Inciting A Riot

Dr. Eva Burke returns to provide an education on the value and cultural significance of horror movies.  Dr. Eva Burke is a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, and she both studies and teaches pop culture, genre fiction, crime novels, and, of course, horror. The official Head On Fire Horror Watchlist: Black Christmas (1974) Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) The Fly (1986) Candyman (1992) Audition (1999) Lake Mungo (2008) Suspiria (2018) Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCLMdFc4PhQmSL1Yh?si=5387b774ed6e4524 YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/HeadOnFirePod

Poetry has a weird reputation in literature. I cannot think of a time when it felt cool to like poetry. All sorts of other genres and styles of writing have had their heyday - seriously who would've thought that "dinosaur smut" would bring in such big bucks? - but poetry seems continually relegated to being that thing you had to get through back in school. Taylor Mali has been on a mission to transform the way we think about, read, listen to, and consider poetry. He has been featured in Russell Simmons' Def Poetry, as well as the documentaries SlamNation and Slam Planet. He has shared stages with Billy Collins and Allen Ginsberg. He's published several books and been featured in even more anthologies, and he took time out of all that to have a conversation with me about bad poetry, good poetry, and all the poetry you aren't reading but should be. Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Suppo

When you're into crystals as a kid that - at least for me - takes the form of "rock on the side of the road pretty, must take home". When you're into crystals as an adult it comes with all this extra baggage. What's the name of the crystal in your hand? Where does it come from? How much child labor went into getting it out of the ground and into your hands? Does it actually cure my migraines? Yinan Wang is a geologist and children’s book writer. He is currently studying potential uses of new technology to aid the field of paleontology. He stopped by to have a conversation about the science and salesmanship behind pretty rocks. Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire/id337689333 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4qTYYhCL

Ola Ojewumi is a force of nature. When she was nine she learned she had a rare heart condition and by eleven she was faced with undergoing kidney and heart transplants. She grew up navigating a complex world of intersectional privilege and challenge which was only exacerbated when, as a young adult, she was diagnosed with cancer and soon after became a wheelchair user.  She's a fierce advocate for the disabled community, having worked with Lady Gaga, Nancy Pelosi, Cory Booker, Steny Hoyer, and Barack Obama. She accomplishes more before breakfast than I do in an entire year. Today, she gives us a look at disability advocacy, the lyrical dust up involving Beyonce and Lizzo, and choosing our words more thoughtfully. Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple

You might have at one time said something like “I think if we ever met, I’d be really good friends with Dolly Parton.” Or thought if Chris Evans happened to come into the cafe where you work, he’d definitely go out with me.  Have you ever heard of a parasocial relationship? The term was created in 1956 by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl to describe a unique one-sided relationship in which a member of an audience believes a person they see on tv or social media is their close personal friend. That they’re in a relationship with that person. I’m not talking about imagining meeting a celebrity in real life and then striking up a genuine friendship like in my initial examples, but believing that right now - without ever having met - you are in an intimate relationship of some kind.  These days social media has made all of these lines even more blurred. A celebrity liking a tweet or a famous author answering your question. Television, social media, these have given us ways to carry celebrities around in our pocke

We love talking about food, but we have a tough time talking about eating. For some reason we are allowed to almost fetishize food, salivating over perfectly aesthetic photos of food but the moment that food touches our lips we are judged for it. And, naturally, the more layers of intersectional oppression you experience, the more you are judged for your food choices.   Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson is Professor and Chair of the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park. Her research explores the ways in which Black people engage their material worlds, especially with food and food cultures as well as historical legacies of race and gender (mis)representation. She has conducted extensive research throughout the United States in this area using intersectionality, cultural studies, popular culture, and more to inform our understanding of these phenomena. She is the author of the new book Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America.  If you like this show and want to support

Writing is a special kind of solitary torture. The only thing about it anyone ever sees is the end result, the finished, published work resting on shelves. In today's booktok culture, books are consumed at lightning speed and reviewers rush to deliver the most controversial hot take they can think of for engagement. Years of a person's life are spent writing the stories that become our blockbuster movies or our summer beach reads. Years spent alone in a room somewhere with a pen and paper or a keyboard tapping out scenes and dialogue only to scrap it all later and rewrite. Creating work, toiling over its perfection, and then navigating social media to spread the word is all part of the job of a writer these days, on top of all the other actual work the author must do to create something special. It's agony. It's glorious. And, for some, it's incredibly rewarding.  Ayana Gray's debut novel, Beasts of Prey, did something few debut authors achieve: it hit the New York Times bestseller list. Her follow up, Beasts

