WAKE ISLAND IS A CONVERSATION SERIES ABOUT THE DARKENING UNDERCURRENTS OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE WITH HOSTS PAUL K AND DAVID LEO RICE 🕳️ 🐇 Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wake-island/support
…
continue reading
Daddy’s back. ROOM TEMPERATURE, haunted houses, video games, childhood memories, publishing with an indie press, supportive teachers, Flunker, and more Dennis Cooper's Blog. FLUNKER, six fictions, 124 pp., c/o Amphetamine Sulphate: orders open. UK/Europe: orders open. SOCIAL: Twitter: @WakeIslandPod Instagram: @wakeislandpod David's Twitter: @ravid…
…
continue reading
In this episode with Steve Finbow, we tease out the point at which a body ceases to be considered a person and chart the development of trauma over time, tracing the fine line between disgust and desire. We get into the motivations behind necrophilia and corpse desecration, examining the boundaries of how taboos can become normalized. We discuss th…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Guilty Creatures with Mikita Brottman
1:16:35
1:16:35
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:16:35
From the critically acclaimed author dubbed “one of today’s finest practitioners of nonfiction” (The New York Times Book Review), a breathless true crime tale of sex, religion, and murder in the deep South. Mike and Denise Williams had a tight knit, seemingly unbreakable bond with childhood friends, Brian and Kathy Winchester. The two couples were …
…
continue reading
Fear. Disgust. Pity. The cripple evokes our basest human emotions—as does the monster. Told in lyric fragments, The Backwards Hand traces Matt Lee’s experience living in the United States for more than thirty years with a rare congenital defect. Weaving in historical research and pop culture references, Lee dissects how the disabled body has been c…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
CHRIS ZEISCHEGG: ON ART AND UNBECOMING
1:02:56
1:02:56
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:02:56
Christopher Zeischegg is a writer and filmmaker who spent eight years working in the adult industry as performer, Danny Wylde. He is the author of The Magician, Body to Job, The Wolves that Live in Skin and Space, and Come to My Brother. His latest book CREATION spans a decade’s worth of writing on art, violence, sex work, and friendship. Acclaimed…
…
continue reading
Last year, David Peak released "The World Below," a midwestern gothic tale intertwining two rival families whose animosity sparks amidst a ritualistic occult murder mystery, amplified by heroic doses of LSD. Published by Apocalypse Party, a rapidly acclaimed purveyor of top-tier horror, "The World Below" is a testament to their commitment to darkne…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Three Nights at the Skylark Motel with Logan Berry
1:14:32
1:14:32
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:14:32
Every city has that motel. The motel on the edge of town, the mythical place you dare not go. Logan Berry goes there.In this episode, we calibrate a magical framework for understanding the world through a seance Logan conducted at the Skylark Motel. We get into cutting off spectral appendages, invoking chaos, exploring hoarder homes, practicing aut…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Exaltations in the Dead of Night with Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh Part II
1:19:42
1:19:42
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:19:42
“The omnicidal will to constitute an infinite decision implies one of two things: either to kill the unfinished, or to let the unfinished kill.” In the second part of our conversation with Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh, we delve deep into the realm of unreality. We explore topics such as the labor associated with maintaining the criminal enterprise of the…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Exaltations in the Dead of Night with Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh Part I
57:58
57:58
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
57:58
"Every storyteller harbours a secret desire to be the one who tells the last story, just as every maniac wishes to inscribe the last fateful madness on earth." In this episode with Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh we walk with vertigo to summon the authors who play at the borders of insanity and intoxication. We get into the territories of the night and mani…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Jack Riccobono - Amityville: An Origin Story
2:22:47
2:22:47
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:22:47
Enter the Amity-verse with Wake Island. In this episode we get into channeling dark energy from the media vortex surrounding America’s most infamous haunted house in Amityville, Long Island. In addition we also talk about: Hauntings as a manifestation of trauma, the mythology-making behind the nearly 50-year Amityville horror house phenomenon, demo…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
How to Find Zodiac with Jarett Kobek
2:33:29
2:33:29
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:33:29
