Podcast in A minor

Oh, the charms of Christmas pudding! And the charms inside of Christmas pudding—little silver doo-dads in the shapes that tell your fortune! It’s Christmas time again, and we’re gawking at an old-time English holiday food tradition in curiosity and song. Have a lump of pudding and consult the new year’s oracle all at once. Time saver! Hey, that’s a big help this time of year. Nigella Christmas by...

Hey, fruitcakes! It’s that time of year again—the steam of Thanksgiving pies has drifted into the sunset, and your favorite anti-hero, *FRUITCAKE*, glitters in the wings, ready for her big entrance! Stir it up! The time is now. And the rewards—thrilling and manifold. https://culinaryagents.com/resources/the-history-of-the-fruitcake https://www.harryanddavid.com/blog/fruitcake#:~:text=A%20regal%20h...

***THE MANIC PIE EPISODE **** Thanksgiving, coming up! Let us celebrate with pie ~ pie tips, pie bliss, pie devotion, pie poetry! Embrace this American food-treasure that’s shorthand for love, comfort and tradition. Learn the secret, scrapped ending to “Dr. Strangelove”! Hands in the crust, and—go! Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life https://a.co/d/9OKEoFD Pie...

Happy Halloween! Let’s gawk at America’s death chronology from the 17th century to the present! And let’s gaze upon the images of the dead in memorial photography. Dare we? Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America https://a.co/d/97mLQVZ Leila's Hair Museum https://g.co/kgs/RwtdRt

In spite of the provoking title, this week’s episode embraces the “innocence” of bygone Halloweens—the bonfires! The fortune-telling! The little drunken ghosts! Enter if you dare! The Book of Halloween by Ruth Edna Kelley: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Book_of_Hallowe_en.html?id=semBAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1 The Book of Ame...

A gallery of ghosts for your October pleasure! Grave stuff - tragedy - a splash of automatic writing- corpse candles - death omens! Poetry! A freakin spooky buffet— belly up to it! Sing morbidly along and shudder. Death’s gonna get us all, baby, so eat your candy corn by the fistful. Death in early America: The history and folklore of customs and superstitions of early medicine, funerals, burials,...

Twenty-two years AIN’T a bad try! Friendly divorce! Is that even possible? Turns out yes! But only if you’re both borderline fabulous ~ and don’t wish to go on thrashing at the other one for being who they are. Welcome to grown-ups! Relax, it’s a shorty! And every day contains a collection of joys. So kick back for a spurt of confessional, musical poetry. And don’t be afraid to find the laughs! Ne...

Radium Girls—the Zeitgeist is now full of this radiation-tragedy with shimmering women at its center. But the song’s inspiration predates it: The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum. Is that morbid? Yes indeed. But I could not look away. Strap in for a load of history and gloom, dear ones, and steer clear of the thallium salts. https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/the-poisoners-handbook-by-d...

Hay, Angel Pie!! Don’t be shy—come right on in for the step-by-step concoction of a 13-year-old song—how 3 disconnected pop-culture moments birthed this inevitable classic. Oh, you’d better get in on this!! And a little whisky pie to boot! The Kinks ~ I’ll Remember https://youtu.be/ZB0llR3FJ60?si=c43U_oVugA7Q12UU Top 21 Kinks Songs | Highest Chart Hits (playback.fm) www.playback.fm/artist/the-kink...

“A Little Bent Upstairs” b/w “That Psycho” — a mental health two-fer! Wade through some slightly maniacal poetry, slang of the unsound mind, a collection of madhouse suitcases, and 19th-century asylum portraits, and songs of emotional anguish! https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Thesaurus:insane Songs of Insanity https://www.ranker.com/list/metal-songs-about-insanity/ranker-metal https://www.songfacts....

No clue! Yes, Clue! And: Clueless! Believe me ~ my foggy recollections of those two movies is a stroke of fortune compared to the prospect of some whiny discourse about LIFE. Ain’t it true! You decide. https://www.amazon.com/Amy-Zoellers/e/B09Y2LKG8S?ref_=pe_1724030_132998060

When life gets hectic and weird enough, you might forget who you are. Collect yourself of a Sunday and come along with me on some thrilling discovery, featuring spooky elementary schools, art with a death-mood, poetry, pumpkins and a dive-bombing bug! https://www.emporia.edu/documents/1851/1960-KMT-program.pdf https://www.heidehatry.com/icons_art.html. https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Lawrence-Ameri...

In the midst of LIFE doing that thing she does, a blitzingly impromptu episode! About chaos, its meaning and mythology and symbols — plus, here and there, an antidote! Fling up your scream of chaos to the cosmic ocean and have a nice cup of tea. You’ll feel better, I know it! Correct me at: hipnessandoutrage@gmail.com https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/superstitions-of-the-sea-a-digest-of-beliefs-custo...