Would you make a good cult leader? If not you, then you probably know someone who would. We're fascinated by cults. It seems like every day a new docuseries is dropped on some streaming service or podcast platform about yet another cult out there in the world taking people's time, energy, or money.  Jennings Brown is an investigative journalist with a penchant for investigating cults. He's reported on Teal Swan, the Fellowship of Friends, as well as a number of conspiracy theories, algorithm blackholes, scam artists, and assorted ways people prey on others. We have a discussion about what it takes to not only investigate cults and cult leaders but what it takes to simply be a journalist in the sociopolitical climate of 2022.  If you like this show and want to support it, there are a number of ways to help. Share it with your friends on social media. You can also like, rate the show 5-stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a review. Reviews help recommend the show to other listeners like you. Help keep

Pre-K pause. If you’ve been online in any capacity in the last year, that phrase probably conjures up the face of Tell Williams. He was a pre-K teacher for 9 years before resigning to pursue a Master’s in social work. Along the way he accidentally found viral fame when a video he posted about the realities of being a teacher hit the algorithm jackpot. He’s gone on to try his hand at stand-up comedy, being the face of a nail polish brand, and even act in the new show The Book of Queer that just premiered on Discovery+. Despite sitting atop the influencer game, we had a lengthy conversation about his offline life. What it means to be a visibly queer, visibly BIPOC teacher right now when every news cycle seems to both praise teachers and vilify them. What it means for content to be “age appropriate”, and just how much our kids actually understand at a young age. I do want to warn you, we do touch on the subject of school shootings, though we do not go into specific details about any one shooting, however if that

Lots of people have lots to say about the Bible. Loads of conspiracy theories exist about it. Whether it’s conspiracy theories about its creation, or lost books that didn’t make the cut, or obscure interpretations seen by a select few as prophecy about our modern world, not a day goes by that someone, somewhere isn’t holding the Bible up to the light and seeing if we missed anything.    Beyond that, so-called biblical literalism has been the basis of support for a lot of pretty heinous parts of our country’s past and present. From regulating the sale of alcohol to vilifying interracial marriage and queer identity to demonizing immigrants to supporting slavery, supposed biblical scholars have found a way to twist the Bible in such a way that it is a timeless scapegoat for current hatred.    All of this turns a lot of people off from not just modern Christianity, but of religion in general. Few scholars wish to use their time, energy, and knowledge to combat the misinformation and vitriol online. But, thankfull

Witchcraft and magical practice has been an indelible part of the human experience throughout recorded history. Wherever there are people, there are people practicing magic. It shows up in all sorts of places: tv shows, fantasy novels, and the strange shop on the corner that smells of incense and has shelves lined with crystals. But what if I told you there is an actual, formal discipline of study when it comes to the history and practice of magic?   Owen Davies is a professor of history at the University of Hertfordshire whose career has been spent largely researching witchcraft, magic, and ghosts. He is the president of The Folklore Society in the UK, and the author of - as of this recording - 16 publications on the subject. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the study of witchcraft, and he took some time to chat with me about witch trials, the fact and fiction of real witches, and, of course, Taylor Swift.   If you like this show and want to support it, there are a number of wa

Early mornings and late sunsets are a hallmark of the summer season. The extra warmth and daylight is a blessing for many of us that live in areas where it is cold, dark, and wet or frozen for much of the year. It is a time of year that calls many of us to go out in search of high mountaintops or deep canyons, verdant forests, and untouched landscapes. To get back to nature. But getting back to nature isn't without its pitfalls, which is where my guest today comes in.    Diana Helmuth is the author of How to Suffer Outside, a humorous guide for the beginning backpacker or hiker who would love to experience the great outdoors while keeping the agony to a minimum.    Diana also graciously sent along a list of organizations specifically operated and aimed at people who are queer, women, or people of color who want to seek out more resources or engage with the outdoors near you!  KweenWerk SheColorsNature (also great for advice for parents!) OutdoorAfro BrownPeopleCamping LatinoOutdoors WildDiversity Unlikely

Do you want to see a dead body? How about two? Would you like to see 1-2 dead bodies every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the next 20, 30, 40 years? If you said yes, you might have what it takes to do the job of my guest on today's episode of Head On Fire.  The preparation and care for our dead is not just a sacred rite, or a taboo subject, but for folks like Temple Ruff it's a job. One that isn't without its perks, I mean how much more job security can you get than death, right? Temple is a mortician and funeral director, and today she helps us scratch the surface on what it means to care for our bodies after we're done using them.  Temple Ruff is also the founder and COO of Idun Ruth, a nonprofit organization that seeks to help all those in her local North Carolina community who need access to personal sanitation items - such as diapers or menstrual products - get them. Idun Ruth offers inclusivity and anonymity to all. Please consider supporting this important local organization.  If you like this