Jarett Kobek is a Turkish-American writer living in California. His novel I HATE THE INTERNET was an international bestseller, translated into nine languages, and published in twelve countries. His other books include: ATTA, Do Every Thing Wrong!: XXXTentacion Against the World, Only Americans Burn in Hell and The Future Won't Be Long. Motor Spirit…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Illuminating the New American Right with James Pogue
1:25:17
1:25:17
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:25:17
James Pogue is a journalist and essayist. His first book is called Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West. James recently wrote an article for Vanity Fair called Inside the New Right and it’s not only a great piece of journalism but it struck a cultural nerve. Not only did it go viral but it even got a shout out on Twitter from the likes of Jeff B…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
On the Cusp of Dissolution with Lindsay Lerman
1:20:40
1:20:40
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:20:40
Lindsay Lerman is a writer and translator. Her new novel, WHAT ARE YOU (CLASH Books) is out now. Her first book I'm From Nowhere was published in 2019. Her essays, short stories, and poetry have been published in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Entropy, Hobart, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. She is currently adapting her short story Real Love—wh…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Counteragent Adam Lehrer on Addiction and Crypto-Transgression
1:29:45
1:29:45
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:29:45
Adam Lehrer is a writer and an artist living in New York. He is the founder and co-host of the System of Systems podcast, and the founder and curator of the Safety Propaganda collaborative media platform. Communions is Adam's debut book - out now from Hyperidean Press. Communions: Channeling hallucinated versions of dead artists and junkies, these …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Stephen Marche on The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future
1:05:20
1:05:20
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:05:20
Will American fantasies of purifying violence dissolve upon contact with reality or will the illusion break into civil war? Find out on this eps w/ Stephen Marche author of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future We also get into: American wildness, bloodlust, foment, genius, and the apocalyptic longing for an endless frontier. Th…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Dylan Mulvin on Proxies: The Cultural Work of Standing In
1:24:08
1:24:08
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:24:08
We speak to Dr Dylan Mulvin, Assistant Professor in LSE Department of Media and Communications, about his book Proxies: The Cultural Work of Standing In, which examines the ways in which proxies shape our lives, the histories of their production and how we delegate power to represent our world. You can download a free copy of Proxies: The Cultural …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Journey to the Heart of Disco Elysium with Justin Keenan
1:19:16
1:19:16
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:19:16
JUSTIN KEENAN is a writer and narrative designer on Disco Elysium which is a groundbreaking open world role playing game. In it, you’re a detective with a unique skill system at your disposal and a whole city block to carve your path across. Interrogate unforgettable characters, crack murders or take bribes. Become a hero or an absolute disaster of…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Jonathan Greenaway on the Gothic State of Necrotic Capitalism
1:13:50
1:13:50
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:13:50
In this episode with Jonathan Greenaway (Theology, Horror and Fiction: A Reading of the Gothic Nineteenth Century & The Horror Vanguard podcast) we arrive at the New Flesh while peeling back the layers of a nightmarish society in stasis. We get into: necro-neoliberalism, depressive hedonia, unspent energy mutating into gothic maw, our struggle to b…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Enter the Sanctum of the Heroic Pervert with Erik Davis
1:32:18
1:32:18
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:32:18
In this episode we try to articulate the fog of our time, away from fear, toward the pervert’s embrace of absurdity, uncertainty, spiritual warfare, gallows humor, the distinction between happiness and joy, and the strange, redemptive sanctum of the heroic pervert...Erik Davis, PhD, is an author, award-winning journalist, sometimes podcaster, and p…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
James Grauerholz - Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs (REBROADCAST)
1:19:33
1:19:33
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:19:33
James Grauerholz is a writer and editor. He is most famous as the bibliographer and literary executor of the estate of William S. Burroughs. He worked as Burroughs’ assistant, and became his friend, business manager and editor until the author's death in 1997. Grauerholz wrote biographical sketches to a Burroughs reader Word Virus, and edited a pos…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Small Town Pervert Derek McCormack!
