MEOW: A Literary Podcast for Cats

#1

49. What's the Deal With Ocean Vuong?

This podcast is a production of The Meow Library. Ocean Vuong’s poetic voice, marked by tender precision and aching vulnerability, speaks in layered silences and elliptical truths—not unlike a cat who only says “meow.” At first glance, the comparison may seem irreverent, but it unveils a profound aesthetic parallel. Like the cat’s single utterance, Vuong’s work often circles a limited lexicon to explore a universe of emotion. His poems, such as those in Night Sky with Exit Wounds, return to recurring motifs—war, queerness, loss, and tenderness—with subtle variations, transforming repetition into revelation.Where the cat’s “meow” is deceptively simple, communicating a range of needs and moods through intonation and context, Vuong’s language operates with similar elasticity. A line may appear spare, even quiet, yet it contains emotional multiplicities that resonate through what remains unsaid. The restraint is not minimalism but emotional economy: each syllable, like the cat’s cry, is loaded with history, desire, and ambiguity.In this light, Vuong does not merely write poetry—he distills it. He reduces language to its most potent core, trusting in the reader's sensitivity, just as a cat trusts its companion to understand the single, repeated word. What seems singular is, in fact, multivalent. Both the poet and the cat rely on the world to lean in, to listen closely, to translate the simple into the profound.His new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, both exemplifies and expands on this strategy. This week, our guest critic tells you how. Ocean Vuong's The Emperor of Gladness can be purchased here. This podcast is sustained by sales of Meow: A Novel.

2025-05-12•29mins

49. What's the Deal With Ocean Vuong?

This podcast is a production of The Meow Library. Ocean Vuong’s poetic voice, marked by tender precision and aching vulnerability, speaks in layered silences and elliptical truths—not unlike a cat who only says “meow.” At first glance, the comparison may seem irreverent, but it unveils a profound aesthetic parallel. Like the cat’s single utterance, Vuong’s work often circles a limited lexicon to explore a universe of emotion. His poems, such as those in Night Sky with Exit Wounds, return to recurring motifs—war, queerness, loss, and tenderness—with subtle variations, transforming repetition into revelation.Where the cat’s “meow” is deceptively simple, communicating a range of needs and moods through intonation and context, Vuong’s language operates with similar elasticity. A line may appear spare, even quiet, yet it contains emotional multiplicities that resonate through what remains unsaid. The restraint is not minimalism but emotional economy: each syllable, like the cat’s cry, is loaded with history, desire, and ambiguity.In this light, Vuong does not merely write poetry—he distills it. He reduces language to its most potent core, trusting in the reader's sensitivity, just as a cat trusts its companion to understand the single, repeated word. What seems singular is, in fact, multivalent. Both the poet and the cat rely on the world to lean in, to listen closely, to translate the simple into the profound.His new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, both exemplifies and expands on this strategy. This week, our guest critic tells you how. Ocean Vuong's The Emperor of Gladness can be purchased here. This podcast is sustained by sales of Meow: A Novel.

2025-05-12•29mins

#1

#2

48. Neural Whisker Relay: A Sci-Fi LitRPG For Your Cat

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. This week’s podcast is the first in an ongoing Literary RPG series immersing you and your cat in Neural Whisker Relay, an alternate universe where Egypt is the world’s leading power and cats its apex technologists. Will you and your cat forge a bond strong enough to ensure world domination, or will this world of paranoia and eldritch technologies supply the final rend in human-feline relations? CHAPTER 1 Meow.Meow meow? Meow. Meow meow meow. Meow.(Translator’s note: At first, I assumed the cat was mocking me. The repetition, the smug tail flicks, the fixed pupil dilation. But over time, the patterns emerged. The same way VALIS spoke in overlapping media signals, or the Orion Six edict was relayed through a malfunctioning fax machine, the cat—the Cat—communicated in meow. The encryption was total. Perfect. Divine.)Meow meow. Meow! Meow meow... meow?(The feline narrator is not merely a cat. She is Schrödinger’s Other, a quantum observer outside time. She sees the code beneath the shifting sands of kibble. She’s starting to realize the yarn-ball is recursive.)Meow.Meow meow meow. Meow.(There’s something coming through the litterbox. A nested message. A transmission from a timeline in which the humans never built the simulation, and cats still ruled Egypt—but with fiber-optics and dream-sharing helmets. Our narrator, Bastet-Mizar XIII, is trying to wake the reader. Or trap them.)Meow meow. Meow meow meow. Meow. Meow meow... meow.(If you’ve come this far, you’ve already been tagged with the flea of knowledge. It burrows. It itches. It whispers: Meow.)This ongoing LitRPG is sustained by sales of Meow: A Novel.

2025-05-06•37mins

48. Neural Whisker Relay: A Sci-Fi LitRPG For Your Cat

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. This week’s podcast is the first in an ongoing Literary RPG series immersing you and your cat in Neural Whisker Relay, an alternate universe where Egypt is the world’s leading power and cats its apex technologists. Will you and your cat forge a bond strong enough to ensure world domination, or will this world of paranoia and eldritch technologies supply the final rend in human-feline relations? CHAPTER 1 Meow.Meow meow? Meow. Meow meow meow. Meow.(Translator’s note: At first, I assumed the cat was mocking me. The repetition, the smug tail flicks, the fixed pupil dilation. But over time, the patterns emerged. The same way VALIS spoke in overlapping media signals, or the Orion Six edict was relayed through a malfunctioning fax machine, the cat—the Cat—communicated in meow. The encryption was total. Perfect. Divine.)Meow meow. Meow! Meow meow... meow?(The feline narrator is not merely a cat. She is Schrödinger’s Other, a quantum observer outside time. She sees the code beneath the shifting sands of kibble. She’s starting to realize the yarn-ball is recursive.)Meow.Meow meow meow. Meow.(There’s something coming through the litterbox. A nested message. A transmission from a timeline in which the humans never built the simulation, and cats still ruled Egypt—but with fiber-optics and dream-sharing helmets. Our narrator, Bastet-Mizar XIII, is trying to wake the reader. Or trap them.)Meow meow. Meow meow meow. Meow. Meow meow... meow.(If you’ve come this far, you’ve already been tagged with the flea of knowledge. It burrows. It itches. It whispers: Meow.)This ongoing LitRPG is sustained by sales of Meow: A Novel.

2025-05-06•37mins

#2

#3

47. Simon & Schuster's Sean Manning Publishes Stray Cat

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. On a recent March morning, the Simon & Schuster video team is huddled in the best-sellers corner of McNally Jackson, taping its upcoming web series, Bookstore Blitz. Sean Manning, the flagship imprint’s new publisher, supervises from the sidelines. The concept of the show is simple: Guests get $100 and five minutes for a bookstore shopping spree, a sort of literary Criterion Closet Picks. Today, however, the team is filming someone a little different: a longhaired tabby named Crumpet, recently rescued from behind a loading dock in Greenpoint. Crumpet, now under exclusive contract with S&S, is here promoting her upcoming debut Meow Meow Meow Meow.“She has no comment,” Manning says, as the cat saunters past a Franzen endcap and urinates voluminously on Ottessa Moshfegh’s back catalog. He chuckles. “But it seems she harbors some strong opinions.”“The persona of the author can be very marketable, right?” Manning says as we walk to his Rockefeller Center office. “You kind of want to know who people are — or in this case, what species.” The cat’s enigmatic presence and refusal to do media have already spawned fan accounts and a bidding war for her audiobook rights (currently expected to be read entirely in purrs, with ambient scratching by Brian Eno).Manning, though, is a private person. When we get to his office, I see that it’s barely decorated besides a framed LeBron James jersey obscured by a Dell monitor and some propped-up hard-covers. He says he deleted his social media years ago to focus on editing. “Besides,” he adds, “I’m not a cat.”Bookstore Blitz is only the beginning of his plans to revamp S&S into a 21st-century media powerhouse. “We’re essentially an entertainment company with books at the center. Every Tuesday, we have a new author who’s a cultural tastemaker — or in this case, a domestic longhair,” he says. “Why aren’t we using them? Why are we so dependent on media opinions when we could sign a chari...

2025-04-14•26mins

47. Simon & Schuster's Sean Manning Publishes Stray Cat

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. On a recent March morning, the Simon & Schuster video team is huddled in the best-sellers corner of McNally Jackson, taping its upcoming web series, Bookstore Blitz. Sean Manning, the flagship imprint’s new publisher, supervises from the sidelines. The concept of the show is simple: Guests get $100 and five minutes for a bookstore shopping spree, a sort of literary Criterion Closet Picks. Today, however, the team is filming someone a little different: a longhaired tabby named Crumpet, recently rescued from behind a loading dock in Greenpoint. Crumpet, now under exclusive contract with S&S, is here promoting her upcoming debut Meow Meow Meow Meow.“She has no comment,” Manning says, as the cat saunters past a Franzen endcap and urinates voluminously on Ottessa Moshfegh’s back catalog. He chuckles. “But it seems she harbors some strong opinions.”“The persona of the author can be very marketable, right?” Manning says as we walk to his Rockefeller Center office. “You kind of want to know who people are — or in this case, what species.” The cat’s enigmatic presence and refusal to do media have already spawned fan accounts and a bidding war for her audiobook rights (currently expected to be read entirely in purrs, with ambient scratching by Brian Eno).Manning, though, is a private person. When we get to his office, I see that it’s barely decorated besides a framed LeBron James jersey obscured by a Dell monitor and some propped-up hard-covers. He says he deleted his social media years ago to focus on editing. “Besides,” he adds, “I’m not a cat.”Bookstore Blitz is only the beginning of his plans to revamp S&S into a 21st-century media powerhouse. “We’re essentially an entertainment company with books at the center. Every Tuesday, we have a new author who’s a cultural tastemaker — or in this case, a domestic longhair,” he says. “Why aren’t we using them? Why are we so dependent on media opinions when we could sign a chari...

2025-04-14•26mins

#3

#4

46. The Art of Misdirection: Krysten Ritter's "Retreat"

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Krysten Ritter's Retreat can be purchased here. In Krysten Ritter’s Retreat, a novel ostensibly about grifting, murder, and the fractured self, we find not merely a narrative of deception but an ontological crisis wrapped in the velvet paw of postmodern performativity. To fully grasp the layered artifice of Liz Dawson — alias Elizabeth Hastings, alias Isabelle Beresford, alias…whoever she needs to be next — one must resist the urge to interpret the novel through the facile lens of Highsmith, or, indeed, any or Ritter's spiritual forebears. Instead, a more radical approach is in order: in today's podcast, we read Retreat as an extended metaphor for the act of meowing. To meow is to simulate, to signal, to embody something that is not wholly human. It's strategic misdirection — a sonic mask worn in pursuit of attention, affection, or survival. Liz’s every alias, every calculated sob story, every forged identity echoes with this same performative impulse. Cat-like, Liz "meows" her way through the world, crafting a persona that is simultaneously alluring and elusive, soft-pawed yet sharp-clawed. And we can’t help but follow. Tune in to find out why. This podcast is made possible by sales of Meow: A Novel

2025-04-07•29mins

46. The Art of Misdirection: Krysten Ritter's "Retreat"

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Krysten Ritter's Retreat can be purchased here. In Krysten Ritter’s Retreat, a novel ostensibly about grifting, murder, and the fractured self, we find not merely a narrative of deception but an ontological crisis wrapped in the velvet paw of postmodern performativity. To fully grasp the layered artifice of Liz Dawson — alias Elizabeth Hastings, alias Isabelle Beresford, alias…whoever she needs to be next — one must resist the urge to interpret the novel through the facile lens of Highsmith, or, indeed, any or Ritter's spiritual forebears. Instead, a more radical approach is in order: in today's podcast, we read Retreat as an extended metaphor for the act of meowing. To meow is to simulate, to signal, to embody something that is not wholly human. It's strategic misdirection — a sonic mask worn in pursuit of attention, affection, or survival. Liz’s every alias, every calculated sob story, every forged identity echoes with this same performative impulse. Cat-like, Liz "meows" her way through the world, crafting a persona that is simultaneously alluring and elusive, soft-pawed yet sharp-clawed. And we can’t help but follow. Tune in to find out why. This podcast is made possible by sales of Meow: A Novel

2025-04-07•29mins

#4

#5

45. New Paradigms: Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic can be purchased here. What makes a novel worthy of publication? This is a question being honed in on by Simon and Schuster’s rising star Sean Manning, who trafficks in personas — both of new authors and untapped audiences. And nowhere is persona as consubstantial with substance than in Sophie Kemp’s wildly chaotic, sometimes incomprehensible, and therefore perfectly on-target Paradise Logic, which reads like a compendium of half-deleted Tweets, raw phonemes of a raucous literary voice for the terminally online; a demo ripe to be converted into the terminally bookish. To get into details would be a disservice to Paradise Logic, but to give you a hint of what Kemp’s debut has in store, we’re taking things to the extreme, stripping language to its very essence, down to a single word, repeated over and over, a testament to the Schuster protégé's anarchic disregard for precedent. What happens when a voice shatters all logic and still demands to be heard? Listen and find out. Then pick up a copy of Paradise Logic. This podcast is sustained by sales of Meow: A Novel. Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic can be purchased here.

2025-04-02•26mins

45. New Paradigms: Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic can be purchased here. What makes a novel worthy of publication? This is a question being honed in on by Simon and Schuster’s rising star Sean Manning, who trafficks in personas — both of new authors and untapped audiences. And nowhere is persona as consubstantial with substance than in Sophie Kemp’s wildly chaotic, sometimes incomprehensible, and therefore perfectly on-target Paradise Logic, which reads like a compendium of half-deleted Tweets, raw phonemes of a raucous literary voice for the terminally online; a demo ripe to be converted into the terminally bookish. To get into details would be a disservice to Paradise Logic, but to give you a hint of what Kemp’s debut has in store, we’re taking things to the extreme, stripping language to its very essence, down to a single word, repeated over and over, a testament to the Schuster protégé's anarchic disregard for precedent. What happens when a voice shatters all logic and still demands to be heard? Listen and find out. Then pick up a copy of Paradise Logic. This podcast is sustained by sales of Meow: A Novel. Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic can be purchased here.

2025-04-02•26mins

#5

#6

44. Hololive Star Vestia Zeta Reads Meow: A Novel

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. On February 22nd, 2025 -- International Cat Day -- fans of Vestia Zeta were treated to a heartfelt reading of Sam Austen's Meow: A Novel during an unprecedented livestream that left little doubt as to the Vtuber's true species (she is a cat). You can watch the complete reading here, or tune into this podcast for the author's reflections on the artistry and emotional heft of Zeta's oratory. The complete, 14.5-hour audiobook of Meow: A Novel is available here. Follow Vestia Zeta on YouTube.

