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Listeners, start your engines! This month Drew and Avery feel the need… the need for speed! Join us as we examine what it means to drive, pilot, and ride along, whether it’s by wings, wheels, sails, rails, or on four legs. We’ll watch train sets circle a table, construct and play some Mario Kart vehicles, sail the Spanish Main, and join Harley riders and horse girls. It’s a journey down memory lane and a new route down the highway!

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How do we rehearse our unconscious desires to wreak havoc or release negative emotions? How is fighting, professional or not, full of ritual play or aggression? What are the ways that we play around with causing chaos or exchanging pain, and why do we involve ourselves in activities that “hurt so good?” This month, Avery and Drew investigate the cycle of creation and destruction and how we let out aggression in the best or worst ways.

Ever dream of being a mad scientist, mixing chemicals with a maniacal laugh? Or an emergency medic traveling the world saving patients from a pandemic? This month high school biology teacher Kristen Cruz joins Avery and Drew to explore the ways science “plays out” in society. Join us as we look at classrooms, video games, and more to find the ways science exists all around us and calls us to playfully engage with natural laws! Note: this episode includes discussions of dissection as teaching strategy, including the ways specimens for dissection are obtained.

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Food and drink are with us, and before us, every day. They’re part of the web of intercontinental trade, the ritual of cooking and eating, the morning rush of the mom-and-pop donut shop or closing time at a Michelin star restaurant. They’re in our global economics, our rituals from festivals to funerals, and our books, movies, and games! This month, Avery and Drew ask: are we really what we eat? How do we “play with our food,” even though our parents told us not to? From table side guacamole, to eating while dungeon delving, to sacred rituals involving eating and drinking, we’re here to talk about what food and drink represent, and why playing with them inherently connects us with who we are inside!

What would life be without a healthy dose of magic? From dragon riding to quests and prophecies, we wander in fantasy worlds to help make sense of modern life. This month, Avery and Drew explore the roads that “go ever on,” as Tolkien wrote, making sense of fantasy tropes and the power they hold, both in-world and outside. What is compelling about befriending a mystical creature? About learning the art of swordplay? About mastering spells and connecting with power from before the dawn of humanity? Join us and get caught up in the magic of fantasy!

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Is money really the root of all evil? Can it buy everything? This month, Avery and Drew set out to examine how we sometimes play above our means! Whether cosplaying as millionaire playboys, striking it rich in Monopoly or Acquire, earning along stone by stone and crop by crop in Stardew Valley, or imagining a bougie life in the roaring 20s or the Regency period: How does playing wealth prepare us for a lifetime of climbing the ladder to financial success?

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History is full of monsters: from Ancient Greece, China, and Scandinavia to Europe’s Gothic Horror and even Sesame Street. But what are these monsters, and how do we play with and through them? What are the Kaiju, gelatinous cubes, and Muppets we invite onto our screens and gaming tables? And what are the monsters inside ourselves? This month, Avery and Drew face their fears and name the monsters that make us all who we are!

Can you imagine yourself as a rock star playing air guitar? Or as the next Monet as you paint and sip? What’s the line between playing Artist and being an Artist? This month Drew and Avery put on their berets and their salsa dancing shoes, and play imaginary trombones as they explore the ways we playfully engage with art, performance, and design. Come join us as we think through how that play might bring us closer to the sublime… or at least to some scattered applause in a karaoke booth!

Collections! All over the world, people of all ages collect all sorts of things by seeking, displaying, and maintaining items they personally find interesting, beautiful, or meaningful. Whether it involves coins or tarot decks or board games, collecting is a form of play. This month, Avery and Drew are here to investigate why it matters.