Episode 43 – Soup
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The Cat gets personal in this lo-fi, bargain-bucket, guest-free and long-overdue episode of supernatural occurrences and generational egotism. And when we say ‘the Cat’, we mean two Gen Xers and an elder Millennial; and when we say ‘personal’, we mean ‘persona’ (the ‘l’ is silent). While Kaaron lives in the moment and Aaron embraces his own mortality, Joseph flaps his Kermit hands and says the C-word. The stories we tell about ourselves are discussed, the elevator pitch of yourself, and the narrow contexts of identification. Also BO on the bus. Updating books to fit the mores...
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Episode 42 – Grail
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The Cat gets spoilerific in search of all things Arthurian with special guest, legendary New York Times bestselling author and award-winning comic book writer, Dan Abnett. While Aaron shepherds a coming out and Kaaron is betrayed by a cheap trick, Joseph ruins Lunar Park for everybody. Dan goes to Glastonbury on a quest for the holy grail. Fictional truths are discussed, as is reality as a device, the great conceit of modern literary fiction, and the amazing lie that everything is true (but is it permitted?). Also, autobiographical truths buried in fictions, the fictionalising of reality to...
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Episode 41 – Slip
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The Cat gets permissive in this latest episode with special guest, author and artist Nik Vincent-Abnett. While Joseph has an on-air fashion meltdown and Aaron DIYs his bootcuts into flares, Kaaron forgets her own name. Clothing is discussed, as an expression of character, as shorthand for a time, as a face to show the world, as skin. The cyclic nature of fashion. Each generation’s possessiveness over the style of their time. Also Hussars, apportation, and the many people who died in Nik’s house. Ghosts as camera obscura. Ugg boots as the great leveller. Selling books with boobies. Aaron...
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Episode 40 – Chorus
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The Cat goes positively bonkers over an audience with the best-dressed man in speculative fiction, game designer, teacher and writer, the incontrovertible . While Joseph gets all the ups and Aaron clobbers a Hobbit, Kaaron is haunted by a butterfly cake. The ghosts at Bethnal Green are discussed, as is ham (again), Nazis (fuck ‘em), and Russell Crowe’s piss. Also scar trees, scars in time, and the awareness of historical time as a new angle from which to perceive or experience the present. The importance of The Ugly Duckling. David Hasselhoff’s frozen poo. Aaron gives Rik some sensible...
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Episode 39 – Wand
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The Cat gets ‘poetic and foul-mouthed’ in a bewitching episode with award-winning author and academic, the incantatory . While Kaaron gets a Lacroix and Joseph gets lost in the nineties, Aaron dodges the post-con blues by calling from the toilet. William Hope Hodgson is discussed, as is the gathering of disasters. An extended riff on the mixtape follows: the mixtape as a labour of love; the mixtape as a time capsule; the emotional beats of a mixtape. Also, the secret language of couples, the execution of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, and the cultural etiquette of burial mounds. The emotional...
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Episode 38 – Picturebook
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That Cat gets compulsive in an out-there episode with multi-award-winning author and associate professor, the incontestable . While Kaaron investigates an autograph book and Joseph discovers a horror show in the guinea pig hutch, Aaron goes fungal and transforms into the Moth Boy. Helen works through her fixation with children and death. The dark and light sides of creative obsession are discussed, as are curiosity, boredom, and fandom – toxic and otherwise. The impact of parenthood on maintaining an obsession. Obsession as fuel to complete a project – and the importance of its ending....
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Episode 37 – Paper
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The Cat gets fibrous and transformative over afternoon tea with artist, paper maker and raconteur extraordinaire, the delightful Katharine Nix. While Joseph has an esoteric moment after two cups of tea and Kaaron rejects the popularly held contrivances of narrative convention, Aaron drops the bolognese and lets in the brown-snakes. Ancient alchemical processes are discussed, as are parallel evolution, the creative will, and carnivorous kelp. The urge to ask the big questions. Our quest for answers, forever on the border of a great mystery. The creative similarities between artists and...
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Episode 36 – Box
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The Cat gets mutable (and, frankly, saucy!) in this special episode with our very own . While Aaron goes to a disastrous small-town hypnotism show and Kaaron reaches for the white-out, Joseph opens a black magic door that should have been kept well closed. Rewriting the past is discussed, and our changing perspectives on our own past. Also the vanishment of old haunts, and nostalgia – or its lack. The random scraps of things we scribble on when needs must. Writing vs typing. The addictive machinery of writing on a phone. Aaron invests in a woodchipper. Joseph goes home for sad reasons....
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Episode 35 – Mask
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The Cat gets performative in a barnstorming episode from the town of Beechworth, with a sensational special guest: actor, freeformer, poet and Bram Stoker Award nominated author, the preternatural . While Kaaron paces the women’s ward of the asylum and Aaron loses his voice to Bon Jovi, Joseph mansplains a cat into a pigeon. Kyla immerses herself in phantasmal spaces. Voices are discussed, and accents, intonation and word choice. Feeling a character in the throat. The slippery strangeness of the voice. Also working your way into a character from the outside versus working your way out...
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Episode 34 – Totem
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The Cat gets spooky and kooky with a very special guest: author, screenwriter, living encyclopedia of all things Halloween, the one and only, the delightful, . While Aaron dreams of Hal Bodner, and Kaaron writes about four hairdressers, Joseph drinks whisky, eats haggis, and invokes the spirit of the dead Rabbie Burns. Lisa brings a totem. Curses are discussed, and cursed objects, with an aside concerning the online cursed doll market. Also ritual as a language, the foundations of comedy, and the sadness of dead shopping malls. That terrible moment you realise you’re part of a folk horror...
info_outlineThe Cat grapples with life's big questions in a super extended go-go mix episode with special guest the sensational Sean Williams, bestselling author of many books and stories, composer and musician (as theadelaidean), all-round Renaissance man, and entertaining meal companion. While Aaron thwacks mandarines at passing trains, Kaaron takes a trip back to the Bishop's widow's snowglobe, and Joseph spies on his neighbours to see what they covet. Sean stresses (a bit too earnestly) that he is not a peeping Tom. Divers issues of character are discussed, as is empathy, hoarding, and 'outside thinking'. Also synchronicity; writing to understand yourself and the world; the hope of life and the acceptance of death. Sean proposes dioramas and a one-second theatre troupe, and gives Joseph a reason not to burn his journals. Aaron puts the theme song to The Neverending Story in everyone's heads – and now it's in yours too! Some of the so-called 'random shit' from this week's episode includes:
- Sean's story Among The Beautiful Living Dead, available in his collection Magic Dirt
- Sean's story Team Sharon, available in the same collection.
- David Cronenberg's The Brood.
- Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem 'People'.
Check out the episode page for pics and bits.