1:59:44
1:59:44
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:59:44
Derek McCormack is a small town pervert and the author of The Well-Dressed Wound and Castle F*ggot, both published by Semiotext(e). His most recent book is Judy Blame's Obituary. This collection brings together for the first time McCormack's fashion journalism. He writes about and interviews fashion figures that fascinate him, tracing the ways they…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Blake Butler on Obsession and the Unholy Sacredness of Time
1:42:13
1:42:13
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:42:13
Blake Butler is the author of seven book-length works, including Alice Knott (Riverhead), 300,000,000 (Harper Perennial), Sky Saw (Tyrant Books), There is No Year (Harper Perennial), Scorch Atlas (Featherproof Books), and Ever (Calamari Press), as well as the nonfictional Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia (Harper Perennial). He is a founding editor o…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Rosecrans Baldwin on the City-State of Los Angeles
1:31:39
1:31:39
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:31:39
Rosecrans Baldwin is the bestselling author of Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles is a prov…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Catherine Liu - Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class
1:34:37
1:34:37
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:34:37
Catherine Liu is the author of Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class. We get into the: dynamics of noir, the pseudo superiority and inchoate narcissism of neoliberalism, social dominance, corporate embodiment, the monetization of victimhood, our collective need for catharsis and the Met Gala. Professional Managerial Cl…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
A New Gothic Age with Patrick McGrath & David Leo Rice
1:41:28
1:41:28
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:41:28
Patrick McGrath is the author of three collections of short fiction, including Ghost Town: Tales of Manhattan Then and Now, and ten novels, including Asylum, Dr. Haggards Disease, Port Mungo, and most recently Last Days in Cleaver Square. His work has been widely published in translation, and in Italy Asylum, titled Follia, has sold over half a mil…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Matthew Specktor - Always Crashing in the Same Car On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California w/ David Leo Rice
2:03:01
2:03:01
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:03:01
Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound; a nonfiction book, The Sting; and the forthcoming memoir The Golden Hour (Ecco/HarperCollins). He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. In the intro David and I discuss Michelangelo Antonioni's haunting film The Passenger starring Jack …
…
continue reading
Kate Durbin is a visual artist, filmmaker, and writer from Los Angeles, California (USA), whose artworks are nervous, unnerving, and playful explorations of the human condition in a time of constant screens, globalism, and late capitalism. Her work draws on a wide-range of popular culture references: Disneyland, reality TV shows, fast food, horror …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Mikita Brottman - Couple Found Slain
1:26:55
1:26:55
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:26:55
Mikita Brottman is an author and psychoanalyst with particular interests in true crime, forensics, psychoanalysis, animals, abjection, and the unexplained. Her work blends memoir, history, psychoanalysis, and creative speculation. Currently, she is especially interested in reconsidering and interrogating the true crime genre. This interest is at th…
…
continue reading
Dennis Cooper is on Wake Island! We talk about: Hoarders, escorts & slaves, dark rides, haunted houses, his forthcoming book I Wished, creating a literary monument to George Myles through the medium of devotion, the home as a universe, emotional history, Russian twink porn, Bjork’s meltdown, John Wayne Gacy, disliking objectification, the dying bre…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Brian Evenson - The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell
1:15:36
1:15:36
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:15:36
Literary horror icon Brian Evenson is on the show! We talk about: the uncanny psychogeography of Utah, religious text & parables, writing as a replacement for spirituality, Brian’s philosophical approach, the machinations of Dark Properties, Michael Gira’s The Consumer, the trancelike intensity of the Soundtrack for the Blind by the Swans, Sunn O))…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Peter Vronsky - American Serial Killers: The Epidemic Years 1950-2000 (featuring David Leo Rice)
2:08:22
2:08:22
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
2:08:22