Existence! Being! Nothingness! Freedom! Absurdity! The Other and the Look! DESPAIR. Come right in, Existentialism, you highly poetical exploration of life and self! How sexy can a philosopher be? Will women swoon? Will there be cake? Games? Apricot brandy? Join me and the Johnny Marr Fender Jaguar for Existential A-Go-Go, one big screamin’ philosophical romp! Philosophical Poems https://aestheticp...

It’s 3 o’clock. Where has your lover gone? Why so wicked and edgy? Why, indeed! When the British Invasion (1960s musical onslaught) slipped into my life on kitty-cat feet in the Summer of ‘86 ~ that was that. All of my questions were answered. And I was only eleven! Not bad! Life: solved! Here is my anthem thereto. Look Through Any Window (French version) https://youtu.be/YzLgTz9Sblc Dang Me (Holl...

So how’s about the ghost of a naked nymph of the Indiana dunes, first bathing in Lake Michigan, then cavorting along the beach to dry her body? Done speaking. You’re in. Poetry Hats https://a.co/d/avexiPz Diana of the Dunes: The True Story of Alice Gray by Janet Zenke Edwards https://a.co/5cnWZJR www.historydaily.org/diana-of-the-dunes-a-lake-michigan-ghost-story-with-a-basis-in-reality www.nps.go...

Oh my stars! What a weird freakin summer. Bizarro. Intriguing. Reflected in an opening song of unprecedented length!! Well, MY summer’s going weird, but rather than make a big deal out of it, let’s celebrate with some totally unhinged medieval paintings—more Unsettling Events from the Tacoma Public Library—and a few Fortean yarns chosen entirely according to the coolness of their names. That’s not...

Can you stand the cry of the blue jay? I certainly hope so because this episode is FAT with a headless ghost cow — !!! — and other headless ghosts! PLUS — serious newspaper reporting of ghostly events—please—oh—stand by while I catch my breath! It’s the Weird, Weird Summer of ‘23!! https://newworldexplorerssociety.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-headless-cow-of-johnstownthe.html www.paranormal-world.fand...

Ok, hear me out: LAND WHALE. Right? Sliiiiding down a mountain and — but no, it’s too unthinkable! It’s another CRYPTID CAMPFIRE in the Summer of ‘23 — gather ‘round! This one’s trippy. www.birdymagazine.com/text/fearsome-forest-creatures-the-slide-rock-bolter-by-lauren-shults/ https://morbidkuriosity.com/slide-rock-bolter/ Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods by William Cox: https://archive.org/...

Squonk—the saddest of all cryptids—don’t cry! You have your own unique beauty AND your own Cryptid Campfire episode of Podcast in A Minor! All is well. Huddle up to the campfire quick! before the storm hits—and we’ll tell the tales the lumberjacks told in 1910—just see if we don’t! Marshmallow me—we must sweeten the night for our sad little Squonk! www.pennlive.com/life/2023/03/what-is-a-squonk-pa...

Batsquatch! What are yeh?? Scuttle up round the CRYPTID CAMPFIRE again with the marshmallows and the marshmallows and the tale of a surly winged cryptid who got jostled from his mountain home when Mount St. Helens erupted. He might psychically tamper with your ride, whizz past the window of your home room, and/or claw up your T-shirt!! Stick close to the fire and don’t look behind you… www.epicuri...

Moons and dictionaries in the gloaming! Cigarette poetry! Cigarettes—sublime or not? Soothe any nicotine or other headaches with this nicotine-heavy, song-heavy romp —from Podcast in A Minor! Strawberry Moon – June 2023 (timeanddate.com) www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/strawberry.html https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/69880/7-fake-words-ended-dictionary www.amazon.com/Cigarettes-Are-Sublime-R...

Episode 50, huzzah! And this one has it all: a marshmallow soldier, champagne & absinthe, Ernest Hemingway, ancient glittering eyes, improvisational memory, a six-word tragedy, postwar Paris, and free-floating dysphoria! Strap in, children. It’s Happy First Anniversary to PODCAST IN A MINOR! https://www.liquor.com/recipes/death-in-the-afternoon/ de bene esse: Ernest Hemingway's mother reveals she...

When I’m brighter, I’ll … no, no! If you wait until then, cuties, nothing will flower! Furthermore, it’s possible you’re even getting brighter by the minute, just living your life! Entertain the notion. This 49th episode, dig into smug piano chicks, why band nerds are probably excellent kissers, what some pretty flowers symbolize—-and if you’re holding a grudge against Christian Bale for some reas...

Tacoma—city of the damned…ok, I just improvised that for dramatic thrills. But in a way, yes—will she really run this time? Leave it all behind? … I’ve never set foot in Tacoma, but somehow it has a mysterious hold on me. Anyway. Chain-smoking? Wanna stop? Here’s your song—your courage—your episode. Tacoma ghost stories ~ Tacoma sea monsters ~ Unsettling Events ~ and a Very Popular Flapper Death (...