Dear You, We last spoke in January and I've missed you; I've missed this. A lot has happened. A lot has not. Let's pick back up where we left off, but let's make it better and more loving this time. Let's not let the hoards of negatives overshadow the rest — the ever-present glimmerings of light. I simply can't anymore. I woke up different after that night. I even had pink cheeks for the first time in ages, according to some! "Such fun to wake up though! Such fun too if you don't!" - C.K. Willia...
Jun 23, 2025•22 min•Season 1Ep. 396
"It is certainly true that the larger and older the living thing is, the harder it is to know how to care for it." - Lydia Davis "I barely know what a uterus is for God's sake." - Me LINKS: Buy "The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis" HERE. Become a Subscriber on My Substack! Become a Paid Subscriber and get a drawing! My Instagram My Website My Youtube...
Jan 17, 2025•49 min•Season 1Ep. 395
"Help! I'm David from Sesame Street, and they're trying to kill me!" - Northern Calloway "Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear." - Zora Neale Hurston LINKS: The Wikipedia article on Northern Calloway My Substack Damien Jurado's record label - Maraqopa
Dec 16, 2024•36 min•Season 1Ep. 394
Praying for apathy, deciding towards easy. Love, Robyn LINKS: Buy Joshua Rivkin's Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly Here is my SUBSTACK! Here is my website. The Cy Twombly Gallery Robert Rauschenberg Jasper Johns Henry Darger...
Dec 03, 2024•54 min•Season 1Ep. 393
"The people who have made me feel the worst were always my best friends." -Detective Olivia Benson "I'll never sell 14 million like Hammer, I just wanna do a good Ice-T show." - Ice-T LINKS: Get your drawing! Subscribe to my Substack Watch the Driver 23 / Atlas Moth Trailer Watch the Fitzcarraldo Trailer The NBC article on Steve Zirnkilton Listen to the Steve Zirnkilton Law & Order SVU Intro Buy Nedra Glover Tawwab's Set Boundaries, Find Peace book. Damien Jurado's The Loneliest Place and Ma...
Nov 20, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 392
Dear Boss, I am sick. Love, Robyn
Nov 13, 2024•2 min•Season 1Ep. 391
A - ABLE-MINDED B - BICUSPID C - CROSS-EXAMINATION K - Keeping You Company With love, Robyn LINKS: Well, I've never linked to Amazon for books, but that seems to be the only place I see Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy, so head over there to buy it! There's also a set of several of his books on there that look really great, so maybe do that! My Subtack MY Shop...
Nov 05, 2024•14 min•Season 1Ep. 390
LINKS: My Substack Buy my book HERE . Watch American Movie HERE .
Oct 30, 2024•19 min•Season 1Ep. 389
"Lighting ranks as the most important factor in seeing." "Writing letters helps bring friends closer together." "Plans for lightning should provide the greatest possible light needed for any task." "Be sure than every statement you make is correct." "A bolt of lightning can kill a person or start a forest fire." -All quotes from 1964's World Book Encyclopedia - "L" LINKS My Substack Subterranean Thunder AKA Angela Lane My Website The Lightning Field by Walter De Maria...
Oct 23, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 388
"I must decline, for secret reasons." ~E.B. White LINKS: My Substack See Letters of Note on Instagram ME READING STUFF shirts at the bottom of THIS page. California Scrub Jay Stellar's Jay...
Oct 15, 2024•25 min•Season 1Ep. 387
"A trotting animal can restore red hearts to red." - Anne Carson (Short Talk on My Task) LINKS: Buy Anne Carson's Short Talks Listen to Anne Carson's reading on "Shade" (it's at the 19 minute mark, but you should listen to the entire thing) Listen to me reading her writing on Shade from years ago. Buy my Book on my website. And if you're a pickle guy, like me, here are BRITT'S and BEST MAID!...
Oct 09, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 386
"In the end I would rather wonder than know." -Mary Ruefle LINKS: Follow me on Substack: https://robynoneil.substack.com/ Buy "Madness, Rack, and Honey" "Red" read by Mary Ruefle herself! Buy "I Am: The Selected Poetry of John Clare"...