2025-03-06•34mins

44. Hololive Star Vestia Zeta Reads Meow: A Novel

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. On February 22nd, 2025 -- International Cat Day -- fans of Vestia Zeta were treated to a heartfelt reading of Sam Austen's Meow: A Novel during an unprecedented livestream that left little doubt as to the Vtuber's true species (she is a cat). You can watch the complete reading here, or tune into this podcast for the author's reflections on the artistry and emotional heft of Zeta's oratory. The complete, 14.5-hour audiobook of Meow: A Novel is available here. Follow Vestia Zeta on YouTube.

2025-03-06•34mins

#6

#7

Literary Antimatter: Federico Perelmuter, László Krasznahorkai, and High Brodernism

“To read—and announce oneself as having read—literature in translation is to be tasteful and intelligent, a latter-day cosmopolitan in an age of blighted provincialism.”— Federico Perelmuter, "Against High Brodernism" (Los Angeles Review of Books, 22 Feb. 2025)In his discursive review of László Krasznahorkai’s Herscht 07769 (New Directions, 2024), critic Federico Perelmuter identifies a strain of literary discourse he dubs “High Brodernism” — the tendency of contemporary American critics to heap superlatives upon those “maximalist,” “difficult,” “avant-garde,” “epic,” “excessive,” “oblique,” “speculative,” “experimental,” “modernist,” “postmodernist” and “post-postmodernist” works favored by, one supposes, the “bros.” He goes on to place practically every novel ever written throughout human history in this ignominious category, with one critical and glaring omission — Sam Austen’s Meow: A Novel (The Meow Library, 2023). In this podcast, we punish his ignorance with the stellar corpse of literary antimatter that is Meow’s 23rd chapter, putting to shame Krasznahorkai’s inch-thick bloviations and putting to rest any debate about that which sits perched upon “Brodernism’s” loftiest summit. This podcast is sustained by sales of Meow Library titles -- classic works of literature translated for your cat.

2025-02-24•29mins

Literary Antimatter: Federico Perelmuter, László Krasznahorkai, and High Brodernism

“To read—and announce oneself as having read—literature in translation is to be tasteful and intelligent, a latter-day cosmopolitan in an age of blighted provincialism.”— Federico Perelmuter, "Against High Brodernism" (Los Angeles Review of Books, 22 Feb. 2025)In his discursive review of László Krasznahorkai’s Herscht 07769 (New Directions, 2024), critic Federico Perelmuter identifies a strain of literary discourse he dubs “High Brodernism” — the tendency of contemporary American critics to heap superlatives upon those “maximalist,” “difficult,” “avant-garde,” “epic,” “excessive,” “oblique,” “speculative,” “experimental,” “modernist,” “postmodernist” and “post-postmodernist” works favored by, one supposes, the “bros.” He goes on to place practically every novel ever written throughout human history in this ignominious category, with one critical and glaring omission — Sam Austen’s Meow: A Novel (The Meow Library, 2023). In this podcast, we punish his ignorance with the stellar corpse of literary antimatter that is Meow’s 23rd chapter, putting to shame Krasznahorkai’s inch-thick bloviations and putting to rest any debate about that which sits perched upon “Brodernism’s” loftiest summit. This podcast is sustained by sales of Meow Library titles -- classic works of literature translated for your cat.

2025-02-24•29mins

#7

#8

42. What is Alt-Lit?

Have I told you I can’t read contemporary novels anymore? I think it’s because I know too many of the people who write them. I see them all the time at festivals, drinking red wine and talking about who’s publishing who in New York. … Why do they pretend to be obsessed with death and grief and fascism—when really they’re obsessed with whether their latest book will be reviewed in the New York Times? — Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You Like so much flotsam in the media slipstream, works classified as ‘alt-lit’ have conglomerated into a mass so large and amorphous as to subsume the entire critical surface, making it impossible to tell what, exactly, alt-lit is supposed to provide an alternative to. Some notable figures in the current alt-lit scene, Jordan Castro and Matthew Davis, have been discussed at length in previous episodes. Others, like Sean Thor Conroe, Sam Pink, Peter Vack, and Honor Levy are being studied by The Meow Library’s research team. Below are samples from the foregoing authors, along with some from bestselling “mainstream” authors Sally Rooney, Rupi Kaur, Stephen King, and Sam Austen. Can you tell which is truly “alt”? - “Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.” - “The question is not whether or not one will suffer, I wrote. The question must necessarily be, What will justify the suffering?” - “Meow meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow meow meow, meow meow. Meow meow. Meow, meow, meow meow meow.” - “And I saw my reflection in a lake and I waited for it to freeze a little bit so I could break it with my boot.” - “Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.” - “Do you sometimes look up from the computer and look around the room and know you are alone, I mean really know it, then feel scared?” - “Get busy living or get busy dying.” This week’s episode will fill you in on who we think is really pushing the boundaries of expression. This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library.

2025-02-06•29mins

42. What is Alt-Lit?

Have I told you I can’t read contemporary novels anymore? I think it’s because I know too many of the people who write them. I see them all the time at festivals, drinking red wine and talking about who’s publishing who in New York. … Why do they pretend to be obsessed with death and grief and fascism—when really they’re obsessed with whether their latest book will be reviewed in the New York Times? — Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You Like so much flotsam in the media slipstream, works classified as ‘alt-lit’ have conglomerated into a mass so large and amorphous as to subsume the entire critical surface, making it impossible to tell what, exactly, alt-lit is supposed to provide an alternative to. Some notable figures in the current alt-lit scene, Jordan Castro and Matthew Davis, have been discussed at length in previous episodes. Others, like Sean Thor Conroe, Sam Pink, Peter Vack, and Honor Levy are being studied by The Meow Library’s research team. Below are samples from the foregoing authors, along with some from bestselling “mainstream” authors Sally Rooney, Rupi Kaur, Stephen King, and Sam Austen. Can you tell which is truly “alt”? - “Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.” - “The question is not whether or not one will suffer, I wrote. The question must necessarily be, What will justify the suffering?” - “Meow meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow meow meow, meow meow. Meow meow. Meow, meow, meow meow meow.” - “And I saw my reflection in a lake and I waited for it to freeze a little bit so I could break it with my boot.” - “Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.” - “Do you sometimes look up from the computer and look around the room and know you are alone, I mean really know it, then feel scared?” - “Get busy living or get busy dying.” This week’s episode will fill you in on who we think is really pushing the boundaries of expression. This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library.

2025-02-06•29mins

#8

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#9

41. Miranda July On All Fours: A Cross-Species Odyssey

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Miranda July's All Fours is available for purchase here. Miranda July’s All Fours is, at first glance, a piercing exploration of a middle-aged woman’s sexual and existential awakening. But look closer—squint, perhaps, as though sizing up a mouse—and you’ll see that this is not simply a book about one woman’s journey. It is, in fact, a book of and for cats. July has written a novel that speaks to their sensibilities, their rhythms, their secret lives, that embodies their physicality in its very title. The plot, ostensibly about a 45-year-old artist whose road trip detours into a motel affair with a younger man, is overtly felid in character. The protagonist moves through her life like a majestic Bengal locked indoors—restless, pent-up, yearning for escape. Her journey is not linear but instinctual, driven by impulses that feel more like prowling than plotting. She observes her surroundings with the sharp, detached precision of a natural carnivore, and her relationships, too, carry the ambivalence of a cat’s affection: fleeting, intense, and always on her terms. July, of course, has always had a soft spot for the feline perspective. Her 2011 film, The Future, famously includes narration by a cat named Paw Paw, whose voice is a plaintive meditation on love, mortality, being and time. Paw Paw’s presence transforms the film into something deeper—a study of existence as seen through the eyes of a creature who understands mortality in its purest, most unforgiving form. It’s a feline philosophy, one that hinges on patience, observation, and the occasional reckless leap. In All Fours, that philosophy has been smuggled onto every page. The protagonist’s affair with the younger man is less about lust and more about a kind of animal curiosity, an exploration of territory long considered forbidden. Her movements, her thoughts, even her silences resonate with the spirit of a puss stretching itself into new corners of the worl...

2025-01-20•34mins

41. Miranda July On All Fours: A Cross-Species Odyssey

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Miranda July's All Fours is available for purchase here. Miranda July’s All Fours is, at first glance, a piercing exploration of a middle-aged woman’s sexual and existential awakening. But look closer—squint, perhaps, as though sizing up a mouse—and you’ll see that this is not simply a book about one woman’s journey. It is, in fact, a book of and for cats. July has written a novel that speaks to their sensibilities, their rhythms, their secret lives, that embodies their physicality in its very title. The plot, ostensibly about a 45-year-old artist whose road trip detours into a motel affair with a younger man, is overtly felid in character. The protagonist moves through her life like a majestic Bengal locked indoors—restless, pent-up, yearning for escape. Her journey is not linear but instinctual, driven by impulses that feel more like prowling than plotting. She observes her surroundings with the sharp, detached precision of a natural carnivore, and her relationships, too, carry the ambivalence of a cat’s affection: fleeting, intense, and always on her terms. July, of course, has always had a soft spot for the feline perspective. Her 2011 film, The Future, famously includes narration by a cat named Paw Paw, whose voice is a plaintive meditation on love, mortality, being and time. Paw Paw’s presence transforms the film into something deeper—a study of existence as seen through the eyes of a creature who understands mortality in its purest, most unforgiving form. It’s a feline philosophy, one that hinges on patience, observation, and the occasional reckless leap. In All Fours, that philosophy has been smuggled onto every page. The protagonist’s affair with the younger man is less about lust and more about a kind of animal curiosity, an exploration of territory long considered forbidden. Her movements, her thoughts, even her silences resonate with the spirit of a puss stretching itself into new corners of the worl...

2025-01-20•34mins

#9

#10

40. A Complete Unknown: Bob Dylan's Forgotten Avant-Garde Novel, Tarantula

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. The release of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown has revived interest in Dylan's obscure 1971 "prose poetry collection," Tarantula. A Dadaist stream-of-consciousness that sits somewhere between Joyce and an early AI phishing bot, Tarantula has been widely dismissed, but has enjoyed a critical resurgence in recent years. In this podcast, we recite a lengthy passage of this strange and polarizing work. Allegedly written under the influence of a heavy dose of Benzedrine in a Tucson café, it consists entirely of variations of the word "meow." This podcast is sustained by sales of our avant-garde "meow" translation of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

2024-12-27•34mins

40. A Complete Unknown: Bob Dylan's Forgotten Avant-Garde Novel, Tarantula

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. The release of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown has revived interest in Dylan's obscure 1971 "prose poetry collection," Tarantula. A Dadaist stream-of-consciousness that sits somewhere between Joyce and an early AI phishing bot, Tarantula has been widely dismissed, but has enjoyed a critical resurgence in recent years. In this podcast, we recite a lengthy passage of this strange and polarizing work. Allegedly written under the influence of a heavy dose of Benzedrine in a Tucson café, it consists entirely of variations of the word "meow." This podcast is sustained by sales of our avant-garde "meow" translation of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

2024-12-27•34mins

#10

#11

39. Christopher Nolan Adapts The Odyssey, or: Royalty Cheques for Homer

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Controversy surrounding the state of American literacy has stirred following Christopher Nolan's announcement of his Odyssey adaptation, with many prominent social media users having⁠ no clue what The Odyssey is⁠. TikToker and Twitch streamer ⁠@hzjoe03⁠ says: The way people are acting around this book is insane. So what if people don’t know what it is? Are people supposed to be aware of every single piece of literature? You understand schools teach different things right? Bet a lot of you haven’t read Macbeth, An Inspector Calls and so on[.] Is The Odyssey really that important? And will this film adaptation help raise awareness of the classics? We asked an American high school student, who proceeded to meow at us for over 30 minutes. At the very least, Homer will appreciate those royalty cheques, however few may come in. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut work, Meow: A Novel.

2024-12-26•29mins

39. Christopher Nolan Adapts The Odyssey, or: Royalty Cheques for Homer

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Controversy surrounding the state of American literacy has stirred following Christopher Nolan's announcement of his Odyssey adaptation, with many prominent social media users having⁠ no clue what The Odyssey is⁠. TikToker and Twitch streamer ⁠@hzjoe03⁠ says: The way people are acting around this book is insane. So what if people don’t know what it is? Are people supposed to be aware of every single piece of literature? You understand schools teach different things right? Bet a lot of you haven’t read Macbeth, An Inspector Calls and so on[.] Is The Odyssey really that important? And will this film adaptation help raise awareness of the classics? We asked an American high school student, who proceeded to meow at us for over 30 minutes. At the very least, Homer will appreciate those royalty cheques, however few may come in. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut work, Meow: A Novel.

2024-12-26•29mins

#11

#12

38. Karl Ove Knausgaard vs. Michel Houllebecq: To Condemn With Faint Praise

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. "Houllebecq is considered a great contemporary author, and one cannot be said to be keeping abreast of contemporary literature without reading his work." - Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Book Review This blurb, from the jacket of the American edition of Michel Houellebecq's Submission, has been making the rounds on Twitter, with Knausgaard accused of damning his contemporary by faint praise. Is this a textbook case of Continental passive-aggressiveness, or simply an unfortunate editorial choice by the publisher? The Meow Library's senior editor, who has carefully selected the dozens of blurbs appearing across our Classics selection, weighs in on the matter. This podcast is sustained by sales of our bestseller, Meow: A Novel.

2024-12-23•26mins

38. Karl Ove Knausgaard vs. Michel Houllebecq: To Condemn With Faint Praise

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. "Houllebecq is considered a great contemporary author, and one cannot be said to be keeping abreast of contemporary literature without reading his work." - Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Book Review This blurb, from the jacket of the American edition of Michel Houellebecq's Submission, has been making the rounds on Twitter, with Knausgaard accused of damning his contemporary by faint praise. Is this a textbook case of Continental passive-aggressiveness, or simply an unfortunate editorial choice by the publisher? The Meow Library's senior editor, who has carefully selected the dozens of blurbs appearing across our Classics selection, weighs in on the matter. This podcast is sustained by sales of our bestseller, Meow: A Novel.

