This week's show is a deep dive into the history of an oft-underrepresented and very taboo aspect of carnival sideshows- the geek act- with author and variety arts performer Nathan Wakefield. Nathan is the author of the excellent book The Rise and Fall of the Sideshow Geek: Snake Eaters, Human Ostriches, and Other Extreme Entertainments, and in this episode he and AP go over a wide variety of acts, personalities, and techniques described in its pages- and still only cover a fraction of the wonderfully weird history it contains! Listeners will hear about various acts associated with geeking, what constitutes a geek act, performers ranging from skilled magicians to shameless provocateurs, and even famous animals such as Mike the Headless Chicken. Beyond that, cultural threads are pulled upon in talking about William Lindsay Gresham's book Nightmare Alley and its film adaptations, the long shadow of the geek in shock rock antics, and even connections to professional wrestling!

Performing under the name Nathan McScary, this week's guest has a unique perspective as a juggler and variety arts entertainer which provides a valuable foundation in explaining the darker and more controversial aspects of sideshow. The book is well-researched and entertaining to read, and proves Nathan to be a wonderful historian, storyteller, and advocate for variety arts that might otherwise have been lost to time.

You can find the book here: https://outsidetalkerpress.bigcartel.com/product/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-sideshow-geek
And while you're there, check out the other great titles from Outside Talker Press!

and follow along with Nathan's work at https://nathanmcscary.com/

This week, AP is joined by Simon Hesselager Johansen for a fascinating discussion about UFO contactees that are not well known outside of Denmark and other select locales within Europe. Simon is a writer and researcher with HidDenmark, a group which chronicles and maps high strangeness, folklore, and mystery throughout the country, and in his recent work on the site he has done a deep dive on those claiming contact with beings from other planets. In this conversation, he first explains the history of HidDenmark and his contributions to it, and a bit about some historical encounters with UFOs such as the Aarslev Enge case of 1600. He then presents his wonderful research into a Polish born Danish mechanic named Josef Maliszewki and his encounters with beings from Zutorn, which allegedly pre-date the earliest American contacts. AP and Simon then talk about a later contactee, a taxi driver named Knud Weiking and his channeled messages from Orthon. Simon explains how these contacts culminated in more recent claimed contacts in Czechia and Slovakia with another name familiar to those conversant in UFO history, Ashtar Command, through personalities such as Ivo Benda and a healer called Branjo.

Throughout the conversation comparisons are made to American contactee accounts, with a particular focus on George Adamski and his worldwide following through his contact with another Orthon. They also dissect origins of Space Brother narratives, making distinctions between those drawn from Theosophical traditions and others which seem to have a Christian focus. Along the way listeners will hear about anomalous light phenomena, doomsday bunkers, the finer points of extraterrestrial couture, and even Tintin's encounter with ancient astronauts!

It was a wide-ranging and in-depth chat, with Simon expertly presenting a history of Scandinavian ufology that's largely unknown or ignored by English speaking flying saucer enthusiasts!

To follow along with Simon's work, be sure to check out HidDenmark here: https://hiddenmark.dk/category/english/

This week, AP is joined by John C. Meyers for a wide-ranging and joke-filled discussion about movies, franchises, and fandoms. John is the co-host of two great movie based podcasts, John and Alexx Hate Stuff and This May Hurt a Bit. On the latter show, John and his co-host James Strayer review every movie in a horror franchise, so having John on was a prime opportunity to discuss sequels, reboots, and remakes, and the many ways those can go wrong. Along the way they get into topics such as what makes horror movies great, trends in movies more broadly, taking franchises into space, and the looming encroachment of AI.

Other topics covered include: the trickiness of making good horror comedy, whether or not M. Night Shyamalan is secretly as serial killer, comic book culture in the movies, the finer points of bouncing decapitated heads, and the evolving nature of the cinema going experience.

Make sure you check out John's podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/john-and-alexx-hate-stuff/id1241812993
and here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-may-hurt-a-bit/id1623226464

This week, Ben Roylance joins AP to discuss the writings, artwork, and paranormal life of Eugenia Macer Story- a fascinating researcher and artist whose insights into the highly weird blur the lines between UFOlogy, the ghostly, and the psychic, and also someone who is often overlooked in discussions about great voices in these strange realms. Ben is the co host of the wonderful podcast Consensus Unreality, and also the owner of Apport Used Books in Emmaus, PA. In conversation here he discusses his journey in discovering the work of Macer Story, and his personal quest to collect and preserve her creations.

