It takes weird to know weird. Rhune & Lindsey explore alternative lifestyles and cultures.
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Welcome to Mirage Travel Writing Podcast, I’m your host William Barlow. After two decades of indigent wanderings, I’m coming to you with stories, curiosities, and questions. In this first season, there will be narratives of sleeping on the streets in European capitals. There will be tales of crocodile men in remote Central African Republic and armed groups in eastern DR Congo all told through the experience of an aid worker. We will try to understand what it means to be a foreigner in clanic ...
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I was going to start this episode with something personal to introduce myself, but perhaps it’s not an opportune time to introduce myself when the following story is about scoring hookers in Paris. I will say, if this subject offends you, don't listen. This episode is dedicated to the late, great, Henry Miller, who is no doubt now turning in his gr…
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This is a confession to a breaking and entering in Germany. This is not an alibi but rather a justification for why I did it. This is a love story and a story of a golddigger. So come travel to France and Germany in an attempt to prove probate fraud. All music by Christopher Mathis from the album Woodlandsgaze. Outro by the South Hill Experiment, B…
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In this episode, we rehabilitate a house in France, we get married (almost), and travel to Germany to bug my father-in-law's house. This begins a longer narrative (continued in future chapters) of battling a golddigger, a younger woman, who tried to extort money out of my girlfriend's father. So if you’re interested in German inheritance law, demen…
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In this episode, we go on a vertiginous tour through the Western World, guided by one night stands, aging parents, and a lone suicide bomber. From Cape Town, Sydney, Istanbul, Athens, Sevilla, Madrid, Paris, Mexico City, to Havana we look for love in all the wrong places, we search for grit in city centers a century too late, and like a debt collec…
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The Bangui Magnetic Anomaly, refers to a variation in the Earth's magnetic field centered at Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. I wrote a story with the same name in response to a friend's question—what is a day like in the life of an aid worker in Central Africa? The article was written, beer soaked and sunburnt on a back porch, …
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Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and Why Write (Haiti, Palestine, California)
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55:44
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I’m calling as I drive through Saxony Anhalt, in eastern Germany, because I’ve drank more coffee than water and need to talk. We've talked a lot about travel in the past, you know, in our 20s, always writing to one another with the question of where to live. From ever-changing locations, we would hand in our trip reports via email. I would attach c…
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The View from the Tower of Babel (From Western Europe to North America)
51:42
51:42
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I once thought each culture had its neuroses, I now think each culture is a neurosis. Neurosis is defined as a particular atrophied behavior, the expression of which results from some sort of malady. Mental conditions that are not caused by organic disease, but involve symptoms of stress, such as obsessive behavior, but not a radical loss of touch …
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Multiple times a day, on a whim or by demand, I sing my son the song The Wheels on the Bus. He's just turned two and loves repetition. He watches my lips as I describe the movements of wheels, wipers, and the driver as the driver says move on back. All over an idealized town, this bus drives over a dozen times a day. At any time of the day, I can r…
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There are no Places, Only Times (in the USA)
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25:28
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Travel writing is always going on about place. And travelers are forever comparing and positioning themselves between home and away. But if you travel long enough, the home you think you know will vanish in time and as you touch down in your home country or hometown, you’ll suddenly realize there's often nowhere to return to. Leave us a message or …
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Giving Things Away for Free Ain’t Easy (in eastern DR Congo)
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1:05:36
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A blow by blow of a humanitarian aid distribution in eastern DR Congo The aid industry is selling you a lie but it’s one that’s necessary. The poignant photos on aid organization websites showing beneficiaries in Africa and Asia as grateful recipients of aid are misleading. The lie is necessary because you, the viewer might not know that Giving Thi…
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Is This What it Means to Be a Foreigner in Palestine?
