Lunch Box Podcast

Back from Thanksgiving travels, Ed and John discuss school library preoccupations, works in progress, the toxicity of twitter, rock and roll reunions, bookstores and record stores, and John's encounters with death and renewed life. Also, Ed has some thoughts about John's novel-in-progress. Follow links to Borne, The Sou'Wester, Michael Hurley, Mother Foucault's, 24PearlStreet writing classes, and TopCityMotherland shirts.

Ed's headed for the Harry Potter Orchestra, and John is trying to throw a tennis ball through a brick wall. Together, they talk about a controversy involving pizza, no-league baseball, date night at a mediocre restaurant, fasting for Yom Kippur, Tom Petty and Kazuo Ishiguro, and wet-hop ale. Follow links to the thorn, Geoff Edgers on "American Girl", 101 American pizzarias, the Portland Pickles, the Rockland Boulders, Matthew Dickman's "Lents District", quantum tunnelling, the Delani/Sonnabend Halls, Plus, The Unconsoled, Ithaca Beer Company, wet hops, and White Dialogues.

Ed has volunteered to help kindergartners punch numbers into a keypad, and John is gearing up for a holiday fast. They discuss Trump's war against football, school lunches, library book marginalia, whether or not to trust seafood, how to cook a lot of scallops all at once, and the cryptozoology of Australia. Follow links to Rachel Ingalls's Mrs. Caliban, The Department of Homeboy Security, chef Jamie Shannon, Tim the Yowie Man, the Canberra Air Disaster, and The Screen Door.

Ed's writing in coffee shops before the rainy season begins, and John doesn't know what to do with his rosebush. They discuss the challenges of writer social media, aversion to your old apartment, prize resentment, Twin Peaks: The Return, tiny chairs at the kindergarten, putting hot dogs in miso soup, and fryin' up a fennel bulb. Follow links to Danielle Steel's desk, the Airstream Poetry Festival, Heart Coffee Roasters, and See See Motor Company.

Ed and John briefly land simultaneously at home, and get on the horn to reflect on the pressing issues of the day, such as a 65-year old barbecue chicken recipe, eating cereal with drool in it, why food suggestions are totalitarian, and teaching poetry in prison. Follow links to Cornell chicken on Atlas Obscura, Act V from This American Life, David Grann, Kevin Young's Bunk, Paul Maliszewski's Fakers, Antaeus, the stories of R. D. Skillings, and Elif Batuman's The Idiot.

Ed's had a root canal and couldn't be happier. John's 47 and has a new microphone. They talk about John's upcoming book tour, the pleasures of not very good television, the greatest product placement of all time, the Pinesburger, writer/artist dialogues, and New Jersey Pronunciation. Follow links to S. P. Dinsmoor's Garden of Eden, The Log Cabin Motel, Fortitude, A Ford advertisement in Designated Survivor, Glenwood Pines, Andrew Sean Greer's Blue Lusitania, Jeff Vandermeer's Borne, and Receipt by Carl Adamshick and Andy Buck.

Ed's in training for the Oscarlympics, John's bemoaning the global rise in dangling modifier tolerance, and the Skype Stormtroopers are on the march. Nevertheless they manage to discuss coffeemakers, the literary form disappointingly known as flash fiction, career regrets, Vladimir Putin's magic Antarctic potion, and postapocalypse eats. Follow links to the Spring Writes Literary Festival (and hamster ball video), Sorry Meniscus, One Hundred Apocalypses, Know the Mother, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, The Frog and Peach, and We Gon' Be Alright.

John is frustrated by changes in hat culture. Ed is calmly weathering a dog vomit situation. They talk about recent political catastophes, why small presses should sell books at Jiffy Lube, the midwest's greatest big and tall stores, and Ed's collages and tuba longings. Follow links to Garden and Gun, Dave's Fox Head Tavern, Guitar Moves with Dean Ween, Nail Polish, the Lost Dog Café, Ventura's, Zachary Schomburg's They Vow to Be Dragons, and Featherproof Books.

Ed's dog ate his mic cable, and John is infected by buzz. On this lo-fi, future-friendly episode, they discuss the coming darkness, shooting deer from your livingroom window, Chekhov and Beckett and Proust, and good cheap meat. Follow links to Laurel Diner, the rufous-sided towhee, Dapifer, Sixth Finch, Human Skin font, The Sandy Hut is not dead, "Gooseberries", Junky, "The Little Mermaid", Herman's Meat, Pine Street Market, cop shoots pet deer, and Prairie Wolf.

Ed and John are joined once again by Alice Bolin, for a sometimes jolly, sometimes morose conversation about funny names, Russian heavy metal, New Jersey delicacies, and the complicated history of McDonaldland and Barbie. Follow links to Ghosts and Projectors, Josh Fruhlinger's tweets, McDonaldland, Emily Jones on Trump, dreamy cream scones, Alice's favorite sentences from the Skipper Wikipedia page, Masterchef Junior, The Sporkful on Pork Roll, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, Beatlebone, and Transit.