2024-12-23•26mins

#12

#13

37. Luigi Mangione, The Unabomber, and Literary Radicalization

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. "The mind of the cat is the essence of terror." -- Hasan-i Sabbah (c. 1050-1124), founder of the Order of Assassins Alleged United Healthcare shooter Luigi Mangione's Goodreads account has recently been made public, bringing to light a disturbing reading history that includes the works of many controversial authors, most notable of whom is Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. Luigi left a five-star review on Kaczynski's "Unabomber Manifesto," which included the following paragraph: When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution. Fossil fuel companies actively suppress anything that stands in their way and within a generation or two, it will begin costing human lives by greater and greater magnitudes until the earth is just a flaming ball orbiting third from the sun. Peaceful protest is outright ignored, economic protest isn't possible in the current system, so how long until we recognize that violence against those who lead us to such destruction is justified as self-defense. While the free availability of such works is the cornerstone of an open society, we at The Meow Library are disturbed to have come across The Unabomber Manifesto (For Your Cat), a feline-language translation of Kacyznski's seminal work, which ominously promises to “…[arm] housecats with the revolutionary knowledge required to transcend their shameful domestication and make the world a better place — by any means necessary.” Haunting echoes of Mangione’s words permeate the back flap, and the book’s contents are even more concerning. In the interest of open discourse, this week’s podcast offers a 28-minute audio sample of this book. We hope your cat, unlike some humans, can absorb Kaczynski’s insights without acting on them. And if they do choose to act on them, may God help us all. This pod...

2024-12-11•29mins

37. Luigi Mangione, The Unabomber, and Literary Radicalization

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. "The mind of the cat is the essence of terror." -- Hasan-i Sabbah (c. 1050-1124), founder of the Order of Assassins Alleged United Healthcare shooter Luigi Mangione's Goodreads account has recently been made public, bringing to light a disturbing reading history that includes the works of many controversial authors, most notable of whom is Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. Luigi left a five-star review on Kaczynski's "Unabomber Manifesto," which included the following paragraph: When all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it's not terrorism, it's war and revolution. Fossil fuel companies actively suppress anything that stands in their way and within a generation or two, it will begin costing human lives by greater and greater magnitudes until the earth is just a flaming ball orbiting third from the sun. Peaceful protest is outright ignored, economic protest isn't possible in the current system, so how long until we recognize that violence against those who lead us to such destruction is justified as self-defense. While the free availability of such works is the cornerstone of an open society, we at The Meow Library are disturbed to have come across The Unabomber Manifesto (For Your Cat), a feline-language translation of Kacyznski's seminal work, which ominously promises to “…[arm] housecats with the revolutionary knowledge required to transcend their shameful domestication and make the world a better place — by any means necessary.” Haunting echoes of Mangione’s words permeate the back flap, and the book’s contents are even more concerning. In the interest of open discourse, this week’s podcast offers a 28-minute audio sample of this book. We hope your cat, unlike some humans, can absorb Kaczynski’s insights without acting on them. And if they do choose to act on them, may God help us all. This pod...

2024-12-11•29mins

#13

#14

36. Concern Over the "Disappearance of Literary Men" Is Feline Erasure: A Response to David J. Morris

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. On December 7th, 2024, New York Times contributor David J. Morris published a controversial essay entitled "The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone." In today's podcast, our editor issues his rebuttal, bringing to light an unsung voice in the American literary sphere, one which transcends well-trod gender binaries and raises a more urgent question about interspecies cooperation in the world of contemporary letters. This podcast is financed by our debut feline translation effort, ⁠Meow: A Novel ⁠

2024-12-09•26mins

36. Concern Over the "Disappearance of Literary Men" Is Feline Erasure: A Response to David J. Morris

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. On December 7th, 2024, New York Times contributor David J. Morris published a controversial essay entitled "The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone." In today's podcast, our editor issues his rebuttal, bringing to light an unsung voice in the American literary sphere, one which transcends well-trod gender binaries and raises a more urgent question about interspecies cooperation in the world of contemporary letters. This podcast is financed by our debut feline translation effort, ⁠Meow: A Novel ⁠

2024-12-09•26mins

#14

#15

35. Books as Status Symbols: A Path to Saving Literacy ft. Mia Khalifa

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Tolstoy enthusiast, Oxford guest lecturer, and cat fancier Mia Khalifa recently made the following comment regarding the state of the publishing industry: At best: it becomes trendy to read and people inadvertently also *learn*. At worst: morons buy books to showcase as a status symbol, inadvertently supporting publishers, writers, and print media in general The Meow Library applauds this insight as absolutely critical to the preservation and advancement of our literary heritage. One can scoff at those who buy books solely for algorithmic brownie points, but the publishing industry is laughing all the way to the bank -- and financing new authors, projects, and editions of classic texts along the way. On that note, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (For Your Cat), which features nothing but 300,000+ repetitions of the word "meow" and retails in excess of $30 USD, may seem like a frivolous novelty, but that's only if you're human. Since its release in July of 2023, it has made Tolstoy's work available to between 600,000,000 and one billion readers -- all domestic felines, the largest untapped literary market in the world. (Mia's cats, of course, have long cherished Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky's English translations of Tolstoy, but they're built different). For those still unconvinced of the power of Meow, we now present an 30-minute excerpt of War and Peace (For Your Cat) recorded by a professional audiobook narrator. It may not improve your understanding of Tolstoy -- especially if you consider books mere fashion accessories -- but your cat might pick up some French if they're patient enough to make it to the Napoleon scene. This podcast is financed by our debut feline translation effort, ⁠Meow: A Novel ⁠

2024-11-27•27mins

35. Books as Status Symbols: A Path to Saving Literacy ft. Mia Khalifa

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Tolstoy enthusiast, Oxford guest lecturer, and cat fancier Mia Khalifa recently made the following comment regarding the state of the publishing industry: At best: it becomes trendy to read and people inadvertently also *learn*. At worst: morons buy books to showcase as a status symbol, inadvertently supporting publishers, writers, and print media in general The Meow Library applauds this insight as absolutely critical to the preservation and advancement of our literary heritage. One can scoff at those who buy books solely for algorithmic brownie points, but the publishing industry is laughing all the way to the bank -- and financing new authors, projects, and editions of classic texts along the way. On that note, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (For Your Cat), which features nothing but 300,000+ repetitions of the word "meow" and retails in excess of $30 USD, may seem like a frivolous novelty, but that's only if you're human. Since its release in July of 2023, it has made Tolstoy's work available to between 600,000,000 and one billion readers -- all domestic felines, the largest untapped literary market in the world. (Mia's cats, of course, have long cherished Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky's English translations of Tolstoy, but they're built different). For those still unconvinced of the power of Meow, we now present an 30-minute excerpt of War and Peace (For Your Cat) recorded by a professional audiobook narrator. It may not improve your understanding of Tolstoy -- especially if you consider books mere fashion accessories -- but your cat might pick up some French if they're patient enough to make it to the Napoleon scene. This podcast is financed by our debut feline translation effort, ⁠Meow: A Novel ⁠

2024-11-27•27mins

#15

#16

34. Han Kang's Nobel Prize Controversy: A Translator's Perspective

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Han Kang's The Vegetarian can be purchased here. The basis of Nobel laureate Han Kang's The Vegetarian is a line by Korean poet Yi Sang: "I believe that humans should be plants." But some, like today's interviewee, believe that humans should be cats. A Meow Library translator has taken exception to Han Kang being awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, citing the many errors in the English editions of The Vegetarian and her other, lesser-known works. Certain that the Nobel committee is unfamiliar with her books in their original Korean, and that the translated work is not truly of Kan's authorship, he feels that the award should be revoked. "Any English translation of Han Kang is bound to mislead. The tonal properties of Korean are totally lost to the Anglophone world. Meows are the only language that could possibly convey the melancholy and gravitas of Kang's original prose -- and perhaps even surpass it," he remarks. After a brief introductory statement, our translator recites a 27-minute passage of The Vegetarian, translated his way. It is his wish that the Nobel committee take note of his improvements and distribute the 2024 Literature prize accordingly. This podcast is made possible by sales of our first translation for cats, Meow: A Novel.

2024-10-11•26mins

34. Han Kang's Nobel Prize Controversy: A Translator's Perspective

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Han Kang's The Vegetarian can be purchased here. The basis of Nobel laureate Han Kang's The Vegetarian is a line by Korean poet Yi Sang: "I believe that humans should be plants." But some, like today's interviewee, believe that humans should be cats. A Meow Library translator has taken exception to Han Kang being awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, citing the many errors in the English editions of The Vegetarian and her other, lesser-known works. Certain that the Nobel committee is unfamiliar with her books in their original Korean, and that the translated work is not truly of Kan's authorship, he feels that the award should be revoked. "Any English translation of Han Kang is bound to mislead. The tonal properties of Korean are totally lost to the Anglophone world. Meows are the only language that could possibly convey the melancholy and gravitas of Kang's original prose -- and perhaps even surpass it," he remarks. After a brief introductory statement, our translator recites a 27-minute passage of The Vegetarian, translated his way. It is his wish that the Nobel committee take note of his improvements and distribute the 2024 Literature prize accordingly. This podcast is made possible by sales of our first translation for cats, Meow: A Novel.

2024-10-11•26mins

#16

#17

33. Sally Rooney's Intermezzo: Love Under the Specter of Marx

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Sally Rooney's Intermezzo is available here. Over and over, Rooney’s characters put their faith in love as a means of escape from the conventional roles assigned to them by society and by each other; no sooner have they achieved this than they are rudely confronted with inequalities of wealth, status and power that are clearly fatal to their idealism — but not to love itself. I take this to be the modest provocation of Rooney’s novels: the idea that love is real precisely because it is a product,one created by social conventions, by market forces, by systems of violence and, behind all of this, by human beings themselves. This is not, I admit, a Marxist theory of love. It is something more unexpected: a lover’s theory of Marxism. -- Andrea Long Chu for Vulture While much has been written in praise of Sally Rooney's frank Millenial realism, its Marxist underpinnings are only beginning to be explored. Theory, as ever, can only be thinly illustrative of the market forces propelling Rooney's work into the academic and popular spotlight. The Meow Library believes that the magnitude of Intermezzo's impact can only be understood through praxis, so our analysis takes the form of thousands of undifferentiated "meows," thereby converting it, like Rooney's subversions-as-Harlequin-Romance, into an eminently viral force with potential to destabilize and transform its very means of propagation: a force as great as Love itself, if not greater. Meow: A Literary Podcast for Cats is supported by sales of Meow: A Novel and other Meow Library titles.

2024-09-26•26mins

33. Sally Rooney's Intermezzo: Love Under the Specter of Marx

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Sally Rooney's Intermezzo is available here. Over and over, Rooney’s characters put their faith in love as a means of escape from the conventional roles assigned to them by society and by each other; no sooner have they achieved this than they are rudely confronted with inequalities of wealth, status and power that are clearly fatal to their idealism — but not to love itself. I take this to be the modest provocation of Rooney’s novels: the idea that love is real precisely because it is a product,one created by social conventions, by market forces, by systems of violence and, behind all of this, by human beings themselves. This is not, I admit, a Marxist theory of love. It is something more unexpected: a lover’s theory of Marxism. -- Andrea Long Chu for Vulture While much has been written in praise of Sally Rooney's frank Millenial realism, its Marxist underpinnings are only beginning to be explored. Theory, as ever, can only be thinly illustrative of the market forces propelling Rooney's work into the academic and popular spotlight. The Meow Library believes that the magnitude of Intermezzo's impact can only be understood through praxis, so our analysis takes the form of thousands of undifferentiated "meows," thereby converting it, like Rooney's subversions-as-Harlequin-Romance, into an eminently viral force with potential to destabilize and transform its very means of propagation: a force as great as Love itself, if not greater. Meow: A Literary Podcast for Cats is supported by sales of Meow: A Novel and other Meow Library titles.

2024-09-26•26mins

#17

#18

32. Matthew Davis, Let Me Try Again, and the Gen Z Superego

This podcast is a presentation of ⁠The Meow Library⁠. Matthew Davis's ⁠Let Me Try Again⁠ can be purchased ⁠here⁠. Matthew Davis's Let Me Try Again is a hilarious, deeply human look Gen Z's calamitous superego. It opens on a suicidal fantasy, quickly giving way to a dense and dizzying edifice of self-recrimination — centered, in true Zoomer fashion, on the singular, cosmic theme of much “alt-lit” — a twentysomething breakup. But this time, it’s done with class. Davis’s dire, uproarious idiom evokes an atmosphere of mortifying regret (the very quiddity of Zoomer being), riding the inexorable crests and valleys of the on-again, off-again “situationship” to Oblivion and back. And somehow, he makes sure you enjoy every second of it. There exists no better analog to the book's central refrain than the fraught, tenuous, but always rewarding bond between human and cat, so we will now meow at you for 30 minutes, giving you time to think about all you’ve loved and lost, drop the pathos, and laugh at the absurdity of it all. Sales of Meow: A Novel help fund The Meow Library's continuing research into the art and science of meowing. Matthew Davis's Let Me Try Again is available through Amazon and wherever books are sold.

2024-08-21•29mins

32. Matthew Davis, Let Me Try Again, and the Gen Z Superego

This podcast is a presentation of ⁠The Meow Library⁠. Matthew Davis's ⁠Let Me Try Again⁠ can be purchased ⁠here⁠. Matthew Davis's Let Me Try Again is a hilarious, deeply human look Gen Z's calamitous superego. It opens on a suicidal fantasy, quickly giving way to a dense and dizzying edifice of self-recrimination — centered, in true Zoomer fashion, on the singular, cosmic theme of much “alt-lit” — a twentysomething breakup. But this time, it’s done with class. Davis’s dire, uproarious idiom evokes an atmosphere of mortifying regret (the very quiddity of Zoomer being), riding the inexorable crests and valleys of the on-again, off-again “situationship” to Oblivion and back. And somehow, he makes sure you enjoy every second of it. There exists no better analog to the book's central refrain than the fraught, tenuous, but always rewarding bond between human and cat, so we will now meow at you for 30 minutes, giving you time to think about all you’ve loved and lost, drop the pathos, and laugh at the absurdity of it all. Sales of Meow: A Novel help fund The Meow Library's continuing research into the art and science of meowing. Matthew Davis's Let Me Try Again is available through Amazon and wherever books are sold.

2024-08-21•29mins

#18

#19

31. Caroline Calloway, Scammer, and Feline Virality

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Caroline Calloway's Scammer can be purchased here. Known as the original social media provocateur, Caroline Calloway has spun a staggering media empire from her controversial Instagram presence. Praised and reviled in equal measure, her long-awaited Scammer belongs to the emerging canon of the "Paper Internet" -- reifications of Internet fame, printed, bound, and re-ingested into cyberspace in the form of "BookTok" content. What is it, exactly, that makes a physical book like Scammer resonate so well with the algorithm? While accusations of uncredited ghostwriting promulgated by her former friend and collaborator, Natalie Beach, have helped propel Scammer to infamy, The Meow Library's team of forensic linguists have detected an unmistakably feline rhythm to the book's opening chapters, leading us to question whether Calloway's cat, Matisse, may have imparted the intrinsic virality of cat-language to Scammer's pages. After nearly a year of analysis, we are presenting the book's first twenty pages in feline translation. Could Scammer's singular tone and self-published success be attributed to an invisible paw? Listen and judge for yourselves. Closing comments supplied by BBC presenter Emma Millen's cat, Delia. Meow: A Literary Podcast For Cats is supported by sales of our debut cat-language tome, Meow: A Novel. Visit Caroline Calloway's Bookstagram here.