Oct 01, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 385
D'Agata writes in the introduction to The Making of the American Essay: "The world provides non-fiction, and humans provide the rest." My own work has been dealing endlessly with the problems humans incessantly seem to provide. In desperation, I now pray that for the rest of my days, my eyes can shift their focus to the innumerable glories & ongoing wisdom humans also deliver. LINKS: My new Substack ! Buy John D'Agata's "The Making of the American Essay" HERE . Learn more about John D'Agata....
Sep 24, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 384
"'I have never been one of those who cares about happiness. Happiness is a strange notion. I am just not made for it." - Werner Herzog "People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they're doing." - Dale Carnegie "People rarely have fun in what they're doing unless they succeed." - Me " ….ENJOY your mothafuckin' YOUTH.... while you GOT IT. Whatever the fuck you trynna do in yo DREAMS and shit……. DO IT RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. ... while yo body is still witchu…. cause the rest of us would tell y...
Sep 07, 2024•32 min•Season 1Ep. 383
Tonight, I give you a reading from New Directions' Love Poems of Catullus and a reiteration of my preference for the CH Sissen translation of Catullus 85. Art event or not, put it all on a Carr's Table Water Cracker. And if you have an interest in words, take 2 minutes to try this podcast out: Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day. Thank you guys for listening, loving, hating. Always. xo, Robyn...
Aug 31, 2024•24 min•Season 1Ep. 382
An After Dark Episode! Tonight I read from Emily Dickinson's Final Harvest: https://bookshop.org/p/books/final-harvest-poems-emily-dickinson/110106?ean=9780316184151 I explain how this book by Alex Soojung Kim Pang both solved my life & ignited a nervous breakdown the size of Pangaea: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/alex-soojung-kim-pang/rest/9781541617162/?lens=basic-books Other things: John Green's new(ish) book of essays, Sap Moss, Dr. Jackie from Married to Medicine, The Virgin ...
Aug 24, 2024•24 min•Season 1Ep. 381
"Go inside a stone. That would be my way. Let somebody else become a dove." -Charles Simic Buy absolutely anything by Charles Simic. Buy " The Language of Letting Go " Daily Meditations by Melody Beattie. And thank you for being with me today. I've missed you guys. Love, Robyn...
Jul 27, 2024•22 min•Season 1Ep. 380
"We're animals, Amy. And some animals like to party. For me, God is a beer on the beach. Maybe that's fucked up, but at least it's honest." - Levi, Enlightened "Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships." - Charles Simic "Today wasn't anything spectacular and that's what I loved about it." Me, January 2, 2023 LINKS: Watch "Enlightened" on HBO HERE . Charles Simic's Obituary . My website: www.robynoneil.com MY SHOP...
Jan 12, 2023•27 min•Ep. 379
"Modern natural philosophers have found God in the folds of the skin of the rhinoceros." - Voltaire "I found the saltiest, greasiest corn chip at the bottom of this Juanita's bag this morning. It totally blew my mind." - Me LINKS: Buy the book here: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/an-elemental-thing/ See what you think about these Daniel Ladinsky "HAFIZ" books: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/6/14/fake-hafez-how-a-supreme-persian-poet-of-love-was-erased And please meet Rajiv Surendra AKA Ke...
Jan 08, 2023•43 min•Ep. 378
Checking in after a long illness. Can't wait to start talking with you guys again! LINKS: Send your questions/comments/concerns to: [email protected] My website: www.robynoneil.com Me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robyn_oneil/?hl=en
Jan 03, 2023•9 min•Ep. 377
"We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries." - Dire Straits "I love turkey sandwiches." - Me LINKS: Check out the Dire Straits video for "Money For Nothing" HERE ! See Damien Jurado's website for tickets to his upcoming 25th anniversary show. My #1 Favorite Damien live video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1d1eobg9QY My #2 Favorite Damien live video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-SEQrHvd2o My #3 Favorite Damien live video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-kGUJOnuY4 My #...
Nov 10, 2022•53 min•Ep. 376
"It is always tricky, the question whether to read an author’s work in light of his life or not." -Anne Carson "If you can drink a beer, you can smell patchouli." - Me LINKS: Check out "The Albertine Workout" by Anne Carson HERE and buy it at your nearest independent bookseller. Listen to Anne Carson reading from "The Albertine Workout" HERE . SMELL LINKS: Zum Laundry Soap Zum Bar Soap Pacha Soap Mr. Coffee Mug Warmer Aveda Sắp Moss LUSH Karma The Smell of the Water Turning Tom Ford's Tobacco Va...
