The Cat gets mutable (and, frankly, saucy!) in this special episode with our very own Kaaron Warren. 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. Kaaron discovers a bizarre corner and a magic space.

Flipperts and gibbets discussed in this show include:

• Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckenridge
• Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
• Brett Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero
• American Graffiti
• Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth
• Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory
• Call-back to the infamous wet string episode

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

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 Kyla Lee Ward. 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 from within. Rebecca is revisited, as is Kaaron’s ‘hambone effect.’ Mimicry as a stepping stone, the formation, fluidity or calcification of the self. The masks we all wear, and other matters of a deep and divers nature.

Pretexts and semblances spoken of in this episode include:

• AsylumFest 2023
• Bloodsongs magazine
• Richard Adams’ Watership Down
• Robyn Cadwallader’s The Anchoress
• Stanislavski’s ‘Method’
• Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca
• Kyla’s novella The Final Masque

Photos courtesy of the incontestable Cat Sparks. See more of her AsylumFest 2023 snaps here.

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

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, Lisa Morton. 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 ritual you didn’t consent to. Kaaron remembers Marilyn Monroe’s grave. Aaron discovers a cursed cabinet. Joseph hurls his body out into the void. Lisa finds her old teacher’s book. Everyone wonders about dread mechanisms.

Snips and snails mentioned in this episode include:

• Lisa Morton’s Life On The Edge (1988)
• The origins of Burns Night
• Donna Tartt’s The Secret History
• Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.