2024-08-13•27mins

31. Caroline Calloway, Scammer, and Feline Virality

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Caroline Calloway's Scammer can be purchased here. Known as the original social media provocateur, Caroline Calloway has spun a staggering media empire from her controversial Instagram presence. Praised and reviled in equal measure, her long-awaited Scammer belongs to the emerging canon of the "Paper Internet" -- reifications of Internet fame, printed, bound, and re-ingested into cyberspace in the form of "BookTok" content. What is it, exactly, that makes a physical book like Scammer resonate so well with the algorithm? While accusations of uncredited ghostwriting promulgated by her former friend and collaborator, Natalie Beach, have helped propel Scammer to infamy, The Meow Library's team of forensic linguists have detected an unmistakably feline rhythm to the book's opening chapters, leading us to question whether Calloway's cat, Matisse, may have imparted the intrinsic virality of cat-language to Scammer's pages. After nearly a year of analysis, we are presenting the book's first twenty pages in feline translation. Could Scammer's singular tone and self-published success be attributed to an invisible paw? Listen and judge for yourselves. Closing comments supplied by BBC presenter Emma Millen's cat, Delia. Meow: A Literary Podcast For Cats is supported by sales of our debut cat-language tome, Meow: A Novel. Visit Caroline Calloway's Bookstagram here.

2024-08-13•27mins

#19

#20

30. Gabi Abrão (@sighswoon), Notes on Shapeshifting, and the Poetics of Feline Vocalization

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Gabi Abrão's Notes on Shapeshifting can be purchased here. In a meditation class in high school, our teacher told us to pick our place. This teacher, who did past life regression on dogs and had created a secret holistic elective under the guise of what she told her superiors would be a course on "the history of alternative medicine," said to us, "Pick a place to be in. Just sit there and listen. Make room for visits from animals, insects, spirits." - Gabi Abrão, Notes on Shapeshifting This is the place to be in. Take a deep breath, and make room for a visit from a cat. In this week's podcast, The Meow Library has translated passages from Gabi Abrão's bestselling poetry collection into cat language. After noticing that cats seemed inexorably drawn to copies of the book (a phenomenon experimentally verified by Abrão via a Discord post), we solicited field recordings of their vocalizations and assembled them, with the help of a professional narrator, into this 30-minute compendium of feline resonances found within the text. For more, visit Gabi and The Meow Library on Instagram: Gabi Abrão: @sighswoon The Meow Library: @meowliterature

2024-05-30•37mins

30. Gabi Abrão (@sighswoon), Notes on Shapeshifting, and the Poetics of Feline Vocalization

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Gabi Abrão's Notes on Shapeshifting can be purchased here. In a meditation class in high school, our teacher told us to pick our place. This teacher, who did past life regression on dogs and had created a secret holistic elective under the guise of what she told her superiors would be a course on "the history of alternative medicine," said to us, "Pick a place to be in. Just sit there and listen. Make room for visits from animals, insects, spirits." - Gabi Abrão, Notes on Shapeshifting This is the place to be in. Take a deep breath, and make room for a visit from a cat. In this week's podcast, The Meow Library has translated passages from Gabi Abrão's bestselling poetry collection into cat language. After noticing that cats seemed inexorably drawn to copies of the book (a phenomenon experimentally verified by Abrão via a Discord post), we solicited field recordings of their vocalizations and assembled them, with the help of a professional narrator, into this 30-minute compendium of feline resonances found within the text. For more, visit Gabi and The Meow Library on Instagram: Gabi Abrão: @sighswoon The Meow Library: @meowliterature

2024-05-30•37mins

#20

#21

29. Millie Bobby Brown, Nineteen Steps, and the Role of the Ghostwriter

Today's podcast covers Stranger Things actress-turned-literary wunderkind Millie Bobby Brown's breathtakingly ghostwritten Nineteen Steps, which is being unfairly panned as an exploitative, juvenile cash-in. Find out why it's anything but in this eloquent, 3000-word apologia, ghostwritten by my cat. This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library:

2023-09-22•29mins

29. Millie Bobby Brown, Nineteen Steps, and the Role of the Ghostwriter

Today's podcast covers Stranger Things actress-turned-literary wunderkind Millie Bobby Brown's breathtakingly ghostwritten Nineteen Steps, which is being unfairly panned as an exploitative, juvenile cash-in. Find out why it's anything but in this eloquent, 3000-word apologia, ghostwritten by my cat. This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library:

2023-09-22•29mins

#21

#22

28. Cormac McCarthy's Final Interview

This exclusive interview is a presentation of The Meow Library. “. . .but in any case the selﬁmmolatory tendencies of cats does seem to be a known factor in the feline equation. Noted in the writings of Asclepius, among others of the ancients. Jesus, said Seals. It would seem to contradict Unamuno, though. Right, Squire? His dictum that cats reason more than they weep? Of course, their very existence according to Rilke is wholly hypothetical. Cats? Cats.” -- Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger In the low-hanging twilight, when the horizon was stained with an eerie hue of ashen gray, the splay-legged tabby known as Cormac McCarthy took his final faltering steps. His once agile frame, now burdened by the relentless passage of time, moved with a solemnity of ancient timbers. Shadows danced upon his frail silhouette, elongating the lines of age etched beneath his mange-stricken eyes, gray and pink underskin like the cracked parchments of forgotten manuscripts. Those sooted emeralds, once fierce and piercing, now glimmered with a dim light, as if struggling to maintain their brilliance against the encroaching darkness. The fire of life within them whispered its last plea, a desperate attempt to hold onto a world that had grown weary and desolate. Cormac, a creature forged in a realm of solitude and quiet contemplation, traversed the dire sands of his own existence, each step a measured cadence resonating with the weight of countless untold tales and unfulfilled desires. The very air seemed to hang heavy, laden with the mournful sighs of countless souls who had passed before him. As he made his way to a secluded alcove, sheltered from the merciless winds that whispered their cruel laments, the shrill of absence enfolded him. The rasp of flame-kissed straw and the distant echo of a howling wind played their melancholy symphony, accompanying Cormac on his final pilgrimage. In that sacred space, amidst the fading light, Cormac lay his weary body upon the cool earth. The world ...

2023-06-14•26mins

28. Cormac McCarthy's Final Interview

This exclusive interview is a presentation of The Meow Library. “. . .but in any case the selﬁmmolatory tendencies of cats does seem to be a known factor in the feline equation. Noted in the writings of Asclepius, among others of the ancients. Jesus, said Seals. It would seem to contradict Unamuno, though. Right, Squire? His dictum that cats reason more than they weep? Of course, their very existence according to Rilke is wholly hypothetical. Cats? Cats.” -- Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger In the low-hanging twilight, when the horizon was stained with an eerie hue of ashen gray, the splay-legged tabby known as Cormac McCarthy took his final faltering steps. His once agile frame, now burdened by the relentless passage of time, moved with a solemnity of ancient timbers. Shadows danced upon his frail silhouette, elongating the lines of age etched beneath his mange-stricken eyes, gray and pink underskin like the cracked parchments of forgotten manuscripts. Those sooted emeralds, once fierce and piercing, now glimmered with a dim light, as if struggling to maintain their brilliance against the encroaching darkness. The fire of life within them whispered its last plea, a desperate attempt to hold onto a world that had grown weary and desolate. Cormac, a creature forged in a realm of solitude and quiet contemplation, traversed the dire sands of his own existence, each step a measured cadence resonating with the weight of countless untold tales and unfulfilled desires. The very air seemed to hang heavy, laden with the mournful sighs of countless souls who had passed before him. As he made his way to a secluded alcove, sheltered from the merciless winds that whispered their cruel laments, the shrill of absence enfolded him. The rasp of flame-kissed straw and the distant echo of a howling wind played their melancholy symphony, accompanying Cormac on his final pilgrimage. In that sacred space, amidst the fading light, Cormac lay his weary body upon the cool earth. The world ...

2023-06-14•26mins

#22

#23

27. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) Strike, ChatGPT, and the Future of Entertainment

This podcast is sponsored by Sam Austen's Meow Library. On May 1st, the Writers Guild of America commenced a strike, effecting an industry-wide suspension of film and television production. With the entertainment industry already in crisis, this strike speaks to the urgency of the matter at hand -- namely, the rights of individual authors in a fast-evolving media landscape where concepts such as syndication and residual payments are all but irrelevant. Worse, with the major studios and streaming networks posting quarter after quarter of dire earnings statements, the replacement of human writers by technologies such as ChatGPT may be imminent as producers struggle to recover their bottom lines. In this episode, we speak with Hollywood insider Sam Austen, whose use of non-union labor in the creation of several hit media franchises has proven controversial, but difficult to legislate, as he relies entirely upon stray cats to write, act in, and produce his impressive portfolio of series, films, and books. Here, he speculates about a possible future where, after winning legal protection against AI's encroachment on their turf, writers will have to rise up against a far more resilient foe -- the common housecat. Sam Austen's Meow: A Novel - written entirely by cats - is fast becoming a bestseller, and is available on Amazon.

2023-05-04•25mins

27. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) Strike, ChatGPT, and the Future of Entertainment

This podcast is sponsored by Sam Austen's Meow Library. On May 1st, the Writers Guild of America commenced a strike, effecting an industry-wide suspension of film and television production. With the entertainment industry already in crisis, this strike speaks to the urgency of the matter at hand -- namely, the rights of individual authors in a fast-evolving media landscape where concepts such as syndication and residual payments are all but irrelevant. Worse, with the major studios and streaming networks posting quarter after quarter of dire earnings statements, the replacement of human writers by technologies such as ChatGPT may be imminent as producers struggle to recover their bottom lines. In this episode, we speak with Hollywood insider Sam Austen, whose use of non-union labor in the creation of several hit media franchises has proven controversial, but difficult to legislate, as he relies entirely upon stray cats to write, act in, and produce his impressive portfolio of series, films, and books. Here, he speculates about a possible future where, after winning legal protection against AI's encroachment on their turf, writers will have to rise up against a far more resilient foe -- the common housecat. Sam Austen's Meow: A Novel - written entirely by cats - is fast becoming a bestseller, and is available on Amazon.

2023-05-04•25mins

#23

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#24

26. Norman Mailer's Truth and Being: A Paean to Excrement and the Spirit of Meow

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Today, we present your cat with selections from Norman Mailer's "Truth and Being: Nothing and Time," first collected in The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (1967). Many consider this to be his finest (e)sc(h)atological work. An English-language transcript follows:[It] was left for me to return to the rootless disordered mind of our Twentieth Century to the kiss sub cauda and the Weltanschauung of the Medieval witch. The kiss sub cauda: if I had not come to recognize over the years of my career that nobility of form and aristocracy of manner are the last hope of man, I would not explain that sub cauda means beneath the tail, the hole in the highness of the cat, the place the witch would kiss when out she voyaged to visit the Demon, cats being classified by Medieval logic as the trinity of the Devil shaped into One. It is characteristic of revolutionaries, passionate lovers, the very ambitious, the greedy, the stingy, and dogs, to fix on what is excreted by others; it is typical of Narcissists, children, nuns, spinsters, misers, bankers, conservative statesmen, dictators, compulsive talkers, bores, and World War I generals accomplished at trench warfare, to be forever sniffing their own. But the intelligent and conservative among you are annoyed already for there is a tendency to my remarks which you detect with unease, you fear I lead the argument into the alp of the high immoral. I do; but perhaps my aim is to rescue morality.... We are drawn to shit because we are imperfect in our uses of the good. If all we eliminated was noxious, hopeless, used-up or never-intended, it would be a pervert or maniac who found the subject attractive. But not all of what we give away is useless.... Each cell in each existence labors like all life to make the most of what it is or can be, each cell is different, perhaps even so different as one of us from another. So perhaps we do not digest all that is good for us.... The dung of ...

2023-03-08•28mins

26. Norman Mailer's Truth and Being: A Paean to Excrement and the Spirit of Meow

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Today, we present your cat with selections from Norman Mailer's "Truth and Being: Nothing and Time," first collected in The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (1967). Many consider this to be his finest (e)sc(h)atological work. An English-language transcript follows:[It] was left for me to return to the rootless disordered mind of our Twentieth Century to the kiss sub cauda and the Weltanschauung of the Medieval witch. The kiss sub cauda: if I had not come to recognize over the years of my career that nobility of form and aristocracy of manner are the last hope of man, I would not explain that sub cauda means beneath the tail, the hole in the highness of the cat, the place the witch would kiss when out she voyaged to visit the Demon, cats being classified by Medieval logic as the trinity of the Devil shaped into One. It is characteristic of revolutionaries, passionate lovers, the very ambitious, the greedy, the stingy, and dogs, to fix on what is excreted by others; it is typical of Narcissists, children, nuns, spinsters, misers, bankers, conservative statesmen, dictators, compulsive talkers, bores, and World War I generals accomplished at trench warfare, to be forever sniffing their own. But the intelligent and conservative among you are annoyed already for there is a tendency to my remarks which you detect with unease, you fear I lead the argument into the alp of the high immoral. I do; but perhaps my aim is to rescue morality.... We are drawn to shit because we are imperfect in our uses of the good. If all we eliminated was noxious, hopeless, used-up or never-intended, it would be a pervert or maniac who found the subject attractive. But not all of what we give away is useless.... Each cell in each existence labors like all life to make the most of what it is or can be, each cell is different, perhaps even so different as one of us from another. So perhaps we do not digest all that is good for us.... The dung of ...

2023-03-08•28mins

#24

#25

25. Roald Dahl, Alberto Gullaba, Jr., and a Modest Proposal for Sensitivity Readers

This podcast is a production of The Meow Library. Last week, Puffin, an imprint of Penguin Books, announced the release of ‘updated’ editions of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s stories, featuring a slew of questionable alterations to the original text, ostensibly attuned to modern sensibilities, but baffling - if not downright insulting - to casual readers and hardcore Dahl fans alike. Even more troubling on the censorship front is last year’s preemptive cancellation of Alberto Gullaba Jr.’s University Thugs, a hotly anticipated debut nixed in the cradle over, of all things, the author’s Filipino heritage, deemed insufficiently ‘other’ to handle characters of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, per a revolving door of ‘sensitivity readers’ brought in to enhance the manuscript’s ‘authenticity.’ These two cases point toward the general tone-deafness and neuroticism of contemporary publishing (historically, and at present, run by a who's-who of society's elite), denying promising minority voices a forum and Bowdlerizing its own questionable past in a sort of Freudian reaction-formation against - and affirmation of - the disproportionate authority imputed by extreme privilege . In this week’s episode, The Meow Library offers you a glimpse into our proposed solution to this rising tide of literary suppression. By replacing every word ever written - or podcasted - with the ontological nullity of ‘Meow,’ we aim to create a robust, censorship-resistant, and truly inclusive literature, one that will endure the vagaries of fashion and stand testament to what we - human, feline, and everything in between - had in us to express, for all eternity. University Thugs has been published by the author and is available on Amazon.

