FYIZ

Heeeeere's Johnny! Aaaaaand Bekah. This episode's featured tomes are Michael Cisco's Black Brane and that giant Taschen book about The Shining we teased last month. So basically it's time for a lot of reality-bending ideas and doomed characters caught in looping storylines that we're only partially certain we understand. Then, to close things out, Bekah digs into some reading peeves that put the "...

This month, Not Great, Bob takes on a subject that is near and dear to our hearts: movies (and tv shows—but mostly movies) that are made with a prankster spirit or that troll the audience to some degree. Some do it by subverting expected tropes, some do it with formal experimentation, and some do it simply by being unpleasant to watch. Pull up an uncomfortable chair and shift position awkwardly as...

Apologies in advance if this episode BENDS YOUR MIND, because we're talking about the uncertain realities of such books as Mona Awad's Bunny and All's Well, Michael Cisco's Black Brane, and Atilla Veres's The Black Maybe. Luckily we also tackle cozier fare like Seishi Yokomizo's The Honjin Murders, a self-aware locked room mystery from 1946 in which two people are stabbed to death. Respect the Sta...

Bob and John train their eye beams on the last episode ever of The Boys, all the better to talk about both the finale itself, and the series as a whole, until their heads explode. It's gross.

The Boys is wrapping up its fifth and final season on Amazon Prime, so there's no better time than now to spin theories about where exactly this boundary-pushing, darkly funny superhero saga has been taking us. Then, we move on to the next obvious topic: three carefully selected episodes of The Golden Palace, the short-lived Golden Girls spinoff that lacked one important ingredient: Bea Arthur. Oh...

Bekah Eaton is back for another round of book chatter, and this time we’re trying not to say the word “interesting” so much! It’s very unsuccessful. Even so, we manage to wrap up our discussion of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, dig into the squirrelly metaphysics and absurdism of There Is No Antimemetics Division, and extol the virtues of recent reads like Chuck Tingle’s Lucky Day, George S...

Welcome to the first episode of another monthly sub-series here on the FYIZ feed, a free-range chat with filmmaker and podcaster Bob Rose called Not Great, Bob. Each installment will focus on comedy or movies or culture or social media or whatever we find most delightful or irritating or both. This time we're taking a long look at SNL UK. What happens when a 50-year-old late-night institution atte...

We're kicking off a fresh batch of FYIZ episodes with something new: a monthly check-in with Bekah Eaton where we discuss the books we've just finished reading, the books we're reading now, and the books we plan to read next. So, in other words it's the coolest thing in the world that anyone could listen to. Featured in this installment: Watership Down! Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin! A leng...

This emergency podcast exists purely because the first season of Alien: Earth ended and there was too much to talk about. Thankfully Bekah and Jonathan Eaton heeded the call and brought their own torrents of thoughts. Topics include the creepiness of Peter Pan, eerily intelligent alien life, and the nature of consciousness itself. We pretty much sort it out.

Longtime musician/current Jungian Depth Coach Orenda Fink's emotional and acerbically witty memoir, The Witch's Daughter—all about her fraught connection with her troubled mother and how that relationship affected her life—is a must-read for anyone interested in what it takes to emerge from a toxic family situation with your identity intact. In this soul-searching conversation, Orenda opens up abo...

This is an exciting one! Multimedia artist Landis Expandis sheds some light on the inspirations and irritations that led to Landis Harry Larry's brand new glitch-pop EP, FKIN WITH STUFF, out now on Big Curve Music.

In this FYIZ Halloween special—which is actually the lost, final episode of SKEERT - A Real Horror Show—beloved guests Bekah Eaton, Jonathan Eaton, and Chris Zaleski pop over to read some spooky stories from a scary collection for kids published in 1980, The Haunted Planet (By DJ Arneson). Hang out with us... IF YOU DARE!

Friend of the show Polly Schattel is back to talk about her darkly comic novella 8:59:29 (Trepidatio Publishing), and we dig into every aspect, from the origins of the idea to the narrative implications. Along the way we ponder whether characters need to be likable (short answer:no), extol the virtues of novellas as a form, and find out what Polly’s working on next. It’s a nerdily analytical and s...