Nov 03, 2022•42 min•Ep. 375
"I was most happy when pen and paper were taken from me and I was forbidden from doing anything. I had no anxiety about doing nothing by my own fault, my conscience was clear, and I was happy. This was when I was in prison." - Daniil Kharms "I'm exhausted." - Me LINKS: Buy "Today I Wrote Nothing" HERE (or wherever you buy books except Amazon). Buy a ME READING STUFF slut shirt or hoodie HERE ! See my drawings in "HELL and the Paradisal" HERE. Watch the videos about my work HERE . Get free shippi...
Oct 27, 2022•25 min•Ep. 374
“I think I want, but what is it that I want? Do I want something? I don’t know." - Patrizia Cavalli "Kids tend to think of my violence as funny." - Me LINKS: Buy Patrizia Cavalli's "My Poems Won't Change the World" HERE . Check out my American Movie podcast HERE . Buy a "ME READING STUFF" shirt or sweatshirt HERE . See my drawings in "HELL and the Paradisal" HERE. Get free shipping on all books in my SHOP! (use Coupon Code "BOOK") And here's my WEBSITE . Thank you so much for listening....
Oct 20, 2022•23 min•Ep. 373
"You hear so much talk about risk-taking in poetry. Lying is a form of risk-taking, but no one talks about that." - Mary Ruefle "The End." - Me ______________________________________________ LINKS: Buy Madness, Rack, and Honey at WAVE BOOKS. Buy a "ME READING STUFF" shirt or sweatshirt HERE . See my drawings in "HELL and the Paradisal" HERE. Get free shipping on all books in my SHOP! (use Coupon Code "BOOK") And here's my WEBSITE . Thank you so much for listening....
Oct 14, 2022•35 min•Ep. 372
"We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole." - Mark Strand "Have you guys seen the new squeezable sauerkraut?!?" - Me LINKS: Purchase Mark Strand's "Selected Poems" HERE . Check out my Artforum review! Buy a "ME READING STUFF" shirt or sweatshirt HERE . See my drawings in "HELL and the Paradisal" HERE. Get free shipping on all books in my SHOP! (use Coupon Code "BOOK") Check out Easton's Books in Mount Vernon, Washington HERE . Learn more about The Trevor Project! And here's my...
Oct 04, 2022•34 min•Ep. 371
"Such fun waking up though! Such fun too if you don't! Keep dying! Keep writing it down!" - C.K. Williams "Message received." - Me LINKS: Buy "Writers Writing Dying" by C.K. Williams HERE . Buy "Rest" by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang HERE . Sign up for my newsletter HERE . Check out my show at Inman Gallery HERE ....
Sep 14, 2022•37 min•Ep. 370
"Jeff, roommate: Left my stuff all over the house; left the fridge a mess. Mary, friend: Promised to make her a clock. Made it, but never gave it to her." -Workaholics Anonymous "Monica, Starbucks boss: Pretended I got a "gig" in Hollywood to be killed off in a horror movie. Never returned to job. Peter, Gallery Owner: Lied during a studio visit about how long I'd lived in California for no reason at all. I added ten years to the actual total." - Me LINKS: Purchase any of the Workaholics Anonymo...
Sep 04, 2022•42 min•Ep. 369
"I have also seen doom." -Robinson Jeffers "As you can see, I need to breathe." - Robyn O'Neil LINKS: Buy Robinson Jeffers' Selected Poems Hit up my website www.robynoneil.com
Aug 27, 2022•36 min•Ep. 368
"I think mostly about clothes, sex, food, and seasonal variations. I have done so much to be ordinary and made a record of this: first I was born, next I was a child, then I learned things and did things and loved and had those who loved me and often felt alone. My body was sometimes well, then sometimes unwell. I got nearer to death, as did you." - Anne Boyer LINKS: Buy Anne Boyer's Garments Against Women HERE . www.robynoneil.com Me on Instagram...
Jun 17, 2022•2 hr 8 min•Ep. 367