Let The Cat In

The Cat gets festive with an off-the-rails Season's Greetings special, with laconic superstar guest, Kaaron's Christmas tree! While Kaaron gives everyone presents from her personal Ground Zero of weird objects, Aaron slouches toward Bethlehem and Joseph wemembers Gweat Bwitain and the Xmases of yore. Pizza trees are discussed, also cursed paintings, holly, ivy, prawns and suncream. Lobster shells are deftly utilised as a metaphor for the stages in a life. Honour is restored in the Hunter S. Thompson universe. Kaaron exposes her most extraordinary fetish. Aaron longs for anarchy. Joseph is so horrified he loses the power of speech. Everyone wishes everyone a Merry Whatever and a Happy New Thing!

Some of the baubles and other cheap decorations mentioned in this episode include:

• Jonathan Richman's That Summer Feeling
• Bruce Wagner's The Marvel Universe: Origin Stories
• L. Campbell Taylor's Serenity
• The Crying Boy painting

Check out the episode page for more pics and seasonal bits.

The Cat goes on a road trip and sets a record with special guest, author, publisher, and haunted asylum owner, Geoff Brown. While Aaron makes like Ellen DeGeneres, and Joseph makes like Dr Phil, Kaaron makes like Ricki Lake and goes hitchhiking on a serial killer's patch. Geoff walks through a wardrobe into his own private Narnia. Dreams are (cheaply) analysed, impostor syndrome is discussed, as is luck, ghosts, and the decisions that haunt us. Geoff tells a real-life ghost story. Kaaron wears oversized pajamas. No one wants to go to Aaron's for Christmas.

This episode was recorded live at AsylumFest 2022, in the Bijou Theatre, Beechworth Asylum. These pics and more courtesy of the inestimable Cat Sparks.

Some of the ghouls and gimlets from this episode include:

• The Coen Brother's Fargo (in particular William H. Macy's performance)
• Peter Howitt's Sliding Doors
• Australasian Horror Writers Association
• Asylum Ghost Tours

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits...

The Cat makes like The Wicker Man and gets ritualistic with special guest Kirstyn McDermott, award-winning author of Hard Places and the Never Afters novella series. While Kaaron builds a backyard pool and Aaron gets his steps in, Joseph ruins summertime Christmas for everyone. Kirstyn learns the steps to Venus and shares a brief history of statuary in Ballarat. Folk horror is discussed, also Whitby, habits, and ultimate reality. Kaaron makes a Tina Turner joke. Everyone gets fed up with bestiality.

Some of the sundries referenced in this episode include:

• Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine
• Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
• Harper Lee's Go Set A Watchman

The Cat goes on stage for our very first live show at this year's NatCon: Conflux 16. Special guests – drawn from the Hat of Mystery (a hotel conference glass with some hastily scribbled names folded up inside) – include CH Pearce, Emilie Morscheck, Claire Fitzpatrick, and Zachary Ashford. While Kaaron brings old movie posters for the edification of all and Joseph performs a viking funeral for his pet mouse, Aaron reveals his fetish for albino carrots. Repurposed objects are discussed. Also Fijian taxi drivers, childhood holiday treasures, family mysteries, the voices of loved ones past, and the most appropriate names for a ferret. Emergency surgery is performed in the garage. Everyone has their picture taken.

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat reconnects with its purpose, turning trash into treasure with co-owner of Canberra's legendary Green Shed, Sandie Parkes. While Kaaron is haunted by an old woman in a knife and Joseph cashes in on his teenage son's emotional vulnerability, Aaron makes a robot out of paddle-pop sticks. Wet string is discussed, and doctors' waiting rooms. The history and mystery of objects, their journeys and purposes old and new. The tragedy of objects unused. Fine art. Trench art. The slide rule world, set alight.

This episode was so engrossing, we forgot to make a list of cool things for it, so hit us up on Twitter @LTCIpodcast if there's anything you'd like a link to.

Check out the episode page for pics and bits.

The Cat gets temporal (via a dingey side-alley packed full of flashers) with special guest Alan Baxter, award-winning author of Sallow Bend and The Gulp, and bona fide kung fu master. While Kaaron remembers a story from primary school and Aaron remembers his first kiss, Joseph blows the lights in the bus station. Al chases a flasher through the streets of London. Time is discussed, as is nostalgia, and the sadness for things in one's life that no longer exist. Al shares his grandma's secret past in MI5. Aaron forms The Breakfast Club of senior citizens and Kaaron serves cocktails on the veranda. Parenting advice is offered. Everyone agrees that Horror – the genre of honesty – is the BEST genre. (Take that, Fantasy!)