How much does the marketing industry know about you? You, specifically. Sure, you've heard all the horror stories - or maybe you've lived it - in which you're thinking about Pop Tarts and suddenly you see an ad on social media for Pop Tarts. That's freaky, right? But marketing existed long before the advent of modern technology and still seemed to somehow catch the pulse of what we all wanted to consume. Or did it? Maybe the truth about marketing isn't that it is reacting to what you're seeing or hearing, rather it is shaping it, shaping you. Helping you tell stories of how your life might look if you purchased this candy, went to see that movie, or, in the case of the United States, took this prescription medication.  Or perhaps you've seen an ad that seemed so incredibly ill-advised you wonder...how many people had to look at this ad and ignore all the blatantly problematic visuals or ad copy before it was sent out in the world? How many people thought this was a good idea?  Hayley Grant is a VP of Strategy

"Grief is a feeling made of feelings," says Mahlakai Rose, a death doula and co-founder of The House of Grief. We are all thinking about death lately. How we want to die, where and with whom we want to spend our final moments, and what we'd like to happen afterwards. But given how much our lives have changed in the last few years, we're also becoming clued in to the fact that death and grief happen more often than we'd like to think.  We die little deaths throughout our lives. Unexpected loss of a job. Moving across the country. The end of a cherished friendship. Mal has a lot to teach us about dealing with grief and demystifying the role of a death doula in both our deaths and lives.  Social links: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/headonfirepod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/headonfirepod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headonfirepod   Support my work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonfirepod   Subscribe to the Head On Fire podcast Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/head-on-fire

There’s this urge to turn yourself into a brand online. No matter how specific your interests are, no matter how tiny you think the niche is, social media compels you to believe that if you want to participate in that culture you must become a copy of those who came before you.   If you come online hoping to research anything - how to be a writer, how to organize your home, how to exercise - you are instantly bombarded with people who are not only far more advanced at that thing than you are, but they’ve cultivated their social media presence in such a way that you think the only way to get where you want to go is to buy what they’re selling. Surely they have the secret, right?    Minimalism is a movement that is quite literally about living with less, and yet if you go online to research minimalism you’ll soon find that people are more than happy to sell you lots and lots of things in order to become a minimalist. Minimalist home organization supplies. Minimalist tables. Minimalist jewelry. Minimalist…refrig

The last two years of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic have forced a lot of people to take stock of what is important to them. For many that has meant assessing whether they're in the right career or whether it's time to take a chance on forging a path for themselves. That's what Nikk Alcaraz - an actor, food artist, and DIY craft maker - did. He created Practical Peculiarities, a content creation brand under which Alcaraz inspires people to add a bit of magic into their dinner menus or around their home. If you haven't heard the name before you've surely seen one of his many viral videos. Hear how he took the skills he learned from his previous jobs and lifelong passions and turned them all into a magical career of his own making. 

What’s important to you? What do you value? What makes you happy?  No matter how you answered I want to know: would your answers change if you were telling your significant other? A work acquaintance? Your boss? If I were there right now with a microphone and camera asking you on the record, would any of those answers change?    The answer is…probably…yes. Right? Yes, of course, we don’t tell our bosses everything about our off-hours lives. We don’t tell our coworkers all the smutty shows we watch or tell our relatives about the things we enjoy that we don’t really want grandma asking us about around a holiday table.    I’m speaking, of course, about guilty pleasures. The bits of pop culture that are considered silly, juvenile, and are often spoken of with derision. Reality television. Pop music. Fashion trends. It is rare that these bits of culture are seen as areas of legitimate interest, and rarer still when they are given serious study and consideration.    My guest today hopes to change the discourse aro

An all too common problem for anyone in a creative field is other people's opinions. The folks who look over your shoulder and tell you that you should've painted something blue instead of red. The folks who take years of your life's work and turn it into bumper sticker commentary for easy engagement on social media. The alleged fans of a show that seem to take glee in tearing apart the thing they profess to love and ruining the lives of those who make it.  My guest today knows this intimately, having written for some of the biggest shows to come on Netflix in recent years. Joshua Conkel is a screenwriter behind some of your favorite scenes in shows like The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and A Series of Unfortunate Events. We sat down to discuss the perils of listening to other people's opinions, deciding whose opinions matter and whose don't, how consumers of media feel a sense of entitlement and ownership of that media, and how to create through all that noise.  If you like this show and want to support it

A promotional trailer for Head On Fire.  "Seek illumination the way a man with his head on fire seeks water."  That's the ethos behind Head On Fire, a new podcast featuring deep dive conversations with experts in interesting, often overlooked fields. It's a search for meaning and answers to life's biggest and smallest questions. Join me, author and host Don Martin, every other week as we discuss everything from climate change and reproductive Justice to the cultural importance of reality television or the value of believing in monsters.  Head On Fire, every other week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Coming February 2022.