I'll Find Myself When I'm Dead

To kick off Season 2, we discuss what essayistic things we’ve been up to over the summer--including our spinoff podcast--before moving on to the “Bad Idea Essay,” a term coined (we think) by S1E3 guest Ander Monson. Our example essay is David LeGault’s “On Excess” (link below), an essay we both wound up liking, for reasons we try to explain. Also: our own attempts at Bad Idea Essays, famous examples of the form, and more.

Links to some things we mention: David LeGault’s essay, “On Excess”: https://thespectacle.wustl.edu/?p=262 David LeGault’s book, 10,000,000 Maniacs: http://outpost19.com/OneMillionManiacs/ Follow David on Twitter: https://twitter.com/legaultd Sex in the Living Room: https://sex-the-living-room.pinecast.co Great Outdoors Steak Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc_5tx7xRlg Elena’s “bad idea essay” about the Stella shouting contest: https://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1154-this-is-yelling Justin’s “bad idea essay” about Capote: https://tinhouse.com/murder-tourism-middle-america/ Will Slattery’s essay about Elena’s March Fadness essay: https://www.essaydaily.org/2017/04/a-close-reading-of-essayist-under-self.html

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For our tenth episode extravaganza, we discuss Val Kilmer's memoir I'm Your Huckleberry (and other parts of the Kilmer corpus, including his poetry, art, and music), the movie Tombstone and related trivia, David's Old Western cocktail, Frank Stallone, fake memoirs, and much, much more.

In Episode 9, we discuss podcasts: whether they're essays, our favorites, and how they relate to creative nonfiction. Also we drink the best beer in the world, possibly start yet another podcast, and Elena coins the term "bike diapers."

In Part 2 of our episode about the Best American Essays 2003, we discuss Adam Gopnik's essay "Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli" and André Aciman's "Lavender," as well as the 2003 Billboard charts, imaginary friends, bong-hit essays, and more.

This week’s episode is a slew of firsts: a five-essay, four-microphone, three-guest, two-part show we recorded (mostly) outside on Elena’s patio. In Part 1, your co-hosts welcome regular guests David, Bonnie, and Arlo to discuss selections from Best American Essays 2003, a volume Elena happened upon in her neighborhood little free library. We talk about Atul Gawande’s essay “The Learning Curve,” Ian Frazier’s “Researchers Say”--both first published in the New Yorker--and the Rachel Cohen essay “Lost Cities,” originally from Threepenny Review. Also, David makes a 2003-specific cocktail, we discuss where we were in 2003, and more.

In Episode 6, we discuss J.D. Daniels' essay "Letter from Majorca," from Best American Essays 2013, and the concept of negation. Also the first essays we ever wrote, a literary cocktail from old San Francisco, and an outro song by Curtis Eller.

In Episode 5, we discuss recent essay-adjacent events including a major loss in the literary world, Meghan Daum's essay about leaving NYC during quarantine, and the tradition of essays about leaving New York, including Joan Didion, Eula Biss, and others.

In this episode, we discuss Zadie Smith's essay "Joy" and the Mount Eerie song "Real Death." But our conversation quickly goes off the rails after David serves his latest literary cocktail, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, a high-proof, face-heating concoction that is partly to blame for this episode being way too long.

In episode 3, we welcome the essayist, professor, and creative community-builder Ander Monson, who talked with us about his new book of essays, the movie Tron, his bygone app the Memoirizer, and much more.

In Episode 2, special guests Arlo, Bonnie, and David help us answer the question: What isn't a literary essay? Also featuring a literary cocktail, our first Blind Item, a profane joke about bears, and more.