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In this episode we have a crash course in clanic values in Palestine when yours truly is robbed and the question of justice—formal justice or informal justice is forced upon me, the wayward traveler. Intro music by Sam Widaman, episode music by Bull of Heaven, He is Not Dead, but Sleepeth Leave us a message or question 🫠 If you enjoy what you're li…
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Anyone who has ever had his or her heart shit on, enjoyed needle drugs, or rotted away in Sub-Saharan Africa might have witnessed things and could have things worthwhile to say. Worth what? I haven't the faintest idea. At least not yet. This is a story. It could be mine, or it could be yours. In all reality, it is of little significance, the Africa…
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The Lion, the Witch, and the Central African Republic
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In this episode we have the politics of foreign aid as it relates to the KONY 2012 campaign told through a story about an aid worker kicking painkillers in the Central African Republic. We have crocodile men, a cameo by Celine Dion, and we turn the narrative of Central Africa as a warzone full of witch hunts on its head. Intro music by Sam Widaman,…
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Herbert Marcuse's book "Eros and Civilization" proposes a non-repressive society by attempting a synthesis of the theories of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. He describes a utopia based on aesthetics, sensuality and play, as opposed to our current construction of civilization based on reason, production and repression. When I was a horny twenty-year-o…
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When I was living in West Africa, I learned the hard way why people are poor. And why, during the International Year of Microcredit, why the clients of the microfinance institution where I interned failed to reimburse their loans, and why that was a good thing. Intro music by Sam Widaman, episode music by Christopher Mathis available on bandcamp Le…
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Equestria LA is Southern California's premiere convention for My Little Pony lovers. We braved the pastel jungle for stories from pony fanatics of all ages.
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Lindsey and Rhune host a Pretty Oddcast in front of an audience at Stan Lee's Comikaze 2015.
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Lindsey and Rhune find out why craft beer makes people so hoppy...
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Lindsey and Rhune check out the Go Topless movement and learn about it's Raelian background.
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Lindsey and Rhune check out hypertheater, a culmination of masks, sock puppets, marionettes and projected movement.
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Lindsey and Rhune head to the California Institute of Abnormalarts where they learn about circus curiosities, undead rock music and traditional and modern side show acts.
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Lindsey and Rhune visit Zorthian Ranch to learn about assemblage art and artist made environments. Along the way they speak with Alan Zorthian, son of Jirayr Zorthian, and Dominique Moody, a life long artist preparing to take her art on the road.
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After a hiatus, Lindsey and Rhune investigate the Renaissance Pleasure Faire.
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Lindsey and Rhune head to the Hollywood Charity Horse Show to learn about the equestrian lifestyle from stars like William and Elizabeth Shatner to everyday riders.
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Lindsey and Rhune checked out the Los Angeles Adult Con, a pornographic trade fair.
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Lindsey and Rhune take a trip down memory lane.
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Lindsey and Rhune head to Port Hueneme to check out a taping of Championship Wrestling from Hollywood.
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Lindsey and Rhune check out the caber toss, kilts and celts at the Queen Mary.
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Rhune and Lindsey check out lucha libre, burlesque and comedy at Lucha Vavoom.
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Rhune and Lindsey visit the Magic Castle.
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Rhune and Lindsey visit the first annual Sexual Health Expo, hosted by our very own Emily Morse!
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Lindsey and Rhune visit the CCHR, home of the exhibit "Psychiatry: Museum of Death"!
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Lindsey and Rhune look into the Suicide Girls lifestyle, first talking to founder Missy Suicide, then attending the Blackheart Burlesque show!
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Lindsey and Rhune check out a beauty pageant!
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Rhune and Lindsey investigate Scientology in this episode. They start out visiting the L. Ron Life Exhibit at the Church of Scientology International, then continue on to the Church of Scientology located on Sunset Blvd.
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Rhune and Lindsey pack two oddventures into this episde for a spooky twist.
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Rhune and Lindsey check out Stars Wars Day at Dodger Stadium.
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Lindsey Floyd and Rhune Kincaid checkout roller derby with the Outlaw Renegade Rollergirls.
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Lindsey and Rhune checkout the Santa Monica Cat Show!
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Rhune and Lindsey visit the BDSM sex club, Threshold, and experience a little flogging of their own.
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Lindsey Floyd and Rhune Kincaid go for another round of Pretty Oddcasting at the San Diego Comic Con.
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For the first Pretty Oddcast ever, we explore live action role play (LARP) with hosts Rhune Kincaid and Lindsey Floyd.
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