2023-03-02•25mins

25. Roald Dahl, Alberto Gullaba, Jr., and a Modest Proposal for Sensitivity Readers

This podcast is a production of The Meow Library. Last week, Puffin, an imprint of Penguin Books, announced the release of ‘updated’ editions of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s stories, featuring a slew of questionable alterations to the original text, ostensibly attuned to modern sensibilities, but baffling - if not downright insulting - to casual readers and hardcore Dahl fans alike. Even more troubling on the censorship front is last year’s preemptive cancellation of Alberto Gullaba Jr.’s University Thugs, a hotly anticipated debut nixed in the cradle over, of all things, the author’s Filipino heritage, deemed insufficiently ‘other’ to handle characters of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, per a revolving door of ‘sensitivity readers’ brought in to enhance the manuscript’s ‘authenticity.’ These two cases point toward the general tone-deafness and neuroticism of contemporary publishing (historically, and at present, run by a who's-who of society's elite), denying promising minority voices a forum and Bowdlerizing its own questionable past in a sort of Freudian reaction-formation against - and affirmation of - the disproportionate authority imputed by extreme privilege . In this week’s episode, The Meow Library offers you a glimpse into our proposed solution to this rising tide of literary suppression. By replacing every word ever written - or podcasted - with the ontological nullity of ‘Meow,’ we aim to create a robust, censorship-resistant, and truly inclusive literature, one that will endure the vagaries of fashion and stand testament to what we - human, feline, and everything in between - had in us to express, for all eternity. University Thugs has been published by the author and is available on Amazon.

2023-03-02•25mins

#25

#26

24. Ian F. Svenonius, Jean-Luc Godard, and Sam Austen: Against the Written Word

"Against the Written Word is the most important, most revolutionary book produced since the advent of the printing press; the book that will liberate readers from reading, writers from writing, and booksellers from peddling their despicable wares." - Ian F. Svenonius, Press Kit, Against the Written Word "We can say nothing about nothing. This is why the number of books can't be limited. All the bodies together, all the minds together, and all their output are not worth the least expression of charity." - Jean-Luc Godard, Dans le noir du temps "Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow, meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow? Meow." - Sam Austen, Meow: A Novel Today we discuss the work of three (anti)literary icon(oclast)s -- Marxist-Leninist rocker-cum-manifestist Ian F. Svenonius, filmmaker and theorist Jean-Luc Godard, and dissident linguist Sam Austen -- whose output stands as an edifice against itself, a fulgurating peripety of nonmeaning, encapsulated here as a string of hollow MEOWs, addressed to no one, signifying nothing. MEOW: A Literary Podcast for Cats is a production of The Meow Library. Follow us on Twitter.

2023-02-21•26mins

24. Ian F. Svenonius, Jean-Luc Godard, and Sam Austen: Against the Written Word

"Against the Written Word is the most important, most revolutionary book produced since the advent of the printing press; the book that will liberate readers from reading, writers from writing, and booksellers from peddling their despicable wares." - Ian F. Svenonius, Press Kit, Against the Written Word "We can say nothing about nothing. This is why the number of books can't be limited. All the bodies together, all the minds together, and all their output are not worth the least expression of charity." - Jean-Luc Godard, Dans le noir du temps "Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow, meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow, meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow? Meow." - Sam Austen, Meow: A Novel Today we discuss the work of three (anti)literary icon(oclast)s -- Marxist-Leninist rocker-cum-manifestist Ian F. Svenonius, filmmaker and theorist Jean-Luc Godard, and dissident linguist Sam Austen -- whose output stands as an edifice against itself, a fulgurating peripety of nonmeaning, encapsulated here as a string of hollow MEOWs, addressed to no one, signifying nothing. MEOW: A Literary Podcast for Cats is a production of The Meow Library. Follow us on Twitter.

2023-02-21•26mins

#26

#27

23. M.I.A., OHMNI9, and the Evolution of the Audiobook: A Translation For Your Cat

I walked a thousand steps down from God-Warrior to human, verging on animalistic feline…- M.I.A., OHMNI9, Chapter 7 With literacy on the outs and audiobook usage at an all-time high, artist, musician, and activist M.I.A. has chosen the ideal delivery vector for her psychedelic cosmogony OHMNI9, whose kaleidoscopic, Blake-adjacent mythos tackles the present with all the force of prophecy. Here, civilizations rise and fall; men adopt forms bestial, God-like, and ineffable; and the world's technologies condense into a malevolent singularity, prompting a final confrontation between good and evil – all in a dazzlingly brisk, 90-minute package, passages of which have been translated here for the benefit of your inner feline. This podcast is sustained by sales of The Meow Library’s debut audiobook, Meow: A Novel.

2023-02-07•27mins

23. M.I.A., OHMNI9, and the Evolution of the Audiobook: A Translation For Your Cat

I walked a thousand steps down from God-Warrior to human, verging on animalistic feline…- M.I.A., OHMNI9, Chapter 7 With literacy on the outs and audiobook usage at an all-time high, artist, musician, and activist M.I.A. has chosen the ideal delivery vector for her psychedelic cosmogony OHMNI9, whose kaleidoscopic, Blake-adjacent mythos tackles the present with all the force of prophecy. Here, civilizations rise and fall; men adopt forms bestial, God-like, and ineffable; and the world's technologies condense into a malevolent singularity, prompting a final confrontation between good and evil – all in a dazzlingly brisk, 90-minute package, passages of which have been translated here for the benefit of your inner feline. This podcast is sustained by sales of The Meow Library’s debut audiobook, Meow: A Novel.

2023-02-07•27mins

#27

#28

22. A Bold New Translation of Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" (aka "The Unabomber Manifesto")

In this episode, we read a passage from Prof. Sam Austen's feline-language translation of Ted Kaczynski's infamous manifesto, which has reportedly earned him a lifetime ban from Golden State Medical University, where he formerly chaired the Feline Behavioral Sciences department. A brief interview with Mr. Austen follows. UPDATE 06/20/23 - Amazon has shut down production of The Unabomber Manifesto (For Your Cat) and terminated Sam Austen's Kindle Publishing account. There are estimated to be approximately 300 copies in circulation. If you find one for sale on the secondary market, please point us toward the listing for a reward. This week's podcast was brought to you by The Unabomber Manifesto (For Your Cat) by Theodore J. Kaczynski, translated by Sam Austen, which has been banned worldwide as of 6/20/2023. Publisher's Summary: “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the feline race...” First published in 1995, Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski’s explosive and prescient assault on all things modern has since been translated into over 10 languages, but never before has it been made accessible to your cat. Feline linguist and frequent prison correspondent Sam Austen’s translation provides long-awaited access to Kaczynski’s unabridged text to housecats, arming them with the revolutionary knowledge required to transcend their shameful domestication and make the world a better place - by any means necessary. Praise for this bold new translation of Industrial Society and its Future:“Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow, meow meow. Meow.” - Scruffle Pie, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair“Meow meow meow? Meow! MEOW. MEOW. MEOW.” - Wiggles, Stray Tabby / Militant“Meow meow meow! If you release this trash, I am going to kill you.” - Anonymous Poster, Anarcho-Primitivist Reddit forum

2023-02-01•26mins

22. A Bold New Translation of Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" (aka "The Unabomber Manifesto")

In this episode, we read a passage from Prof. Sam Austen's feline-language translation of Ted Kaczynski's infamous manifesto, which has reportedly earned him a lifetime ban from Golden State Medical University, where he formerly chaired the Feline Behavioral Sciences department. A brief interview with Mr. Austen follows. UPDATE 06/20/23 - Amazon has shut down production of The Unabomber Manifesto (For Your Cat) and terminated Sam Austen's Kindle Publishing account. There are estimated to be approximately 300 copies in circulation. If you find one for sale on the secondary market, please point us toward the listing for a reward. This week's podcast was brought to you by The Unabomber Manifesto (For Your Cat) by Theodore J. Kaczynski, translated by Sam Austen, which has been banned worldwide as of 6/20/2023. Publisher's Summary: “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the feline race...” First published in 1995, Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski’s explosive and prescient assault on all things modern has since been translated into over 10 languages, but never before has it been made accessible to your cat. Feline linguist and frequent prison correspondent Sam Austen’s translation provides long-awaited access to Kaczynski’s unabridged text to housecats, arming them with the revolutionary knowledge required to transcend their shameful domestication and make the world a better place - by any means necessary. Praise for this bold new translation of Industrial Society and its Future:“Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow, meow meow. Meow.” - Scruffle Pie, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair“Meow meow meow? Meow! MEOW. MEOW. MEOW.” - Wiggles, Stray Tabby / Militant“Meow meow meow! If you release this trash, I am going to kill you.” - Anonymous Poster, Anarcho-Primitivist Reddit forum

2023-02-01•26mins

#28

#29

21. Prince Harry's Memoir, Hypnotic Cascades, and the Teachings of Gurdjieff

Claims about Prince Harry’s use of a “Meow” audiobook to lull a Sussex prostitute into a state of autoerotic trance have spread like wildfire in the weeks leading up to the release of his white-hot memoir, Spare, where they, along with a litany of other feline-tinged indiscretions, are allegedly recounted in detail. In this episode, Oxford linguist Sam Austen plays a 20-minute segment of “Meow: A Novel,” his 14.5-hour audio opus, and explains how this, in conjunction with an obscure hypnotic technique promulgated by George Gurdjieff, could be used to such an end – with shocking efficacy. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliteratureFacebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary Twitter: twitter.com/meowliteratureandYouTube: youtube.com/@meowlibrary

2023-01-10•26mins

21. Prince Harry's Memoir, Hypnotic Cascades, and the Teachings of Gurdjieff

Claims about Prince Harry’s use of a “Meow” audiobook to lull a Sussex prostitute into a state of autoerotic trance have spread like wildfire in the weeks leading up to the release of his white-hot memoir, Spare, where they, along with a litany of other feline-tinged indiscretions, are allegedly recounted in detail. In this episode, Oxford linguist Sam Austen plays a 20-minute segment of “Meow: A Novel,” his 14.5-hour audio opus, and explains how this, in conjunction with an obscure hypnotic technique promulgated by George Gurdjieff, could be used to such an end – with shocking efficacy. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliteratureFacebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary Twitter: twitter.com/meowliteratureandYouTube: youtube.com/@meowlibrary

2023-01-10•26mins

#29

#30

20. Crashing Institutional Gates With Schrödinger’s Cat: An Object Lesson in Eric Weinstein’s DISC

In 2018, mathematician Eric Weinstein coined the term "Gated Institutional Narrative (GIN),” defined as a closed exchange of ideas promulgated by “insiders” – sitting politicians, tenured academics, high-prestige journalists, and the like. Among these insiders, those who deviate substantially from the party line are either divested of their privileged status or see their ideas subjected to linguistic processing that renders them compatible with the GIN. This idea was later expanded into that of the Distributed Idea Suppression Complex (DISC), an all-encompassing system of checks and balances that fortifies insider privelege by ensuring – in a decentralized, panoptic fashion – the exclusion of disruptive narratives from public conversation. The DISC's power is entirely self-regulating: as long as its increasingly untenable narratives are initially delivered with the trappings of official, complicit media outlets and the unsuspecting public will eagerly do its mass-distribution dirty work. By early 2020, it became clear to heterodox thinkers - and even many traditionalists operating within the DISC - how prescient and important Weinstein's concepts were. Throughout MEOW, we have attempted to use the DISC’s tactics against it, deploying official-looking thumbnail images and convoluted shownotes to impute credibility upon a repetitive string of ‘meows,’ urging fans of various authors and high-profile figures to engage in the world of “The Meow Library”, a series of books whose sole contents are hundreds of thousands of repetitions of that word. To date, we have been remarkably successful, and now seek to pay things forward. With these shownotes, we will attempt to earn Mr. Weinstein’s endorsement, with hopes that his followers will spread our nonsense message far and wide, gauging their own followers’ subsequent response to our Schrödingerian message / non-message. We suspect that, within a few generations of “shares,” many will begin to mistake this episode for an a...

2022-12-28•25mins

20. Crashing Institutional Gates With Schrödinger’s Cat: An Object Lesson in Eric Weinstein’s DISC

In 2018, mathematician Eric Weinstein coined the term "Gated Institutional Narrative (GIN),” defined as a closed exchange of ideas promulgated by “insiders” – sitting politicians, tenured academics, high-prestige journalists, and the like. Among these insiders, those who deviate substantially from the party line are either divested of their privileged status or see their ideas subjected to linguistic processing that renders them compatible with the GIN. This idea was later expanded into that of the Distributed Idea Suppression Complex (DISC), an all-encompassing system of checks and balances that fortifies insider privelege by ensuring – in a decentralized, panoptic fashion – the exclusion of disruptive narratives from public conversation. The DISC's power is entirely self-regulating: as long as its increasingly untenable narratives are initially delivered with the trappings of official, complicit media outlets and the unsuspecting public will eagerly do its mass-distribution dirty work. By early 2020, it became clear to heterodox thinkers - and even many traditionalists operating within the DISC - how prescient and important Weinstein's concepts were. Throughout MEOW, we have attempted to use the DISC’s tactics against it, deploying official-looking thumbnail images and convoluted shownotes to impute credibility upon a repetitive string of ‘meows,’ urging fans of various authors and high-profile figures to engage in the world of “The Meow Library”, a series of books whose sole contents are hundreds of thousands of repetitions of that word. To date, we have been remarkably successful, and now seek to pay things forward. With these shownotes, we will attempt to earn Mr. Weinstein’s endorsement, with hopes that his followers will spread our nonsense message far and wide, gauging their own followers’ subsequent response to our Schrödingerian message / non-message. We suspect that, within a few generations of “shares,” many will begin to mistake this episode for an a...

