#131 - The Big Skookum Bittersweet Ambush
Bittersweet Infamy
Big Skookum B.C. Road Trip! In this special episode recorded at the Arthur O. Wheeler hut in Glacier National Park, Taylor and special guests Lucia Misch and Ruy Gonzalez ambush Josie with a game show all about the beautiful province of British Columbia. Watch the plan come together, and play along from home to prove your B.C. bona fides!
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#130 - Bury Me On Rattlesnake Island
Bittersweet Infamy
Big Skookum B.C. Road Trip! In this special episode, Taylor tells Josie about Lebanese-Canadian entrepreneur Eddy Haymour, and how his dream of building an Arabian theme park on Lake Okanagan led him to take 33 people hostage at the Canadian embassy in Beirut. Plus: join Josie, Taylor, and special guests Lucia Misch and Ruy Gonzalez as they kick off the first leg of a British Columbia road trip, with stops in Kamloops, Salmon Arm, and Glacier National Park!
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#129 - A Shipwreck Away from Abalonia
Bittersweet Infamy
Josie tells Taylor about the 1966 near-founding of the micronation of Abalonia on a sunken island 100 miles off the California coast, and how the would-be country's future was washed away with the tides. Plus: enter the mystical and dangerous world of catch fétiche, a.k.a. Congolese voodoo wrestling.
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#128 - Too Cute for Comfort
Bittersweet Infamy
Taylor tells Josie about Cuties (a.k.a. Mignonnes), the 2020 Netflix film by Senegalese-French writer/director Maïmouna Doucouré, and how it sparked a child exploitation panic that made its way to the U.S. Senate. Plus: illusionist Murray SawChuck breaks the magician's code, and gets disappeared from the Academy of Magical Arts.
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#127 - A Palace of Seeds and Nothing to Eat
Bittersweet Infamy
Josie tells Taylor how the botanists at the U.S.S.R.'s Institute of Plant Industry kept the world's largest seed bank intact during the infamously brutal Siege of Leningrad (1941-44). Plus: we examine the ancient roots of the al-Badawi tree, the millennia-old olive tree that keeps vigil over the embattled village of al-Walaja, Palestine.
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#126 - Spin-Out in the Fast Lane
Bittersweet Infamy
Taylor tells Josie about the cheating conspiracy behind Brazilian auto racer Nelson Piquet Jr.’s deliberate crash at the 2008 Formula One Singapore Grand Prix. Plus: a few notes on the reclusive Q Lazzarus, the mysterious voice behind the cult favourite song "Goodbye Horses."
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#125 - The White Witch of Rose Hall
Bittersweet Infamy
Josie tells Taylor about Annie Palmer, the legendary murderous vodou matron whose ghost is said to haunt her Montego Bay plantation—and how her story wrestles with the true spectre of slavery in Jamaica. Plus: learn about Lapu-Lapu, the hero of Philippine resistance who crushed Ferdinand Magellan's dreams of circumnavigating the globe.
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#124 - My X Father
Bittersweet Infamy
Guest host Kai Cheng Thom tells Josie and Taylor about the turbulent relationship between terminally online rich guy Elon Musk and his transgender daughter Vivian Wilson. Plus: look to the heavens as we memorialize the ill-fated Laika, the first dog in space.
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#123 - The Wreck of the Titan
Bittersweet Infamy
In the finale of our Titanic April series, Taylor tells Josie about the discovery and exploration of the Titanic's wreck, and the deadly 2023 implosion of the OceanGate Titan submersible. Plus: learn about Charles Joughin, the infamous "drunken baker" who seemingly survived the sinking of the Titanic with a bit of liquid courage.
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#122 - Women and Children First
Bittersweet Infamy
As part of our Titanic April series, Josie tells Taylor about the history of the disaster evacuation rule "women and children first," and how the gender roles of 1912 impacted the victims and survivors of the Titanic's sinking. Plus: history repeats itself as we check out the ambitious (or unrealistic?) plans for three modern Titanic replicas.
info_outlineJosie tells Taylor how our modern cultural image of the Wild West was constructed by one man: soldier and showman "Buffalo" Bill Cody. Plus: unravelling the mystery of the Persian Princess, the mummy whose royal trappings disguised a heartbreaking hoax.