This episode is an epilogue to Saul Searching, the Better Call Saul (BCS) recap podcast that ended last year (along with the show, which only makes sense). Now that the whole six-season run of BCS is up on Netflix, it's a good time to binge, whether for the first time or as a repeat play. Thus it's also a good time to share this long conversation, recorded last year, that digs into the entirety of...

Prolific author Jeff VanderMeer (The Ambergris Trilogy, Area X, Borne, Hummingbird Salamander) has a knack for creating engrossing and immersive scenarios that straddle the line between a world that is palpably our own and someplace entirely other. In this freewheeling conversation, he discusses his environmental work, his writing habits, and how even his boldest literary experiments are rooted in...

Barb and Allan Vest make music together under the name doubleVee and have just released a new album full of big hooks and infectious harmonies, Treat Her Strangely. In this overdue appearance on Playing Records with John, they discuss selections from all their releases, the way they came together as partners and bandmates, and how their collaborative songwriting process works. Allan’s background i...

Brian Woodbury has a sharp wit and a penchant for tuneful compositions that break genres apart and rebuild them around his often exploratory ideas. Whether he’s trying out new pop music forms, skewering old ones, or blurring the lines between the two, he’s always got something on his mind, and it’s usually pretty funny. Except when it decidedly isn’t! In this career-spanning conversation he unfurl...

Over the course of sixty years and counting of publishing his increasingly potent and idiosyncratic genre fiction, Ramsey Campbell has authored hundreds of short stories and thirty-five novels (with a thirty-sixth due next year). He was kind enough to take a break from all that ink-stained wretchedness in order to chat about his early career start, how important it is to engage a reader’s imaginat...

What a ride! Better Call Saul wraps up a historic run as one of the most consistently thoughtful and well-made television shows ever (there, we said it) with "Saul Gone," a finale written and directed by the man who created the Saul Goodman character, Peter Gould. And we're wrapping up our coverage of this satisfying series with a couple of our favorite guests co-hosts: Bekah and Jonathan Eaton. I...

New friend of the show James Brown is here to discuss the penultimate episode of Better Call Saul, but first he reminds you to support the eclectic and long-running Sidewalk Film Festival, which runs from August 22-29 in Birmingham, Alabama—now for its 24th year! Meanwhile, Kim tries to mind her own business but Gene spins further and further out of control. Is the protagonist of this series too s...

Over in Omaha, Gene's already dysfunctional moral compass has become even less reliable after he received some unhappy news over the phone. He's taking bigger chances and showing less empathy and reminding us more than ever that Saul was always sort of a bastard on Breaking Bad. Naturally this sort of thing has us Jimmy McGill boosters in a panicky state! Bekah Eaton and Jonathan Eaton are back on...

"Nippy" is the episode of Better Call Saul we've been waiting for since the series began; we finally get to spend a whole hour with Gene Takovic, Cinnabon Manager with a secret. In the wake of this momentous turn of events, podcaster/filmmaker/friend Bob Rose returns to discuss Gene's approach to problem-solving, the power of sweet treats, and the futility of guessing what happens next. Some attem...

In this giant-sized episode, Erin Oliver-James and Ronald James help clean up after recent horrific events in the world of Jimmy and Kim. Have a smoke on the balcony and get ready for a detailed dissection of "Fun and Games," the deceptively-titled installment of Better Call Saul that answers several long-running plot questions in typically heartbreaking fashion (and gives us a combover for the ag...

It's been six tense weeks for viewers of Better Call Saul, but only a few seconds have passed for Jimmy and Kim, who have a corpse in their apartment and a big Lalo problem. Luckily, friends of the show (and of the host) Bekah and Jonathan Eaton have returned to take a deep breath and discuss "Point and Shoot," one heckuva nerve-wracking and beautifully shot episode of television.

Hey kids! Comedian, podcaster, and delightful person Michael Furr is here to chew gum and discuss the members of Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight, and he only has a couple pieces of gum left. But soon! Follow Michael everywhere: @michaelcfurr Follow John in most places: @giannidubya