This episode serves as a primer for the theories and viewpoints that Macer Story worked toward during her life, and gives the listener places to pull on threads and explore more about her life and work. It also touches on the personal impacts of EMS on Ben, and he talks about how formative her work has been for him as well as how much it has generated crazy synchronicities in his life. In a fun and informative way, listeners who are unfamiliar with her are encouraged to find and celebrate the work of Eugenia Macer Story, and perhaps think a little more fluidly about the nature of reality through the highly strange.

Follow Ben's store, Apport Used Books on instagram @apportusedbooks
...and be sure to check out Consensus Unreality!

As a Christmas treat, this week's episode is a celebration of Patrick Swayze and the movie Road House as well as a love letter to Mystery Science Theater 3000, with Aaron Gulyas and Blackwolf John Oates getting festive with AP. For the uninitiated, non-MSTies in podcast land, this stems from a musical number in the MST3k episode Santa Claus Conquers the Martians in which Crow T. Robot presents a new Christmas song about Road House. Taking the idea and running with it, as is the habit with this show, Gulyas and Blackwolf were the perfect guests to discuss both the movie and the TV show with.

The first half of the show largely concerns itself with Road House, its legacy, Patrick Swayze as a pop culture force and the ethics of ripping throats out. From there the conversation goes to pure geekery over the riffing robots and bad movies of MST3k, its impact and influences, and they joy it brings so many people.

From Strange HQ, we wish you the Swayze-est Xmas of them all!

As a shorter, solo bonus episode this month AP shares a bit of his writings on the theme of coyotes- one a very old performance poem and the other a more recent meditation on living alongside and communicating with nature. They are very different in character but, as explained in the show, are synchronistically tied to one another...

First, AP shares "Coyote's Lament", a poem he known for in his former life as a weirdo poet musician in Worcester, MA. This was briefly mentioned during his chat with Joe Ledoux in a recent show, and several listeners requested more about it... so if that describes you, Merry Xmas! This is then followed by a piece called Communion With the Critters, which you can find on the blog to see photos of the creatures mentioned in it. Check it out here: https://www.apstrange.com/2024/08/communion-with-critters.html

Enjoy!

This week's show is a journey aboard the virtual Pequod as Joe Matheny and returning guest Leah Prime join AP in a discussion about the Herman Melville classic Moby Dick; or, The Whale- its esoteric qualities, the influence throughout literature and culture, and its personal effects on everyone in conversation here. They discuss works of art and literature as initiation, and the timeless impact of books such as Moby Dick on readers over 150 years after its initial release. The philosophical nature of the text, as a treatise on life, existence, and man's place in the world are less obvious than the titular whale and the attempt to hunt it down, and in the course of talking about it here Joe, Leah, and AP unpack some of the more mystical implications of the book.

While discussing themes such as monomania, revenge, man vs nature, and fate each of the voices in the show shares a bit about their personal journeys with the text and how it has informed some of their views, inspired them, or led them on paths of discovery. It's a conversation worth listening to whether or not you've read the book.

Joe is the creator of Ong's Hat, and author of several books- follow him on substack here: https://substack.com/@josephmatheny

Leah can be found on bluesky at leahprime.bsky.social

This week, Jeremy Vaeni joins AP to talk about his lifetime of strange experiences and his new book, Kundalini and the Secrets of Silence. Vaeni has a long history within the realms of the paranormal and ufology, having been the co-host of Paratopia and the host of various other podcast and YouTube projects such as Wise Ask and He's so Vaeni. In addition to that, he has authored several other books about his experiences, such as Urgency and I Am to Tell You This, and I Am to Tell You It's Fiction. As an outspoken and often humorous voice within the wide subjects of the weird, he lends a perspective to such concepts as alien abduction that cause one to reconsider what's actually behind the phenomenon-- and this far-ranging conversation opens doors to plenty of such questions.

Among the subjects covered are Vaeni's encounters, the usefulness of such terms as "experiencer" and "abductee", how his experiences differed from that of his Paratopia co-host, Jeff Ritzmann, and what it was like to share their respective strange stories at the time. From there, he and AP discuss Kundalini, how it is presented and characterized in his newest book, and what we can learn from the non-human intelligences all around us-- many of whom, in this case, happen to be ducks.

Kundalini and the Secrets of Silence is an engaging read, which shows through examples of nature and heart rather than telling through technical terms how consciousness and mysterious life energies connect us all. It is available for purchase in January of 2026, but is available for pre-order now.

Follow Vaeni on YouTube at @jvaeni
...and check out his website here: https://www.ourundoing.com/