The Best Stuff In The World

We're talking with Carly Dwyer and Tristan Reynolds from Intramersive Productions about their upcoming show DAEMONOLOGIE, SIGNALS AND SIRENGS!

Daemonologie is an interactive, open-world theater anthology that explores the intersections of gender, social change, and the supernatural. The series encourages audiences to engage with the events around them, and the audience determines the ending, so no two shows are the same. I saw their first Daemonologie show, Oakham, in 2017 at the Pioneer Village in Salem and Carly, Tristan and I discuss that show and the subsequent shows in the cycle, which take place in different periods of American history and usually have the conceit that supernatural occurrences are real.

Daemonologie: Signals & Sirens will take place at The House of the Seven Gables in Salem, MA from October 24–28 and November 1–2 at 7:30 PM. The show is set in 1952 and asks the question, "When something calls to you from the darkest depths, how will you answer?".  I haven’t seen the new show yet but I’m excited to see what they’ve what cooking.

You can purchase tickets to the show here: Daemonologie Signals & Sirens

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120 Minutes was an alternative music show that aired on MTV on Sunday nights from Midnight to 2am, playing some of the formative acts of the day (The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Smiths), introducing us to exciting new bands, and - particularly in the years before Nirvana hit big with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - acting as an oasis for those of us interested in music that sat slightly outside of the mainstream. I'm joined by Amy Chandler and Terri Harrington to discuss the show but we also talk about the alternative music scene of the time more generally - the bands and shows we loved. We also bring up the Atlanta pop culture convention Dragon Con, which is coming up Labor Day weekend and which all three of us will be at in various capacities. I think this episode is a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy it as well.

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Kevin is joined by Shaun Rosado (of Popcycled Baubles) to continue their discussion of Chris Claremont's epic run as writer of The Uncanny X-Men! Picking up where we left off in the previous installment, the two discuss The Asgardian Wars, the Wolverine mini-series with Frank Miller, the arrival of artist Jim Lee, the Brood, Magneto, Kitty's Fairy Tale and, of course, that one weird issue where Colossus dumps Kitty and then gets into a bar brawl with the Juggernaut!

It's all the pulse pounding action you could hope for when two middle-aged men get together to chat about funnybooks that came out around 30 years ago!

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Bloom County is a newspaper comic strip by Berke Breathed that originally ran from 1980 to 1989. (It returned with new strips in 2015.) The comic and its characters Bill the Cat, Steve Dallas, Opus the Penguin and many others would satirize politics, culture and the comics page itself. Like Peanuts the strip had children with adult vocabularies and personalities who interacted with animals but unlike Peanuts the child characters would regularly interact with adults and the animals would usually talk back. Peanuts also never had a character recite a poem about former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

Joining Kevin to discuss the strip are Michael Brousseau from the skateboard movie podcast Gleaming the Tube and Ann Gav from the Eurovision zine Dudepoints. 79 cents may be too much to pay for banana walrus wafers but this episode of THE BEST STUFF IN THE WORLD is free! Enjoy!

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Kevin is joined by filmmaker David Bettencourt and film superfan Bryan Murray to discuss Sam Raimi's 1987 horror/comedy classic Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn!

Evil Dead 2, which stars the great Bruce Campbell, is credited with inventing a new film genre - splatstick, which combines physical humor reminiscent of The Three Stooges with the extreme gore that was gaining popularity in the 80s with splatter and slasher films. It's also a monstrously original piece of filmmaking - Raimi's camera is always doing interesting things and it elevates what's ostensibly a cheap exploitation film to arguably one of the greatest films ever made. It's funny, it's scary, it's violent, and, yes, it's groovy.

You can find David Bettencourt's films on his YouTube Channel!

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Kevin is joined by author Jane Duffus to talk all things regarding the Sarah Records label. Jane's new book, These Things Happen: The Sarah Records Story, tells the story of the record label, the bands who released music on it, and the people and culture who were affected by it. Sarah was started in 1987 by Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes in Bristol (United Kingdom) - they put out 100 releases, mostly records but occasionally a release would be a fanzine or (for their 50th release) a board game. The label deliberately ceased operations with a big party, a manifesto, and a final compilation album called There And Back Again Lane. Sarah releases were often maligned in the British music press for being twee or wimpy but their steadfast refusal to bow to the prevailing trends always made them seem all the more punk to me. Jane has a wealth of knowledge and insight about the label from both putting together her book and her own experience as a teenage fan of the label.

You can order Jane's book through her website or in the U.S. through Rough Trade.

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Infocom was a software company founded in 1979 who released a series of graphics-free text adventure games, which came to be known as Interactive Fiction. Notable Infocom releases were the Zork series, Planetfall, Infidel, Deadline, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which we discussed a little bit in our previous installment), Trinity and A Mind Forever Voyaging. You'd interact with the game by typing in commands such as "Walk up stairs", "Go West", or "Pick up the Thing Your Aunt Gave You Which You Don't Know What It Is" and try to solve the various puzzles and mazes presented to you.

At their best the games genuinely felt like you were interacting with a book, expanding the Choose Your Own Adventure Model to what felt like infinite possibilities. Joining the show to discuss Infocom are Felicity Kusinitz ("The Mayor of Chickentown" from The Flopcast) and Ryan Evans from the Reading Graphic Novels comic book discussion series.

Other sites mentioned:

The Digital Antiquarian

Gold Machine

Infocom: The Documentary

Infocom's Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide

The Infocom Cabinet on The Internet Archive

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