Some oddments mulled in this episode include:

• Aeon timeline
• The Bocca Del Verita coin-op fortune-telling machine
• Mike Hodge's Flash Gordon movie
• Ellen Datlow and Kaaron Warren's Tool Tales
• The wonderful art of Halinka Orskulok

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat makes like Funes and gets memorious with special guest T. R. Napper, author of modern cyber-punk classics 36 Streets and Neon Leviathan. Joseph remembers a childhood event in third person, Kaaron steals her classmate's stranger-danger story, and Aaron steals somebody's homework. Intersubjective memory is discussed, alongside evolutionary theories of pain avoidance and what it means to be human. Also the Masters of the Universe. Smell and memory. Repressed memory syndrome. The memories stuck in places and objects, and the value of things in boxes. Joseph misremembers a quote about telepathy. Aaron comes down with the metaphor pox. Everyone doubts Kaaron's memories of scrambled eggs.

Some bitsies recalled in this episode include:

• Stephen King's On Writing (p97ish for that telepathy quote)
• Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past/In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu)
• David Mitchell's Black Swan Green

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

The Cat is back! Kicking off Season 2 with some little-known pub trivia, some Australian TV kitsch, and special guest, er... J. Ashley-Smith? Kaaron warns against the dangers of cigar-shaped UFOs, and Aaron researches insects that kill other insects to wear their corpses. Joseph delves into his ancestry to discover unknown family members, moustaches, and the mystery of the missing Rodin. Also discussed are secret societies, our receptivity to particular kinds of ideas, the joys of the longest of long-form fiction, and family sagas as told through a photo album. Not forgetting Aaron's accordion philosophy of compressed time, Slaughterhouse Five, gutter-fudge, and Kaaron's delicious flying-saucer biscuits. Also sadness without sentimentality, and the Jim Jones Kool Aid Space Telescope.

That English guy who's not Andy Garcia is, in fact, Mark Strong. And, of course, the pub quiz should have referred not to Andy Garcia's Siamese twin, but to his conjoined twin.

Some of the bits and bobs discussed in this episode include:

• The mighty @BoschBot
• Junji Ito's 'Honoured Ancestors', from the collection Shiver
• Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, Texasville, Dwayne's Depressed, Where the Light Goes, Rhino Ranch, and Terms of Endearment
• Neville Shute's On The Beach, A Town Like Alice, and In The Wet
• That old Sony ad (which we'll share if Kaaron can find a link...)

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

Join the Cat and crew for an epic wrap-up, recap, clip-show avoidance season finale, with special guest star... drum roll... our very own Aaron Dries. In this, our last episode of Season 1, Aaron has celebrity thrust upon him, Kaaron steals the celery (maybe), and Joseph sleeps in a hammock made from Aaron's toenails. Milk is discussed (whether on toast, or in a tall glass), as is creative obsession, JG Ballard and the Brady Bunch. Also obsession as a fugue state, the telling and retelling of family stories, and we're defined by family and the communities we're part of. Did we mention the Brady Bunch? Everyone indulges a burst of shameless self-promotion. Aaron Van Gogh's himself for your listening pleasure. Oddments and bookends discussed in this episode include:

• The Brady Bunch Hawaii episode
• RE/Search #8/9: J.G. Ballard
• Ballard ID magazine interview
• The Complete Short Stories of JG Ballard
• William Golding's The Pyramid

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

In the penultimate episode of the season, the Cat gets magical with special guest, the illustrious queen of fantasy (and all the animals), Isobelle Carmody, bestselling author of The Obernewtyn Chronicles, among many other beloved titles. Also, Crow. While Joseph returns to the attic of his childhood, Kaaron digs in her treasure box for 1820s brooch porn, and Aaron wards off magpies with dangerously distorted train-track pennies. Isobelle shares her childhood mind-control experiments and traumas with hospital dental trainees. The magic of devotion is discussed, as is literary food, and the thousand names of Wallace the cat. The importance of courage and vulnerability is considered, alongside the harsh cruelties of the Antiques Roadshow. Kaaron recounts her crab-leg sandwich odyssey. Aaron makes an inappropriate comment about breast milk. Joseph sings ho for magical thinking. Isobelle gets revenge on a dog thief and opens the real door into Narnia. Some of the arcane artefacts referenced in this episode include:

• Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
• Brian Jacques' Redwall books.
• Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.