Inner States

If your cat escaped on the way to the vet, how long would you go out morning and night to search? Weeks? Months? Years? In the first part of our 4-part saga of a missing cat, Kayte loses Rita, and, in the midst of her panic, decides to foster a monarch chrysalis.

In which Kayte encounters strangers in parking lots at 5:00 am who are also searching for her cat. And an abandoned, child-sized mannequin suggests not all has been laid to rest.

In which Kayte reflects on race and gender in searching for a cat, and has to determine if the man with the horse has seen Rita, or just another imposter.

The Funny Times is a newspaper full of comics. It’s about forty years old, and it’s all in print. The newspaper is in print, but until about a year ago, so were all their files. They lived in one well-protected filing cabinet. So when it was time to pass the reins to a new generation, who lived in Bloomington, Indiana, rather than Cleveland, one of the co-founders suggested they print out the cart...

Malcolm Mobutu Smith on comic books, collecting, and the exhibit he just put together based on that collection. Then, Bill Carroll uses the quantitative skills he developed as a chemist to analyze the billboard charts of the 1960s and 70s.

Two performances: the trials of Oscar Wilde on stage, and a puppet wedding. And more.

Ross Gay and I talk about his new book, Inciting Joy, about masculinity and grief, teaching and survival, and how joy and sorrow are completely, inevitably, intertwined.

Diana Hong practiced for 13 years to become a professional golfer. But at the last minute, she became a stand-up comedian instead. This week, stories about people who almost achieve their dreams, and then hook left.

This week on Inner States, a postcard from Paoli, Indiana, where a tomato products warehouse has been transformed into a community space and enhanced the already existing magical realism of the town.

Scholar and writer Ava Tomasula y Garcia tells the story of the Calumet Region, how the gas boom started with a bang, brought major industry and new racial dynamics, and why “the Rust Belt” is a bit of a misnomer.

Historian Emiliano Aguilar on Latinx politics in East Chicago, how political representation isn’t necessarily a panacea for historic discrimination, and why we should keep paying attention to local politics. Plus, a guilty pleasure.

This week, Jack Lindner on why we should watch old movies on film, and Alicia Kozma on how to approach movies that have outdated attitudes about social issues.

There's a meadow in eastern Kentucky where people sometimes hunt mushrooms, get married, attend a music festival. Something that's not happening? There's no prison getting built. This week, Judah Schept tells us why that prison was a close call.

Parapraxis is a new magazine that examines the psychic mechanisms of our social lives. This week, a conversation with its founding editor, Hannah Zeavin, about the magazine, gender panics, fears of discussing whiteness in a psychoanalytic context, and more.

Leah Johnson writes romance novels. But not THAT kind. She writes award-winning YA books for queer Black kids and others. We talked about drag shows, making a living as a writer, book bans, and more.

This week on Inner States, episodes 4 and 5 of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about today, from the perspective of tomorrow.

This week, producer Avraham Forrest finds Welcome to Night Vale co-creator Jeffrey Cranor in a radio, and ascends to another plane of existence. But first, they discuss the making of one of the most popular fiction podcasts ever.

Hector wants to run the best wastewater treatment plant in the country. He seems to be inspiring the people he works with in that direction, too. Then, whether we should feel guilty about guilty pleasures.

This week, the first two episodes of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about today, from the perspective of tomorrow. But first, a frog in a bedroom leads to a bit of climate panic.

Two stories about people using art to remember the past and, ideally, change something in the present.

What it took to turn Anne Frank’s diary into a mainstage opera; a new album from Witness Protection; and mysterious music coming into the radio station

Philosopher Susan Neiman on why the left should be wary of wokeness, how Germany’s reckoning with its past has become more complicated, and why the differences between two European philosophers - Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault – matter for politics today.

Todd Burkhardt is a veteran, and he’s started asking other veterans to do needle felting with him. And drawing. And making masks. This week, what happens when vets do art.

Sam’s day job involves removing invasive plants and restoring native ones. Fire is one of the ways he does that. He’s a lifelong hunter, too - that’s what got him into landscape restoration. This week, a walk in the woods with Sam Shoaf.

It'll only take a minute.