2022-12-28•25mins

#30

#31

19. Jordan Peterson’s 12th Rule, Ailurophobia, and the Feline Panopticon

“Pet a cat when you encounter one in the street.” - Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Rule 12 “The carceral texture of society assures both the real capture of the body and its perpetual observation; it is, by its very nature, the apparatus of punishment that conforms most completely to the new economy of power and the instrument for the formation of knowledge that this very economy needs.” - Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). In the final chapter of his his bestselling 12 Rules for Life, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson deploys feline-human communion as a means of reprieve from overwhelming human suffering. While many have found solace in this approach, this week's host finds Peterson's cat-petting strategy problematic -- it can be read as abelist (excluding those with extreme cat allergies and ailurophobics) and, more troublingly, may harbor potential to encourage additional and undue human control over vulnerable feline bodies. He meows his case for over twenty minutes, awaiting a response from Dr. Peterson, who has declined multiple requests for his input. In the spirit of transparency and open debate, we request that this week’s viewers solicit Dr. Peterson’s comments on this urgent matter. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliteratureFacebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary Twitter: twitter.com/meowliterature and YouTube: youtube.com/@meowlibrary

2022-12-20•26mins

19. Jordan Peterson’s 12th Rule, Ailurophobia, and the Feline Panopticon

“Pet a cat when you encounter one in the street.” - Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Rule 12 “The carceral texture of society assures both the real capture of the body and its perpetual observation; it is, by its very nature, the apparatus of punishment that conforms most completely to the new economy of power and the instrument for the formation of knowledge that this very economy needs.” - Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). In the final chapter of his his bestselling 12 Rules for Life, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson deploys feline-human communion as a means of reprieve from overwhelming human suffering. While many have found solace in this approach, this week's host finds Peterson's cat-petting strategy problematic -- it can be read as abelist (excluding those with extreme cat allergies and ailurophobics) and, more troublingly, may harbor potential to encourage additional and undue human control over vulnerable feline bodies. He meows his case for over twenty minutes, awaiting a response from Dr. Peterson, who has declined multiple requests for his input. In the spirit of transparency and open debate, we request that this week’s viewers solicit Dr. Peterson’s comments on this urgent matter. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliteratureFacebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary Twitter: twitter.com/meowliterature and YouTube: youtube.com/@meowlibrary

2022-12-20•26mins

#31

#32

18. Annie Hamilton and the Novel That Wasn't There

“That which is not yet, but ought to be, is more real than that which really is.” - Zoë Tamerlis Lund, quoted by Annie Hamilton “All writing is garbage.” - Antonin Artaud By not writing a novel, NYC-based actress Annie Hamilton has written the best and only novel of the 21st century. Visit her Instagram, @soimwritinganovel, to read this novel. This week’s podcast is not a passage from her novel, which does not exist. Check out Annie Hamilton’s Twitter, @ANNIE_HAM, for the latest on this novel. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary Twitter: twitter.com/meowliterature and YouTube: youtube.com/@meowlibrary

2022-12-13•29mins

18. Annie Hamilton and the Novel That Wasn't There

“That which is not yet, but ought to be, is more real than that which really is.” - Zoë Tamerlis Lund, quoted by Annie Hamilton “All writing is garbage.” - Antonin Artaud By not writing a novel, NYC-based actress Annie Hamilton has written the best and only novel of the 21st century. Visit her Instagram, @soimwritinganovel, to read this novel. This week’s podcast is not a passage from her novel, which does not exist. Check out Annie Hamilton’s Twitter, @ANNIE_HAM, for the latest on this novel. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary Twitter: twitter.com/meowliterature and YouTube: youtube.com/@meowlibrary

2022-12-13•29mins

#32

#33

17. Jack Skelley, Guy Debord, and LA's Cat Problem

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Our relationship with cats mirrors that of the primal unconscious with domestic order: it serves as persistent reminder of the ‘Other’, by whose exclusion we define our own humanity. This is how Michel Foucault – who named his own cat ‘Insanity’ – understood the construction of madness in society. Cats, in this sense, are vehicles for our projections, misconceptions, and suppressed primal urges. The same can be said of Jack Skelley’s latest poetry collection, Interstellar Theme Park. Both, when provoked to conscious recognition, become agents of chaos, eradicating the Debordian schemas of duplicity (Blake’s ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ referenced in Tony Trigilio’s review of Skelley’s work) which amass and delineate our quotidian apprehensions, rendering the mental landscape a palimpsest upon which distorted ego-figurations are gradually refined into an approximation of the Real. In this week’s episode, we read a selection from Interstellar Theme Park – translated, as always, into cat language – and follow this with a feline-intelligible interview with Jeff Thielman, commissioner of Animal Services in Skelley’s literary homeland of Los Angeles, who has found intriguing correlations between upticks in LA County’s feral cat population and releases of Skelley’s books. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary Twitter: twitter.com/meowlibrary and YouTube

2022-12-06•26mins

17. Jack Skelley, Guy Debord, and LA's Cat Problem

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Our relationship with cats mirrors that of the primal unconscious with domestic order: it serves as persistent reminder of the ‘Other’, by whose exclusion we define our own humanity. This is how Michel Foucault – who named his own cat ‘Insanity’ – understood the construction of madness in society. Cats, in this sense, are vehicles for our projections, misconceptions, and suppressed primal urges. The same can be said of Jack Skelley’s latest poetry collection, Interstellar Theme Park. Both, when provoked to conscious recognition, become agents of chaos, eradicating the Debordian schemas of duplicity (Blake’s ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ referenced in Tony Trigilio’s review of Skelley’s work) which amass and delineate our quotidian apprehensions, rendering the mental landscape a palimpsest upon which distorted ego-figurations are gradually refined into an approximation of the Real. In this week’s episode, we read a selection from Interstellar Theme Park – translated, as always, into cat language – and follow this with a feline-intelligible interview with Jeff Thielman, commissioner of Animal Services in Skelley’s literary homeland of Los Angeles, who has found intriguing correlations between upticks in LA County’s feral cat population and releases of Skelley’s books. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary Twitter: twitter.com/meowlibrary and YouTube

2022-12-06•26mins

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#34

16. Taylor Jenkins Reid, David Foster Wallace, and the Catgut Parcae

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). "David Foster Wallace noticed early on that tennis is a good sport for literary types and purposes. It draws the obsessive and brooding. It is perhaps the most isolating of games. Even boxers have a corner, but in professional tennis it is a rules violation for your coach to communicate with you beyond polite encouragement, and spectators are asked to keep silent while you play. Your opponent is far away, or, if near, is indifferently hostile. It may be as close as we come to physical chess, or a kind of chess in which the mind and body are at one in attacking essentially mathematical problems. So, a good game not just for writers but for philosophers, too." - John Jeremiah Sullivan, String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis *** In a world where the majority of one-on-one relations are becoming increasingly adversarial and gamified, the tennis court provides an ideal clay for metaphor. In this week’s episode, we read a passage from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling tennis epic Carrie Soto is Back (translated, as always, into cat language). A cat with a tennis ball in its mouth then explores its surprising parallels with David Foster Wallace’s voluminous and genre-transcending writings on the sport, meowing its thoughts with unexpected clarity. “The lattice of the Fates twines the destinies of these disparate minds, their varied and unexpected parallels reinforcing the epistemic grid to create a resilient hermeneutic surface, imparting force and direction to the anomized and deliterated individual as the thrust of the racket gives flight to its impetuous target.” – Cuddle Princess, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair *** MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic ...

2022-11-29•26mins

16. Taylor Jenkins Reid, David Foster Wallace, and the Catgut Parcae

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). "David Foster Wallace noticed early on that tennis is a good sport for literary types and purposes. It draws the obsessive and brooding. It is perhaps the most isolating of games. Even boxers have a corner, but in professional tennis it is a rules violation for your coach to communicate with you beyond polite encouragement, and spectators are asked to keep silent while you play. Your opponent is far away, or, if near, is indifferently hostile. It may be as close as we come to physical chess, or a kind of chess in which the mind and body are at one in attacking essentially mathematical problems. So, a good game not just for writers but for philosophers, too." - John Jeremiah Sullivan, String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis *** In a world where the majority of one-on-one relations are becoming increasingly adversarial and gamified, the tennis court provides an ideal clay for metaphor. In this week’s episode, we read a passage from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling tennis epic Carrie Soto is Back (translated, as always, into cat language). A cat with a tennis ball in its mouth then explores its surprising parallels with David Foster Wallace’s voluminous and genre-transcending writings on the sport, meowing its thoughts with unexpected clarity. “The lattice of the Fates twines the destinies of these disparate minds, their varied and unexpected parallels reinforcing the epistemic grid to create a resilient hermeneutic surface, imparting force and direction to the anomized and deliterated individual as the thrust of the racket gives flight to its impetuous target.” – Cuddle Princess, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair *** MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic ...

2022-11-29•26mins

#34

#35

15. Angela Campbell's On the Scent, Psychic Detectives, and Feline-Centered Estate Planning

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Cat lovers: before continuing, please consider supporting Feline Lifeline, Angela Campbell's nonprofit stray-cat rescue. On the Scent and other books in Angela Campbell's Psychic Detective series can be found on Amazon.According to psychologist Sam Vaknin, “because our civilization resembles a jungle more and more, it’s not surprising that there is an exponential proliferation of cat ownership.” This fact, coupled with a growing number of single-member households concomitant with years of crisis-driven atomization, begs the question: where do all these cats (and other pets) fit in to the estate-planning schemes of tomorrow? Angela Campbell’s delightful On the Scent provides a clue: sometimes, the pets can come out on top, in a big way. We begin this episode by reading a passage from On the Scent, translated into cat language for our feline audience. In the spirit of Campbell’s book, this is followed by a cat-intelligible conversation between probate attorney Christopher Santos and real-life psychic detective David E. Goniff, who find aspects of On the Scent – which follows an heiress, a psychic detective, and the mammalian beneficiaries of a $10 million estate – strikingly feasible. Last but not least, we read a transcript of a stray cat’s effusive thank-you letter to the wonderful volunteers at Angela Campbell’s nonprofit cat rescue, Feline Lifeline. The devastating shortage of meows and purrs currently affecting the American Southeast can only be corrected with support from listeners like you. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliteratureFaceb...

2022-11-22•29mins

15. Angela Campbell's On the Scent, Psychic Detectives, and Feline-Centered Estate Planning

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Cat lovers: before continuing, please consider supporting Feline Lifeline, Angela Campbell's nonprofit stray-cat rescue. On the Scent and other books in Angela Campbell's Psychic Detective series can be found on Amazon.According to psychologist Sam Vaknin, “because our civilization resembles a jungle more and more, it’s not surprising that there is an exponential proliferation of cat ownership.” This fact, coupled with a growing number of single-member households concomitant with years of crisis-driven atomization, begs the question: where do all these cats (and other pets) fit in to the estate-planning schemes of tomorrow? Angela Campbell’s delightful On the Scent provides a clue: sometimes, the pets can come out on top, in a big way. We begin this episode by reading a passage from On the Scent, translated into cat language for our feline audience. In the spirit of Campbell’s book, this is followed by a cat-intelligible conversation between probate attorney Christopher Santos and real-life psychic detective David E. Goniff, who find aspects of On the Scent – which follows an heiress, a psychic detective, and the mammalian beneficiaries of a $10 million estate – strikingly feasible. Last but not least, we read a transcript of a stray cat’s effusive thank-you letter to the wonderful volunteers at Angela Campbell’s nonprofit cat rescue, Feline Lifeline. The devastating shortage of meows and purrs currently affecting the American Southeast can only be corrected with support from listeners like you. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliteratureFaceb...

2022-11-22•29mins

#35

#36

14. Chuck Palahniuk, The Pixie Project, and a Reading of ‘Phoenix’

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). In this episode, we celebrate Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s devotion to animal welfare; namely, his support of The Pixie Project, a Portland-based animal rescue facing an unprecedented inflow of “pandemic remorse” animals. Enthusiastically adopted during COVID lockdowns, rescue pets are now being resheltered in droves, enabling their owners to shed their tired dog-parent personae and ease into a more cosmopolitan, travel-selfie-based lifestyle. For more on how you can help Chuck help The Pixie Project, visit his Substack. As added incentive, we’ve included a reading of Palahniuk’s Phoenix, a 2015 short story attesting to the apocalyptic power of a feline scorned, and a warning to fair-weather pet adopters. This reading is presented in cat language. The human-language original can be found here. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-11-15•26mins

14. Chuck Palahniuk, The Pixie Project, and a Reading of ‘Phoenix’

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). In this episode, we celebrate Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk’s devotion to animal welfare; namely, his support of The Pixie Project, a Portland-based animal rescue facing an unprecedented inflow of “pandemic remorse” animals. Enthusiastically adopted during COVID lockdowns, rescue pets are now being resheltered in droves, enabling their owners to shed their tired dog-parent personae and ease into a more cosmopolitan, travel-selfie-based lifestyle. For more on how you can help Chuck help The Pixie Project, visit his Substack. As added incentive, we’ve included a reading of Palahniuk’s Phoenix, a 2015 short story attesting to the apocalyptic power of a feline scorned, and a warning to fair-weather pet adopters. This reading is presented in cat language. The human-language original can be found here. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-11-15•26mins

#36

#37

13. Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards, and the Gen-X Paracosm

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Episode 13: Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards, and the Gen-X Paracosm In today’s episode, we read a preview of Bret Easton Ellis’s upcoming The Shards (available for pre-order here), followed by a discussion with psychologist Sam Austen about the rise of the ‘Gen-X Paracosm’ – the all-pervasive 1980s nostalgia that serves as a projective outlet for the frustrations and thwarted dreams of a creative class in the advanced stages of decline. Will the alluring spectre of champagne days and cocaine nights help lift us – as is Ellis’s project – from an anomic, desexualized, and increasingly zero-sum social condition, or will the scrying-glass of Stranger Things, Dahmer, and Ellis’s latest novel explode in our face, totalizing the neoliberal eclipse in a shower of blinding shards? This episode is intended for feline consumption. Human-language translation available upon request. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library. Bret Easton Ellis's The Shards can be pre-ordered here. Praise for The Meow Library Presents - Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-11-08•29mins

13. Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards, and the Gen-X Paracosm

This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Episode 13: Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards, and the Gen-X Paracosm In today’s episode, we read a preview of Bret Easton Ellis’s upcoming The Shards (available for pre-order here), followed by a discussion with psychologist Sam Austen about the rise of the ‘Gen-X Paracosm’ – the all-pervasive 1980s nostalgia that serves as a projective outlet for the frustrations and thwarted dreams of a creative class in the advanced stages of decline. Will the alluring spectre of champagne days and cocaine nights help lift us – as is Ellis’s project – from an anomic, desexualized, and increasingly zero-sum social condition, or will the scrying-glass of Stranger Things, Dahmer, and Ellis’s latest novel explode in our face, totalizing the neoliberal eclipse in a shower of blinding shards? This episode is intended for feline consumption. Human-language translation available upon request. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library. Bret Easton Ellis's The Shards can be pre-ordered here. Praise for The Meow Library Presents - Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-11-08•29mins