David Leo RIce co-hosts this special episode of Wake Island in which we interview historian Peter Vronsky. We discuss serial murderer consciousness and the golden age of serial killers -- we range widely from werewolves to WWII, Bundy to Dahmer, and the latent urges that turned the America of our childhood into a carnival of serial murder. With boo…
…
continue reading
Bateman’s directorial feature film debut of her own script, VIOLET, stars Olivia Munn, Luke Bracey, and Justin Theroux, and had its World Premiere at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival. Her best-selling first book, FAME, a non-fiction about the life cycle of Fame and society’s strong need for it, was published in 2018 by Akashic Books. Her second book, FA…
…
continue reading
Sam Tallent is a comedian and author. His debut novel is Running the Lights, and it’s about a road comic named Billy Ray Schafer who embodies the archetype of a tragic road comic – trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career. In this conversation we get into being in punk bands, dealing with hecklers, taking mushrooms in the Poconos, watching magi…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Chris Kelso - Burroughs and Scotland: Dethroning the Ancients: The Commitment of Exile
1:31:10
1:31:10
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:31:10
In Burroughs and Scotland, Chris Kelso explores the relationship between William S. Burroughs (author of Naked Lunch, Junkie, and The Soft Machine) and a country very much attuned to the Beat author’s provocative, transgressive sci-fi style of literature. Kelso investigates why Burroughs was drawn to Scotland, why Scotland was drawn to Burroughs, a…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Chris Zeischegg - Baise-moi + Sauvage
1:15:35
1:15:35
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:15:35
On this episode Chris and I discuss two movies we adore: Baise-moi and Sauvage. Through these films we have an honest and open conversation about: sex work, nihilism, transgression/transformation, subverted expectations, feminism, and porn. Baise-moi (Virginie Despentes, Coralie Trinh Thi, 2000) — Two young women, marginalized by society, go on a d…
…
continue reading
Jump down the rabbit hole with Gina and I - in this episode we talk about: the enchantment of malls, movies like It Follows/Poltergeists/Showgirls, child beauty pageants, synesthesia, pandemic dreams, the final girl archetype, and the lost magic of video stores. Gina's book Night Rooms is an atmospheric dreamscape of memories intertwined with horro…
…
continue reading
David and I drill down into the emendation point of Americana’s psychic crisis and investigate its rotten core. We also talk about seediness, the uncanny and drift. David Leo Rice is the author of ‘A Room in Dodge City’ (Alternating Current, 2017) and ‘A Room in Dodge City 2’ (Alternating Current, 2021), ‘Angel House’ (Kernpunkt, 2019) a Dennis Coo…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Audrey Szasz - Tears of a Komsomol Girl
1:11:17
1:11:17
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:11:17
Audrey Szasz (aka Zutka) is a London-based writer with roots in Central Europe. Her experimental narratives combine vivid prose with exotic imagery and transgressive satire. Tears of a Komsomol Girl (Infinity Land Press, 2020) is her first full-length novel. She has been described alternately as ‘the postmodern heir to the disarranged novels of Ann…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Betsy Bonner - The Book of Atlantis Black
1:35:25
1:35:25
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
1:35:25
A young woman is found dead on the floor of a Tijuana hotel room. An ID in a nearby purse reads “Atlantis Black.” The police report states that the body does not seem to match the identification, yet the body is quickly cremated and the case is considered closed. So begins Betsy Bonner’s search for her sister, Atlantis, and the unraveling of the my…
…
continue reading
Derek McCormack's latest book is Castle F*ggot (Semiotext(e)). His previous books include The Show that Smells, The Well-Dressed Wound, Grab Bag and The Haunted Hillbilly.We talk about: the childhood memories and objects that inform Derek's aesthetic, confronting cancer, American vs Canadian kitsch, what makes camp, crystalizing shit into shit neck…
…
continue reading
Steve Finbow and I chat about his latest book The Mindshaft which is based on the infamous members-only BDSM gay leather bar and sex club called the Mineshaft. We get into: William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, Francis Bacon, transgressive acts/art, noise music, Cruising, Ginsberg, literary pilgrimages, Bruce Chatwin and how illness influences creativi…
…
continue reading
A Has Grindr killed psychic gay powers? Find out on this episode of Wake Island with Thomas Moore, author of Certain Kind of Light, In Their Arms (Rebel Satori), The Night Is An Empire, Skeleton Costumes, When People Die (Kiddiepunk), Alone (Amphetamine Sulphate) “Thomas Moore is one of the best writers the world has in stock, and I always expect a…
…
continue reading