The Cat gets fibrous and transformative over afternoon tea with artist, paper maker and raconteur extraordinaire, the delightful Katharine Nix. While Joseph has an esoteric moment after two cups of tea and Kaaron rejects the popularly held contrivances of narrative convention, Aaron drops the bolognese and lets in the brown-snakes. Ancient alchemical processes are discussed, as are parallel evolution, the creative will, and carnivorous kelp. The urge to ask the big questions. Our quest for answers, forever on the border of a great mystery. The creative similarities between artists and scientists. The beauty of plant fibre paper making. The creative act as the thing in itself. Everyone listens as the rats in the cellar devour Katharine’s Moomins. Aaron flips the table.

Dingbats and wingdings impressed into this episode include:

• Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation and The Sleepwalkers
• Dancer and choreographer Meryl Tankard
• Mark Rowlands’ The Philosopher and the Wolf

Check out the episode page for more pics and bits.

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.