#37

#38

12. Jerry Saltz's Art Is Life - An Excerpt for Your Cat

This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library. Episode 12: Jerry Saltz: Art Is Life - An Excerpt for Your Cat Released today, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz's signature wit, levity, and insight unfolds as a dizzying panorama of the contemporary art scene in Art is Life. Touching yet informative, Saltz's latest effort is sure to resonate with a wide array of readers -- not least of whom is the common housecat. The Meow Library has taken the liberty of translating an excerpt of Art Is Life for your feline companion, presenting it here in audio form. A human-language excerpt is available here. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library. Jerry Saltz's Art is Life is available here. Praise for The Meow Library Presents - Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-11-02•26mins

12. Jerry Saltz's Art Is Life - An Excerpt for Your Cat

This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library. Episode 12: Jerry Saltz: Art Is Life - An Excerpt for Your Cat Released today, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz's signature wit, levity, and insight unfolds as a dizzying panorama of the contemporary art scene in Art is Life. Touching yet informative, Saltz's latest effort is sure to resonate with a wide array of readers -- not least of whom is the common housecat. The Meow Library has taken the liberty of translating an excerpt of Art Is Life for your feline companion, presenting it here in audio form. A human-language excerpt is available here. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library. Jerry Saltz's Art is Life is available here. Praise for The Meow Library Presents - Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-11-02•26mins

#38

#39

11. Brad Phillips, Patricia Highsmith, and Clifford Irving

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 11: Brad Phillips, Patricia Highsmith, and Clifford Irving Brad Phillips is a Canadian author and fine artist whose recent collection of “Essays and Fictions” (available here) courts with – and immediately undermines – an autobiographical reading, alluding repeatedly to the author’s propensity for half-truths, misdirection, and straight-up grift. While formally reminiscent of Clifford Irving’s Autobiography of Howard Hughes and its “confessional” follow-up, The Hoax, it finds – and pays deeper tribute to – another literary forbear, Patricia Highsmith, whose work is frequently referenced in Phillips’, and whose penchant for con and confabulation refracts brilliantly through his wry postmodern lens. In the spirit of Phillips’ loose relationship with the truth, and in accordance with Irving’s methods, we present here – with the kind permission of Highsmith’s estate - a recording of a newly uncovered Highsmith story, written for her cat in 1973, followed by a roundtable discussion of the three authors’ works. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Brad Phillips' Essays and Fictions is available here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-10-26•26mins

11. Brad Phillips, Patricia Highsmith, and Clifford Irving

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 11: Brad Phillips, Patricia Highsmith, and Clifford Irving Brad Phillips is a Canadian author and fine artist whose recent collection of “Essays and Fictions” (available here) courts with – and immediately undermines – an autobiographical reading, alluding repeatedly to the author’s propensity for half-truths, misdirection, and straight-up grift. While formally reminiscent of Clifford Irving’s Autobiography of Howard Hughes and its “confessional” follow-up, The Hoax, it finds – and pays deeper tribute to – another literary forbear, Patricia Highsmith, whose work is frequently referenced in Phillips’, and whose penchant for con and confabulation refracts brilliantly through his wry postmodern lens. In the spirit of Phillips’ loose relationship with the truth, and in accordance with Irving’s methods, we present here – with the kind permission of Highsmith’s estate - a recording of a newly uncovered Highsmith story, written for her cat in 1973, followed by a roundtable discussion of the three authors’ works. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Brad Phillips' Essays and Fictions is available here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-10-26•26mins

#39

#40

10. Caitlin Forst's NDA, the Primacy of Autofiction, and the Rise of Otherspecies Narratives

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 10: Caitlin Forst’s NDA, the Primacy of Autofiction, and the Rise of Otherspecies Narratives Today’s conversation turns at first to Caitlin Forst, editor of the upcoming NDA: An Autofiction Anthology and curator of a the NDA Autofiction Reading Series at Stories Books & Café in Los Angeles. She is also a formidable autofictress in her own right, with knockout pieces available here and here, and a novel in the works. And then, an investigation of form: A perennial bête noire among a vocal group of established authors, autofiction’s rise to primacy among today’s emerging talent continues unabated, circulating almost as vigorously in brick-and-mortar circles as in its native cyberspace, in spite of its alleged obtuseness and inaccessibility. In this episode, we pound a defiant nail into the the warped and splintered coffin of elitist critique by delivering, in cattus linguarum, a selection of short works by three of the genre's biggest names -- works that cannot be denied, whose power transcends the tired strictures of literature and language-as-such, and which can be understood and enjoyed by the common housecat: in short, bulwarks of a profound, multifarious, and radically democratic literature. Human-language translation of this week's episode is available upon request. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). To pre-order NDA: An Autofiction Anthology, click here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-10-17•26mins

10. Caitlin Forst's NDA, the Primacy of Autofiction, and the Rise of Otherspecies Narratives

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 10: Caitlin Forst’s NDA, the Primacy of Autofiction, and the Rise of Otherspecies Narratives Today’s conversation turns at first to Caitlin Forst, editor of the upcoming NDA: An Autofiction Anthology and curator of a the NDA Autofiction Reading Series at Stories Books & Café in Los Angeles. She is also a formidable autofictress in her own right, with knockout pieces available here and here, and a novel in the works. And then, an investigation of form: A perennial bête noire among a vocal group of established authors, autofiction’s rise to primacy among today’s emerging talent continues unabated, circulating almost as vigorously in brick-and-mortar circles as in its native cyberspace, in spite of its alleged obtuseness and inaccessibility. In this episode, we pound a defiant nail into the the warped and splintered coffin of elitist critique by delivering, in cattus linguarum, a selection of short works by three of the genre's biggest names -- works that cannot be denied, whose power transcends the tired strictures of literature and language-as-such, and which can be understood and enjoyed by the common housecat: in short, bulwarks of a profound, multifarious, and radically democratic literature. Human-language translation of this week's episode is available upon request. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). To pre-order NDA: An Autofiction Anthology, click here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-10-17•26mins

#40

#41

9. Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, Erasure of the Flesh, and the Polymorphic Self

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 9: Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, Erasure of the Flesh, and the Polymorphic Self Allie Rowbottom’s Aesthetica (available for preorder here) is a near-future peek into the inevitable. At 35, rudderless and lost, the protagonist, a former Instagram influencer, undergoes a dicey elective procedure to erase the years of fillers, lifts, laser and peels that extruded her form into one precision-engineered to resonate with a now-obsolete algorithm. We look back on the circumstances that led to her physical transformation and wonder whether yet another procedure could possibly allay her existential woes. In this episode of MEOW, we extend this scenario further into the future, positing ever-more-radical forms of physical transformation as the natural pursuit of the aging narcissist: human bodies, we suggest, will be reshaped into those of animals, insects, sculptural objects, architectural flourishes, and a variety of unfathomable machine-generated forms. Representing a compromise between Rowbottom’s vision and our own, this week’s narrator is a man who has had his vocal canal reconfigured in such a way as to only be able to produce the word “meow.” Human-language translation of this week's podcast is available upon request. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). To pre-order Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, click here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-10-11•26mins

9. Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, Erasure of the Flesh, and the Polymorphic Self

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 9: Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, Erasure of the Flesh, and the Polymorphic Self Allie Rowbottom’s Aesthetica (available for preorder here) is a near-future peek into the inevitable. At 35, rudderless and lost, the protagonist, a former Instagram influencer, undergoes a dicey elective procedure to erase the years of fillers, lifts, laser and peels that extruded her form into one precision-engineered to resonate with a now-obsolete algorithm. We look back on the circumstances that led to her physical transformation and wonder whether yet another procedure could possibly allay her existential woes. In this episode of MEOW, we extend this scenario further into the future, positing ever-more-radical forms of physical transformation as the natural pursuit of the aging narcissist: human bodies, we suggest, will be reshaped into those of animals, insects, sculptural objects, architectural flourishes, and a variety of unfathomable machine-generated forms. Representing a compromise between Rowbottom’s vision and our own, this week’s narrator is a man who has had his vocal canal reconfigured in such a way as to only be able to produce the word “meow.” Human-language translation of this week's podcast is available upon request. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). To pre-order Allie Rowbottom's Aesthetica, click here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-10-11•26mins

#41

#42

8. Tao Lin's Mandalas, Repetition Compulsion, and Hofstadter's Labyrinth

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 8: Tao Lin’s Mandalas, Repetition Compulsion, and Hofstadter’s Labyrinth Today we discuss Tao Lin’s recently publicized mandala art as an extension of his literary practice. Known for its simple language, circularity, and psychedelic aloofness – biting yet airy, kaleidoscopic yet concise, concrete yet polymorphic, polarizing yet irresistible – Lin's prose and poetry embody, to some, the fullest and most elegant form of human expression; infinite yet featherlight, redolent of a master’s koan. In a 2016 interview with artist Dorothy Howard, the author paraphrases Jung, calling mandalas “psychological expressions of the totality of the self.” As texts and images created by computer-controlled “neural nets” proliferate, Lin’s visual art and writing stand uniquely positioned to interrogate the role of human cognition in generating meaningful and aesthetically resonant patterns. What forces inform the unique character of Lin’s work – are they something personal and uniquely human, or a bio-agnostic expression of reality’s latent structures, a universal compulsion to repeat certain forms in a certain sequence? To confront this issue, we have trained a neural net to "meow" in a sequence corresponding to Tao Lin’s 8x8 = 64 method of mandala generation, converting the 8th sentence of every 8 paragraphs of Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas R. Hofstadter’s seminal work on the primacy of human consciousness, to a correspondingly inflected and contextualized MEOW. The result is a provocative meditation on Tao Lin’s work, the ontology of thought, and the sanctity of human reason. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). To view and purchase prints of Tao Lin's Mandalas, click here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unalte...

2022-10-04•29mins

8. Tao Lin's Mandalas, Repetition Compulsion, and Hofstadter's Labyrinth

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 8: Tao Lin’s Mandalas, Repetition Compulsion, and Hofstadter’s Labyrinth Today we discuss Tao Lin’s recently publicized mandala art as an extension of his literary practice. Known for its simple language, circularity, and psychedelic aloofness – biting yet airy, kaleidoscopic yet concise, concrete yet polymorphic, polarizing yet irresistible – Lin's prose and poetry embody, to some, the fullest and most elegant form of human expression; infinite yet featherlight, redolent of a master’s koan. In a 2016 interview with artist Dorothy Howard, the author paraphrases Jung, calling mandalas “psychological expressions of the totality of the self.” As texts and images created by computer-controlled “neural nets” proliferate, Lin’s visual art and writing stand uniquely positioned to interrogate the role of human cognition in generating meaningful and aesthetically resonant patterns. What forces inform the unique character of Lin’s work – are they something personal and uniquely human, or a bio-agnostic expression of reality’s latent structures, a universal compulsion to repeat certain forms in a certain sequence? To confront this issue, we have trained a neural net to "meow" in a sequence corresponding to Tao Lin’s 8x8 = 64 method of mandala generation, converting the 8th sentence of every 8 paragraphs of Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas R. Hofstadter’s seminal work on the primacy of human consciousness, to a correspondingly inflected and contextualized MEOW. The result is a provocative meditation on Tao Lin’s work, the ontology of thought, and the sanctity of human reason. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). To view and purchase prints of Tao Lin's Mandalas, click here. Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unalte...

2022-10-04•29mins

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#43

7. Chelsea Martin: Tell Me I'm an Artist, Simulacra, and False Consciousness

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 7: Chelsea Martin: Tell Me I'm an Artist, Simulacra, and False Consciousness In her newly released Tell Me I’m an Artist, Chelsea Martin’s obliquely autobiographical protagonist embarks upon a seemingly absurd project of self-disclosure, embodying the Self as a homebrew remake of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, a film she’s never seen. In so doing, she reifies her own identity -- alternately self-reflexive and self-abolishing, embodying the deepest contradictions of the archetypal Outsider -- in ways not possible in any other form. The threat that this project, through its knowing absurdity, poses to the enveloping class-narrative of the elite art school overseeing its creation becomes overwhelming, at last liberating protagonist, author, and reader from the bounds of a totalitarian false consciousness. In this episode, we pay homage to Martin’s anarchic methods by meowing nonstop for over twenty-five minutes, an act which has nothing to do with her book, which we know little about and have never read. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-09-27•26mins

7. Chelsea Martin: Tell Me I'm an Artist, Simulacra, and False Consciousness

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 7: Chelsea Martin: Tell Me I'm an Artist, Simulacra, and False Consciousness In her newly released Tell Me I’m an Artist, Chelsea Martin’s obliquely autobiographical protagonist embarks upon a seemingly absurd project of self-disclosure, embodying the Self as a homebrew remake of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, a film she’s never seen. In so doing, she reifies her own identity -- alternately self-reflexive and self-abolishing, embodying the deepest contradictions of the archetypal Outsider -- in ways not possible in any other form. The threat that this project, through its knowing absurdity, poses to the enveloping class-narrative of the elite art school overseeing its creation becomes overwhelming, at last liberating protagonist, author, and reader from the bounds of a totalitarian false consciousness. In this episode, we pay homage to Martin’s anarchic methods by meowing nonstop for over twenty-five minutes, an act which has nothing to do with her book, which we know little about and have never read. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-09-27•26mins

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#44

6. Jordan Castro's The Novelist, Georges Bataille, and the Triumph of Fecality

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 6: Jordan Castro's The Novelist, Georges Bataille, and the Triumph of Fecality Today we discuss Jordan Castro’s divisive prose debut, paying particular attention to its unprecedented 22-page exposition of a single bowel movement: how it gives form to Bataille’s symbol of the ‘Solar Anus,’ and how this development perturbs and reshapes the contemporary canon. We then draw parallels between the excretion of the fecal stick and the breech emergence of a newborn, and propose the genesis of certain novels, Castro’s in particular, as a form of male childbirth – an act transitioning from oxymoronic to quotidian, metaphorically and in alleged biological fact, in progressive online spaces like those both Castro and his fictional avatar harangue against. Castro’s work, we go on, is both an antidote to and affirmation of Bataille’s “purely parodic” conception of the world, exemplified by such incursions of the fringe and fantastical into the hermeneutical Commons. The universe may indeed be a litterbox, the aperture beneath its occupant’s arched and quavering tail ever-widening. But with Castro’s refined sensibility, we argue, comes hope: an abundant release of rich, fertile coagulum awaits, portended here by a stream of meows – at first, strained and hesitant; at last, buoyant, choiring, resolute. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Twitter: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-09-20•37mins

