FYIZ is a catch-all feed for podcasts produced by pop culture escapist John Walker, and home of two monthly hangout shows: RESPECT THE STACK, a book-oriented conversation co-hosted by Bekah Eaton, and NOT GREAT, BOB, an open-ended chat with filmmaker Bob Rose about whatever comes up.
This month's installment of Respect the Stack has it all: coverage of Polly Schattel's new fourth novel, CRATER GIRL, Angela Carter's THE MAGIC TOY SHOP, and Bora Chung's story collection YOUR UTOPIA. As if that isn't enough, also included are blisteringly important topics such as our favorite colors, alternate idioms for The Shining (as opposed to "all work and no play..."), and more Book Pet…
There's enough negativity in the world without our help, so in this installment of the podcast the subject is pop cultural events we feel genuinely grateful to experience firsthand. The picks range from movies to music to tv shows, meaning in a lot of ways it's no different from any other episode. But we do keep it relatively positive! It's the balm your chapped soul needs. Email the show! -…
Heeeeere's Johnny! Aaaaaand Bekah. This episode's featured tomes are Michael Cisco's Black Brane and that giant Taschen book about The Shining we teased last month. So basically it's time for a lot of reality-bending ideas and doomed characters caught in looping storylines that we're only partially certain we understand. Then, to close things out, Bekah digs into some reading peeves that put the…
This month, Not Great, Bob takes on a subject that is near and dear to our hearts: movies (and tv shows—but mostly movies) that are made with a prankster spirit or that troll the audience to some degree. Some do it by subverting expected tropes, some do it with formal experimentation, and some do it simply by being unpleasant to watch. Pull up an uncomfortable chair and shift position awkwardly as…
Apologies in advance if this episode BENDS YOUR MIND, because we're talking about the uncertain realities of such books as Mona Awad's Bunny and All's Well, Michael Cisco's Black Brane, and Atilla Veres's The Black Maybe. Luckily we also tackle cozier fare like Seishi Yokomizo's The Honjin Murders, a self-aware locked room mystery from 1946 in which two people are stabbed to death. Respect the…
Bob and John train their eye beams on the last episode ever of The Boys, all the better to talk about both the finale itself, and the series as a whole, until their heads explode. It's gross.
The Boys is wrapping up its fifth and final season on Amazon Prime, so there's no better time than now to spin theories about where exactly this boundary-pushing, darkly funny superhero saga has been taking us. Then, we move on to the next obvious topic: three carefully selected episodes of The Golden Palace, the short-lived Golden Girls spinoff that lacked one important ingredient: Bea Arthur.…
Bekah Eaton is back for another round of book chatter, and this time we’re trying not to say the word “interesting” so much! It’s very unsuccessful. Even so, we manage to wrap up our discussion of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, dig into the squirrelly metaphysics and absurdism of There Is No Antimemetics Division, and extol the virtues of recent reads like Chuck Tingle’s Lucky Day, George…
Welcome to the first episode of another monthly sub-series here on the FYIZ feed, a free-range chat with filmmaker and podcaster Bob Rose called Not Great, Bob. Each installment will focus on comedy or movies or culture or social media or whatever we find most delightful or irritating or both. This time we're taking a long look at SNL UK. What happens when a 50-year-old late-night institution…
We're kicking off a fresh batch of FYIZ episodes with something new: a monthly check-in with Bekah Eaton where we discuss the books we've just finished reading, the books we're reading now, and the books we plan to read next. So, in other words it's the coolest thing in the world that anyone could listen to. Featured in this installment: Watership Down! Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin! A…