looks beneath the surface and Joseph makes a snap judgment, Aaron touches his face thirty-two times. (Lah-de-dah!) Observations about strangers lead to an insight. Translation of quirks leads to obfuscation leads to ideas. Anxiety is processed into art. Also, Rebecca... again. The telling detail. The craft of observational comedy. Readers and the catalogue of reality. Aaron brings a bag of mystery. Kaaron and Joseph get literal chills.

Imponderables and consumables in this episode include:

• Emmanuel Carrère's I Am Alive and You Are Dead
• Terence Mallick's Badlands
• Kaaron Warren's Slights
• Aaron Dries's House of Sighs and Damage Inc.
• J. Ashley-Smith's The Attic Tragedy

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat gets chimerical and discourses upon dreams with special guest Paul Mannering, award-winning author of the Drakeforth and Tankbread series, among many other fine stories. While Kaaron revisits some old dreams and Joseph gets obsessive, Aaron is scuttled sudsily by Shrek in his first Turkish bath. Paul puts his hand up for the teacher. Dreams are discussed, as is David Lynch, and that movie from the nineties where Steve Buscemi calls for more dwarves (only he doesn't – about which, more below). The potency of first images. Capturing the weirdness and emotional weight of those images, while ensuring they make sense in this world. "It's wearing your face!" Joseph, Kaaron and Paul appear in Aaron's nightmares. Paul heals himself with a lucid dream. Aaron performs a (classic) Driesian wrap-up.

Figments and follies from this episode include:

• Joseph's story The Attic Tragedy
• David Lynch's actual story about the origins of the Red Room (in the opening paras of this article)
• 'That movie with Steve Buscemi' is, of course, Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion, and the line is "Oh! Make it weird: put a dwarf in it!" excellently delivered by Peter Dinklage in this (extended) scene.

Don't forget to check out the episode page for more pics and bits!

The Cat gets intangible, discussing liminal spaces with special guest Sarah Read, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Bone Weaver's Orchard and Out of Water. While Joseph clambers through the brambles behind an old tyre yard, and Kaaron applies to be writer in residence at an all-night pub, Aaron looks up to find himself alone in a doctor's surgery waiting room. Sarah receives a warning from an empty room and unboxes a 200-year old bear pelt. Spaces are discussed, also places, and whether or not people or events leave a residue of energy in them. Also flower sack dresses, abandoned coal towns, and the eternal smouldering beneath the ground at Centralia. Aaron finds a pigeon in the ball pit. Everyone Frankensteins their locations.

Uncanny valleys and other in-betweens whispered in this episode include:

• Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House
• John Hughes's The Breakfast Club
• Sarah Read's The Hope Chest

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat gets definitively morbid with special guest, multi-award-winning author and editor, the ever-unquiet Lee Murray. While Aaron obsesses over Elmore Leonard's first hundred pages and Joseph deconstructs the double-helical structure of DNA, Kaaron finds some postcards and investigates a death by shark. Lee loses her box of things and opens the door to an interactive mystery. Defining moments are discussed, as are agency, mythology, and the internal and external factors that determine whether a story or its characters resonate. Also death, funerals, and relationships defined by tragedy. Kaaron digs deep to find the point of interest. Lee tells her own story in her own voice. Aaron thinks about Olivia Newton-John and OnlyFans a lollipop.

A few of the long polynucleotide chains untangled in this episode include:

• An article on the story of Rosalind Franklin.
• An article about the plagiarising of Zelda Fitzgerald.
• Jaws: The Revenge, both the movie and the novelization.
• Literally any book by Elmore Leonard.

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat wrestles with long projects and what it means to be an artist with special guest, award-winning author, photographer, graphic designer and activist, Cat Sparks. While Joseph lets a novel die (again) and Aaron lets the wrong one in, Kaaron makes like Tweetie-Pie (or maybe some kind of crab). Cat takes a journey back to a time before helicopter parenting. Motivation is discussed, as is authenticity, identity and the art life. Also, Billy Joel's Vienna. Recapturing the vibe of a work through music. Following the muse wherever it drags you. Also Frankenstein, Pet Sematary and the "Hemingway boner." Everyone exposes their structural underwear. Cat whips out her climate trumpet.

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat goes deep, DEEP into the illimitable expanses of negative space with special guest Nathan Ballingrud, incomparable author of The Strange, Wounds, and North American Lake Monsters. While Joseph gets nostalgic for Betamax and Aaron is thrown into existential crisis, Kaaron fills one minute's silence with entirely inappropriate thoughts. Nathan navigates a tightrope of what – and what not – to say. Silence is discussed, as are the divers mysteries of the beyond, and the liberation of just starting something and seeing where it will lead. Also considered: the void created by our inability to comprehend what lies beyond death, which we fill with the entirety of the human imagination. Aaron fixates on Jan Brady. Kaaron unveils her journal of lies. Nathan brings a book. Everyone discovers the Northwest Passage.

Vacant lots and echoey multi-storey car parks discussed in this episode include:

• John Cage's 4'33" (Not "one minute silence", as Joseph erroneously named it.)
• John Le Carré's The Spy Who Came in From The Cold
• Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca (as ultimate negative space)
• Marina Abramović's The Artist Is Present
• Mike Mignola's Hellboy in Hell
• Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic series
• Stephen King's The Green Mile
• Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi
• John Darnielle' Wolf in White Van

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

S02-25 AsylumFest 2022

The Cat gets unhinged at the second live recording from AsylumFest 2022, with special guests AJ Spedding, Kat Clay, and David Schembri. While Kaaron finds a book from the world's most haunted school, Aaron is haunted by a supernatural cow, and Joseph by the ghosts in crap plastic toys. (Yeah, thanks for nothing, Uncle Marty!) AJ brings a voodoo doll and makes a Black Beauty confession. Kat develops the killing name and mummifies a cucumber. David brings his toys and reminds everyone to play. Ennui is discussed. Also balloons, having fun with your art, and using imaginative play to take control of those situations in which you have none. Everyone crosses a line and sends Aaron back to his "other planet".

Odds and bodkins discussed in this episode include:

• Dale Bamford, sculptor and special effects artist.
• Frances Jenkins Alcott's The Book of Nature's Marvels
• Robert Bloch's The Pin
• Spaceballs

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.