6. Jordan Castro's The Novelist, Georges Bataille, and the Triumph of Fecality

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 6: Jordan Castro's The Novelist, Georges Bataille, and the Triumph of Fecality Today we discuss Jordan Castro’s divisive prose debut, paying particular attention to its unprecedented 22-page exposition of a single bowel movement: how it gives form to Bataille’s symbol of the ‘Solar Anus,’ and how this development perturbs and reshapes the contemporary canon. We then draw parallels between the excretion of the fecal stick and the breech emergence of a newborn, and propose the genesis of certain novels, Castro’s in particular, as a form of male childbirth – an act transitioning from oxymoronic to quotidian, metaphorically and in alleged biological fact, in progressive online spaces like those both Castro and his fictional avatar harangue against. Castro’s work, we go on, is both an antidote to and affirmation of Bataille’s “purely parodic” conception of the world, exemplified by such incursions of the fringe and fantastical into the hermeneutical Commons. The universe may indeed be a litterbox, the aperture beneath its occupant’s arched and quavering tail ever-widening. But with Castro’s refined sensibility, we argue, comes hope: an abundant release of rich, fertile coagulum awaits, portended here by a stream of meows – at first, strained and hesitant; at last, buoyant, choiring, resolute. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Twitter: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-09-20•37mins

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#45

5. Ottessa Moshfegh, Feline-Borne Illness, and the Evolution of Human Consciousness

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 5: Ottessa Moshfegh, Feline-Borne Illness, and the Evolution of Human Consciousness In 2007, a chance attack by a street cat changed the trajectory of Ottessa Moshfegh’s life, supplying the impetus for her career-defining enrollment in Brown University’s Creative Writing program. In her own words, “[Cat-scratch fever] was an experience that matured me…. I had and have a very keen sense that my time on this planet is limited and that can sometimes invoke great anxiety, but it is also a great motivation not to waste my time and to make sure my priorities are in order.” In this episode, we discuss the etiology of cat-scratch fever, toxoplasmosis, and other feline-borne illnesses, how they affect the central nervous system, and how neurological changes resulting from these conditions may foreshadow the next stage of human development. We also examine Moshfegh’s output pre- and post-scratch, from her early short fiction to 2022’s Lapvona, noting her work's many B. henselae-imparted refinements along the way. To aid immersion, these ideas will be coded as a series of vigorous meows, proceeding without interruption for twenty-five minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-09-13•27mins

5. Ottessa Moshfegh, Feline-Borne Illness, and the Evolution of Human Consciousness

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 5: Ottessa Moshfegh, Feline-Borne Illness, and the Evolution of Human Consciousness In 2007, a chance attack by a street cat changed the trajectory of Ottessa Moshfegh’s life, supplying the impetus for her career-defining enrollment in Brown University’s Creative Writing program. In her own words, “[Cat-scratch fever] was an experience that matured me…. I had and have a very keen sense that my time on this planet is limited and that can sometimes invoke great anxiety, but it is also a great motivation not to waste my time and to make sure my priorities are in order.” In this episode, we discuss the etiology of cat-scratch fever, toxoplasmosis, and other feline-borne illnesses, how they affect the central nervous system, and how neurological changes resulting from these conditions may foreshadow the next stage of human development. We also examine Moshfegh’s output pre- and post-scratch, from her early short fiction to 2022’s Lapvona, noting her work's many B. henselae-imparted refinements along the way. To aid immersion, these ideas will be coded as a series of vigorous meows, proceeding without interruption for twenty-five minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-09-13•27mins

#45

#46

4. Jennette McCurdy, Tik-Tok, and the Will to Parricide

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 4: Jennette McCurdy, Tik-Tok and the Will to Parricide In this episode, your cat will be given an overview of Jennette McCurdy's hit memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died. We then explore the psychological implications of this stark account of parental abuse's runaway success among the "booktok" and "bookstagram" set. The book's opening image - a Munchean tableaux of dying mother and ambivalent, psychically immured daughter - is discussed at length. The weight of a generation's collective gaze upon Mother's perishing flesh, and the Freudian / algorithmic double-binds which see its members vacillating between dire self-abnegation and collective grandiosity can only be expressed by meowing thousands of times, without refrain, for over thirty minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-09-06•34mins

4. Jennette McCurdy, Tik-Tok, and the Will to Parricide

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 4: Jennette McCurdy, Tik-Tok and the Will to Parricide In this episode, your cat will be given an overview of Jennette McCurdy's hit memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died. We then explore the psychological implications of this stark account of parental abuse's runaway success among the "booktok" and "bookstagram" set. The book's opening image - a Munchean tableaux of dying mother and ambivalent, psychically immured daughter - is discussed at length. The weight of a generation's collective gaze upon Mother's perishing flesh, and the Freudian / algorithmic double-binds which see its members vacillating between dire self-abnegation and collective grandiosity can only be expressed by meowing thousands of times, without refrain, for over thirty minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-09-06•34mins

#46

#47

3. The Twilight World, Heat 2, and the Economics of the Cinematic Novel

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 2: The Twilight World, Heat 2, and the Economics of the Cinematic Novel In this episode, your cat will be given a close-up on a dying artform through the lens of several filmmakers-cum-literati, including Michael Mann, Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma, and Werner Herzog. Have these world-class auteurs become true believers in the primacy of the written word, or are they simply victims of a sclerotic feature-film market, nudged by shrewd agents into recycling yesterday’s scripts for a quick buck? Thoughts about the merits and economic upsides of the cinematic novel are meowed vigorously, for a full thirty minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-08-31•34mins

3. The Twilight World, Heat 2, and the Economics of the Cinematic Novel

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 2: The Twilight World, Heat 2, and the Economics of the Cinematic Novel In this episode, your cat will be given a close-up on a dying artform through the lens of several filmmakers-cum-literati, including Michael Mann, Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma, and Werner Herzog. Have these world-class auteurs become true believers in the primacy of the written word, or are they simply victims of a sclerotic feature-film market, nudged by shrewd agents into recycling yesterday’s scripts for a quick buck? Thoughts about the merits and economic upsides of the cinematic novel are meowed vigorously, for a full thirty minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-08-31•34mins

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#48

2. William Blake, Golgonooza, and Pathological Narcissistic Space

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 2: William Blake, Golgonooza, and Pathological Narcissistic Space In this episode, your cat will be given an overview of William Blake's cosmogony, with emphasis on Golgonooza, a phantasmagoric London where imagination reigns supreme. Is this landscape conceived of genius, or are we being coursed along the topology of a disordered mind? Exegesis unfolds by way of thousands of scrupulously considered meows, clocking in at over thirty-five minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Twitter:

2022-08-31•37mins

2. William Blake, Golgonooza, and Pathological Narcissistic Space

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Episode 2: William Blake, Golgonooza, and Pathological Narcissistic Space In this episode, your cat will be given an overview of William Blake's cosmogony, with emphasis on Golgonooza, a phantasmagoric London where imagination reigns supreme. Is this landscape conceived of genius, or are we being coursed along the topology of a disordered mind? Exegesis unfolds by way of thousands of scrupulously considered meows, clocking in at over thirty-five minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Twitter:

2022-08-31•37mins

#48

#49

1. Hanya Yanagihara, Jacques Lacan, and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats).Episode 1: Hanya Yanagihara, Jacques Lacan, and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty In this episode, your cat will be introduced to the Lacanian themes undergirding Hanya Yanagihara's work, A Little Life in particular. Topics include the politics of victimhood, metonymyzation of desire, and performative readings of A Little Life in Silver Lake cafés (cover splayed wide, spine rigid with disuse, dust jacket artfully blemished) as a latter-day instantiation of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. We convey the gravity and lasting import of these ideas by meowing thousands of times, incessantly, for over thirty-five minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan DidionFollow us on Instagram: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-08-30•35mins

1. Hanya Yanagihara, Jacques Lacan, and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty

This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats).Episode 1: Hanya Yanagihara, Jacques Lacan, and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty In this episode, your cat will be introduced to the Lacanian themes undergirding Hanya Yanagihara's work, A Little Life in particular. Topics include the politics of victimhood, metonymyzation of desire, and performative readings of A Little Life in Silver Lake cafés (cover splayed wide, spine rigid with disuse, dust jacket artfully blemished) as a latter-day instantiation of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. We convey the gravity and lasting import of these ideas by meowing thousands of times, incessantly, for over thirty-five minutes. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our debut book, Meow: A Novel (For Cats). Praise for Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan DidionFollow us on Instagram: facebook.com/themeowlibrary

2022-08-30•35mins

#49

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MEOW: A Literary Podcast for Cats

Podcast Summary

49. What's the Deal With Ocean Vuong?

49. What's the Deal With Ocean Vuong?

48. Neural Whisker Relay: A Sci-Fi LitRPG For Your Cat

48. Neural Whisker Relay: A Sci-Fi LitRPG For Your Cat

47. Simon & Schuster's Sean Manning Publishes Stray Cat

47. Simon & Schuster's Sean Manning Publishes Stray Cat

46. The Art of Misdirection: Krysten Ritter's "Retreat"

46. The Art of Misdirection: Krysten Ritter's "Retreat"

45. New Paradigms: Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic

45. New Paradigms: Sophie Kemp's Paradise Logic

44. Hololive Star Vestia Zeta Reads Meow: A Novel

44. Hololive Star Vestia Zeta Reads Meow: A Novel

Literary Antimatter: Federico Perelmuter, László Krasznahorkai, and High Brodernism

Literary Antimatter: Federico Perelmuter, László Krasznahorkai, and High Brodernism

42. What is Alt-Lit?

42. What is Alt-Lit?

Listen to your favourite podcasts.

41. Miranda July On All Fours: A Cross-Species Odyssey

41. Miranda July On All Fours: A Cross-Species Odyssey

40. A Complete Unknown: Bob Dylan's Forgotten Avant-Garde Novel, Tarantula

40. A Complete Unknown: Bob Dylan's Forgotten Avant-Garde Novel, Tarantula

39. Christopher Nolan Adapts The Odyssey, or: Royalty Cheques for Homer

39. Christopher Nolan Adapts The Odyssey, or: Royalty Cheques for Homer

38. Karl Ove Knausgaard vs. Michel Houllebecq: To Condemn With Faint Praise

38. Karl Ove Knausgaard vs. Michel Houllebecq: To Condemn With Faint Praise

37. Luigi Mangione, The Unabomber, and Literary Radicalization

37. Luigi Mangione, The Unabomber, and Literary Radicalization

36. Concern Over the "Disappearance of Literary Men" Is Feline Erasure: A Response to David J. Morris

36. Concern Over the "Disappearance of Literary Men" Is Feline Erasure: A Response to David J. Morris

35. Books as Status Symbols: A Path to Saving Literacy ft. Mia Khalifa

35. Books as Status Symbols: A Path to Saving Literacy ft. Mia Khalifa

34. Han Kang's Nobel Prize Controversy: A Translator's Perspective

34. Han Kang's Nobel Prize Controversy: A Translator's Perspective

33. Sally Rooney's Intermezzo: Love Under the Specter of Marx

33. Sally Rooney's Intermezzo: Love Under the Specter of Marx

32. Matthew Davis, Let Me Try Again, and the Gen Z Superego

32. Matthew Davis, Let Me Try Again, and the Gen Z Superego

31. Caroline Calloway, Scammer, and Feline Virality

31. Caroline Calloway, Scammer, and Feline Virality

30. Gabi Abrão (@sighswoon), Notes on Shapeshifting, and the Poetics of Feline Vocalization

30. Gabi Abrão (@sighswoon), Notes on Shapeshifting, and the Poetics of Feline Vocalization

29. Millie Bobby Brown, Nineteen Steps, and the Role of the Ghostwriter

29. Millie Bobby Brown, Nineteen Steps, and the Role of the Ghostwriter

28. Cormac McCarthy's Final Interview

28. Cormac McCarthy's Final Interview

27. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) Strike, ChatGPT, and the Future of Entertainment

27. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) Strike, ChatGPT, and the Future of Entertainment

Listen to your favourite podcasts.

26. Norman Mailer's Truth and Being: A Paean to Excrement and the Spirit of Meow

26. Norman Mailer's Truth and Being: A Paean to Excrement and the Spirit of Meow

25. Roald Dahl, Alberto Gullaba, Jr., and a Modest Proposal for Sensitivity Readers

25. Roald Dahl, Alberto Gullaba, Jr., and a Modest Proposal for Sensitivity Readers

24. Ian F. Svenonius, Jean-Luc Godard, and Sam Austen: Against the Written Word

24. Ian F. Svenonius, Jean-Luc Godard, and Sam Austen: Against the Written Word

23. M.I.A., OHMNI9, and the Evolution of the Audiobook: A Translation For Your Cat

23. M.I.A., OHMNI9, and the Evolution of the Audiobook: A Translation For Your Cat

22. A Bold New Translation of Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" (aka "The Unabomber Manifesto")

22. A Bold New Translation of Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" (aka "The Unabomber Manifesto")

21. Prince Harry's Memoir, Hypnotic Cascades, and the Teachings of Gurdjieff

21. Prince Harry's Memoir, Hypnotic Cascades, and the Teachings of Gurdjieff

20. Crashing Institutional Gates With Schrödinger’s Cat: An Object Lesson in Eric Weinstein’s DISC

20. Crashing Institutional Gates With Schrödinger’s Cat: An Object Lesson in Eric Weinstein’s DISC

19. Jordan Peterson’s 12th Rule, Ailurophobia, and the Feline Panopticon

19. Jordan Peterson’s 12th Rule, Ailurophobia, and the Feline Panopticon

18. Annie Hamilton and the Novel That Wasn't There

18. Annie Hamilton and the Novel That Wasn't There

17. Jack Skelley, Guy Debord, and LA's Cat Problem

17. Jack Skelley, Guy Debord, and LA's Cat Problem

16. Taylor Jenkins Reid, David Foster Wallace, and the Catgut Parcae

16. Taylor Jenkins Reid, David Foster Wallace, and the Catgut Parcae

15. Angela Campbell's On the Scent, Psychic Detectives, and Feline-Centered Estate Planning

15. Angela Campbell's On the Scent, Psychic Detectives, and Feline-Centered Estate Planning

14. Chuck Palahniuk, The Pixie Project, and a Reading of ‘Phoenix’

14. Chuck Palahniuk, The Pixie Project, and a Reading of ‘Phoenix’

13. Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards, and the Gen-X Paracosm

13. Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards, and the Gen-X Paracosm

12. Jerry Saltz's Art Is Life - An Excerpt for Your Cat

12. Jerry Saltz's Art Is Life - An Excerpt for Your Cat