In Episode 4, we welcome our spouses, David and Bonnie, back to the podcast to talk about movies that might be essays. Also: a very delayed mailbag, a story about three-thousand-dollar Pennsylvania whiskey, Arlo makes a cameo, we all do impromptu Werner Herzog impersonations, penguin suicide, essayistic film moves, and (much) more.

Links to some things we mention:

(In response to the question about queer & trans essayists): T Fleischmann’s books: Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through: https://coffeehousepress.org/products/time-is-the-thing-a-body-moves-through Syzygy, Beauty: http://www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/syzygy-beauty-an-essay-t-fleischmann Alex Marzano-Lesnevich’s website, with links to their essays/books: http://alexandria-marzano-lesnevich.com/ Alex’s Harper’s essay, “Body Language”: https://harpers.org/archive/2019/12/body-language-genderqueerness/  Berry Grass’ website: https://berrygrass.com/ Sung Yim: https://sungliketheword.com/ Jaquira Diaz: http://www.jaquiradiaz.com/ Sandy Allen: https://www.hellosandyallen.com/ Stephanie Burt: https://twitter.com/accommodatingly Wayne Koestenbaum: https://www.waynekoestenbaum.com/bio Tommy Pico: http://tommy-pico.com/ Jennifer Boylan: http://jenniferboylan.net/ Eileen Myles: https://www.eileenmyles.com/ Michelle Tea: https://twitter.com/teamichelle

Denry’s latest episode art: https://twitter.com/denrywills/status/1311379250310574080?s=20

Commenter Andrew Forbes’ website, which Justin totally botched his plug for: https://andrewgforbes.com/

The 1993 Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/

Dawson City: Frozen Time, the documentary about lost films Justin almost suggested for this episode: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5215486/

The Act of Killing, the documentary about Indonesian death-squad leaders Elena almost picked for this episode: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375605/

Abstract, the Netflix documentary series about design & art: https://www.netflix.com/title/80057883

The Writer, a very short & odd 6-minute film/trailer we watched by accident while looking for The Rider: https://www.amazon.com/Writer-Xander-Bailey/dp/B08B7QGWDS

Grizzly Man, the Herzog documentary Justin picked: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427312/

The Rider, the Chloé Zhao film Elena picked: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6217608/

Justin looking like a serial killer on video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUL3Cp3w0xg

In Episode 3, we talk with our friend and colleague, George Estreich–an essayist, memoirist, poet, and Renaissance man–about how essays turn into books. We discuss our own respective experiences with our books’ origins, as well as examples from books we’ve recently read. Also: writing about children, llamas vs. alpacas vs. emus, Comrade Bunny, collectionists, which Beatles we would be, and the lightning round makes its return.

Links to some things we mention:

Check George’s website for more about him and his books: http://www.GeorgeEstreich.com 

George’s Salon essay is here: https://www.salon.com/2014/02/12/when_my_daughter_was_diagnosed/ 

And his NYT piece is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/i-dont-speak-for-laura.html 

George’s band, Mule on Fire: http://muleonfire.com/music 

Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/collected-schizophrenias 

Eula Biss’ essay “White Debt”: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/white-debt.html 

Eula Biss’ new book, Having and Being Had: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/580422/having-and-being-had-by-eula-biss/ 

James Baldwin’s book The Evidence of Things Not Seen: https://bookshop.org/books/the-evidence-of-things-not-seen-reissued-edition/9780805039399 

Roy Scranton’s Rolling Stone essay “Back to Baghdad”: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/back-to-baghdad-life-in-the-city-of-doom-99814/ Scranton’s book, We’re Doomed. Now What? https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567505/were-doomed-now-what-by-roy-scranton/

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’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

the 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

In Episode 11, we discuss the recent #PublishingPaidMe conversation, talk about our own advances and experiences with the publishing industry, and discuss a few essays from The Fire This Time, a recent anthology edited by Jesmyn Ward.

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.

The deleted scene from Tombstone mentioned in the episode:

And our outro song is a Val Kilmer original:

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.”

The podcasts we discuss (click for links): Wind of Change, Book Fight!, and Mystery Show.

Episode libation: Westvleteren 12.

We didn’t pick a song, but I guess it has to be this:

This week’s episode is a five-guest, five-essay, four-microphone, two-part show we recorded (mostly) outside on David & 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” (not online, unfortunately)–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 (first published here at the Paris Review). Also the first essays we ever wrote, a literary cocktail from old San Francisco, and this outro song by Curtis Eller: