Adam Weymouth [https://www.adamweymouth.com/] is a British author of Kings of the Yukon [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/295832/kings-of-the-yukon-by-weymouth-adam/9780141983790], about his 2,000-mile voyage down the Yukon River, and, now, Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/448173/lone-wolf-by-weymouth-adam/9781529151947], about his 1,000-mile hike following the path of a wolf. We discuss…

Subscribe now

 * Are we better humans when we’re on journeys?
 * Why have there been so many more deaths (wolves killing humans) in Europe than in North America?
 * Ken has a bone to pick with Disney: Why would a nature-loving production company depict wolves in such a retrograde way—in 2013?

 * Are old tales of rabid wolves the reason why Europeans are so anxious about the wolf?
 * What can farmers do to protect their herd/flock from wolves?
 * Should wolves be re-introduced to the U.K.?
 * Can a wolf swim the English Channel?
 * What is a lone wolf looking for?

Some of Adam’s favorite travel books:

 * Adam recommends The Rheingan Sisters:

Adam Weymouth on the Return of the Wolf

Sam Graham-Felsen [https://www.samgf.com/] is the historian at the Philip Roth Personal Library in Newark, New Jersey, and he’s the author of the acclaimed coming-of-age novel Green [https://www.samgf.com/green-a-novel-1]. We discuss…

Subscribe now

 * Sam’s article with New York Times Magazine, “Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?” [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/magazine/male-friendships.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LE8.BfjA.2g5l8VbE6CFZ&smid=url-share]
 * Sam’s favorite boyhood comedy, Weird Al’s, UHF.
 * When did American men stop being physically close? And do we need to go back to this:
 * Should we take our best friends to our honeymoons?
 * Was Albert Kinsey’s studies of sexuality, which popularized the prevalence of homosexuality, responsible for causing homohysteria [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homohysteria]?
 * Is Dan Campbell making it okay for guys to display emotion, or is his “high masculinity” the only thing that gives him license to be vulnerable?
 * Examples of healthy masculinity:
 * David Goggins on JRE:
 * Does the manosphere need to adopt friendship, community, and rootedness as its next message of wellness?
 * Sam and I discuss our mid-life career pivots into typically female-dominated career fields.
 * Sam explores the question, What makes a man?
 * Sam recommends:

11. Sam Graham-Felsen on the Fading Male Friendship

Bill Deresiewicz is a writer and cultural critic. He’s written popular essays such as “Solitude and Leadership [https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/],” and books including Excellent Sheep [https://billderesiewicz.com/books/excellent-sheep/], a critique of elite education; the The Death of the Artist [https://billderesiewicz.com/books/the-death-of-the-artist/], which explores the precarious lives of creative workers; and The End of Solitude [https://billderesiewicz.com/]—a collection of Bill’s greatest essays. We discuss…

Subscribe now

 * Is Portland still the Portland of Portlandia?
 * Is Boston the angriest town in the U.S.?
 * Bill’s essay in Salmagundi about the “Not Left.” [https://salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/1242-post-election]
 * Is Bernie Sanders’s movement over or dormant? Are the woke responsible for knee-capping Sanders’s movement?
 * Who’s more prudish—the left or the right?
 * Bill’s essay, “Chuck Your Privilege. [https://www.persuasion.community/p/chuck-your-privilege]”
 * Ken imagines a “Cambrian Explosion” on the left with hypothetical political species such as Neo-Guildists, “ProPats” (Progressive Patriarchs), and Neo-Hedonists (my enlightened sensuality movement). Perhaps I’ll do a whole post on these ideas someday…
 * Is Ezra Klein’s Abundanomics Movement… sexy?
 * Ezra Klein’s interview with Democratic rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-marie-gluesenkamp-perez.html] (my patron saint for the Neo-Guildists)
 * Is 2025 TV “mid?”
 * Ken’s post about when did prestige TV peak [https://kenilgunas.substack.com/p/what-year-did-prestige-tv-peak]?
 * Bill’s essay about incels [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/unfuckable-hate-nerds-william-deresiewicz].
 * Bill’s favorite Substack Writers:Blake Smith [https://blakeesmith.substack.com/]Sam Kahn’s Republic of Letters [https://substack.com/@therepublicofletters]Justin Smith-Ruiu’s The Hinternet [https://www.the-hinternet.com/]Eminent Americans Podcast  [https://danieloppenheimer.substack.com/podcast]

Bill’s website [https://billderesiewicz.com/]

Bill’s substack [https://deresiewicz.substack.com/]

Bill Deresiewicz on Eros, Incels, the Not Left, and the Death of the Artist

Mike Finkel [https://www.michaelfinkel.com/] is the author of True Story [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/358104/true-story-by-finkel-michael/9780099464570], about a killer who stole Mike’s identity. His second book The Stranger in the Woods [https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Stranger-in-the-Woods/Michael-Finkel/9781471151989] is about a hermit in Maine who didn’t talk to anyone for decades. And The Art Thief [https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Art-Thief/Michael-Finkel/9781471186264], about history’s greatest art thief. We talk about:

Subscribe now

 * Why are we, as a culture, so drawn to true crime?
 * I ask Mike why women are attracted to criminals. He gives an impressive answer.
 * What’s better: soaking in a bath tub or sitting on a toilet to avoid family?
 * Mike’s early influences: I Robot, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clarke, and The Catcher in the Rye.
 * Mike’s stylistic principles: make it read as if you “dashed it out”; eliminate show-offy words; apply the “bar room test.”
 * Ken tries out some of his psychotherapy skills on Mike.
 * Mike gives me advice on how to make a connection with criminals.
 * Is there going to be a The Stranger in the Woods movie? And who should play Christopher Knight? (I make the case for Eric Lange from Escape from Dannemora.)
 * On how ending a book with an ellipsis is okay.
 * Ken gives the North Pond Hermit an open invitation to come on the podcast.
 * What kind of kleptomaniac would you be? Mike:

 * If Mike was incarcerated, would he ever let someone else write his story?
 * Ken shares his jail fantasies (not what you think).
 * Mike expresses admiration for David Grann [https://www.davidgrann.com/books/].

#9 Michael Finkel on True Crime, the art of acquainting, and kleptomania

Tim Kreider [https://substack.com/profile/4863114-tim-kreider] is a cartoonist and essayist. If you’re not familiar with Tim’s work, sign up for his Substack (“The Loaf [https://timkreider.substack.com/]”), and read his two books of essays, “We Learn Nothing [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/We-Learn-Nothing/Tim-Kreider/9781439198711]” & “I Wrote this Book Because I Love You [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/I-Wrote-This-Book-Because-I-Love-You/Tim-Kreider/9781476739014].” Tim’s writing is a deadly combination of elegant & original prose, wicked humor, and bare-it-all honesty. He’s my favorite writer. We discuss…

 * With Cormac McCarthy gone, who’s the best living writer of the English language?
 * How a young Tim enjoyed the works of YA / sci-fi writer John Christopher (real name: Christopher Samuel Youd). Books mentioned: The World in Winter and The Death of Grass and the Tripod Trilogy, plus…

 * Moby Dick is strange. The best standalone chapter: “The Line.”
 * It’s possible neither Tim nor I know what “postmodernism” is.

Montaigne’s “everyman” tower
 * Is “DEI” the new way of using the “N word?”
 * One of Tim’s first big breaks—commentary on Eyes Wide Shut in Film Quarterly [https://timkreider.com/introducing-sociology/].
 * James Salter [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Salter], a writer’s writer.

Hedy Lamarr
 * Revisiting a few of Tim’s essays and characters — Tim’s peak-oil obsessed friend and the state of Tim’s busyness.
 * Is writing a “nice thing to do?”
 * On how Tim is stylishly homeless.
 * Melville House’s FUTURES Series [https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/the-futures-series].
 * Tech utopians: “people who don’t like being people.”
 * Kim Stanley Robinson’s Three Californias Trilogy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Californias_Trilogy].
 * Tim’s recommendations:

Tim Kreider on writing, W. Bush v. Trump, and the future of the future

Dan Flores is a historian and writer who writes about the natural and cultural history of North America. His books—including Coyote America, American Serengeti, and Wild New World, bring to life North America’s most iconic species and landscapes, weaving together science, folklore, and history. Dan’s work not only illuminates the past but also asks urgent questions about the future of conservation, rewilding, and our relationship with the land.

Dan looking very calm during his Joe Rogan Appearances:

 * Dan mentions proof of human footprints [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586] on North American soil from 23,000 years ago.
 * Giant beaver looking awfully giant.
 * Were North American dire wolves dominated by Eurasian gray wolves?
 * The debate about whether the massive die-off of North American megafauna was caused by climate change or human presence.
 * Should the Clovis people — for their mammoth genocides — be… cancelled?
 * Colossal Biosciences [https://colossal.com/]—an organization devoted to bringing back extinct animals, such as the wooly mammoth.
 * The Wooly Mouse [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0jg4n776evo].
 * Should we reintroduce animals originating in North America (cheetah, camel, etc.) and reintroduce them in places where there is habitat.
 * The Thylacine to be de-extinictified and reintroduced in New Zealand.
 * Will there ever be a huge Great Plains National Park?
 * Will Trump/Vance sell off any public lands?
 * American Prairie [https://americanprairie.org/]
 * Dan’s next book’s working title: Homestead: Building a Green Life in the Modern American Countryside.
 * Some of Dan’s books:
 * Dan’s recommendation: Lone Wolf by Adam Weymouth:

Music by Duncan Barrett, who you can follow and listen to, here [https://duncanbarrett.bandcamp.com/] and here [https://www.instagram.com/duncan.e.barrett/].

#7 Dan Flores on de-extinction, reintroduction, and the American West

Sarah [http://fatherkarine.straw.page/], aka Father_Karine, is a very funny writer. On Substack [https://substack.com/@fatherkarine], she writes about her high maintenance dog [https://fatherkarine.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-my-dog-who-if-im?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2], about her young adulthood characterized by all manner of misadventure and disinhibition [https://fatherkarine.substack.com/p/waitress-shitty-rural-restaurant?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2], and about how she can’t be trusted with excellent fruit [https://fatherkarine.substack.com/p/hedge-fund-cherries-one-finance-douches?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2]. She co-hosts the Brutal Film Girl Experiment Podcas [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2375019]t.

Subscribed

We talked about her post, “A SECOND manic list of 10 film scenes I believe all men love and why they love them, according to me (a woman who's been drinking) [https://substack.com/@fatherkarine/p-153617234]."

Show notes…

 * Mike Schank’s music—not bad!
 * Tulpas are on Reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas/]. Tulpas are My Little Ponies [https://mlpforums.com/topic/27625-would-anybody-like-to-explain-this-tulpa-thing/]?
 * Animated movies that Sarah likes: Perfect Blue & Akira
 * Best non-CGI battle scene ever: Braveheart or Ran?
 * The worst best film ever?
 * We talk Stephen King who’s been responsible for movies including: Carrie, The Dead Zone, It, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, Stand By Me, Pet Sematary, The Green Mile, Cujo, Children of the Corn. Four of those (emboldened) are all-time greats. Where is his lifetime achievement Oscar?
 * Is “Strangers with Candy [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6epnDpt0Qg]” ready for a revival?Music by Duncan Barrett, who you can follow and listen to, here [https://duncanbarrett.bandcamp.com/]and here [https://www.instagram.com/duncan.e.barrett/].

#6 Father Karine: 10 Movie Scenes All Men Love

Alastair McIntosh [https://www.alastairmcintosh.com/] is a human ecologist, theologian, activist, and writer known for his work on the interplay between community, ecology, and spirituality. Alastair is best known for his 2001, but still very timely book, Soil and Soul [https://www.alastairmcintosh.com/soilandsoul.htm]—part autobiography, part theology, part history.

Subscribed

We talk about…

 * The concepts of psychohistory & cultural psychotherapy, and how our deep past, going back many generations, makes us who we are.
 * Alastair’s travel/philosophy/theology book, Poacher’s Pilgrimage [https://www.alastairmcintosh.com/poacherspilgrimage/]
 * How the Scottish Clearances in the 1820s on the Isle of Lewis may be half-responsible for forming Donald Trump into who he is today. For more, read Alastair’s compelling article on the subject [https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/11/06/donald-trump-and-the-second-sight/].
 * Should Donald Trump pay an extended non-entrepreneurial (and non-golfing?) visit to the Hebrides?
 * Read Alastair’s poem [https://www.alastairmcintosh.com/articles/2012-O-Donald-Trump.pdf] calling Trump to “come home.”
 * The concept of “indigenousness” and if the term can apply to white folks.
 * Ken tries out a big word: “ethnomasochism.”
 * Are we all Calvinists without knowing it? Alastair defines Calvinism with “TULIP [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Points_of_Calvinism#:~:text=They%20are%20occasionally%20known%20by,and%20perseverance%20of%20the%20saints.].”
 * The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
 * The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber
 * A free PDF of Alastair’s Island Spirituality [https://www.alastairmcintosh.com/articles/2013-Island-Spirituality-by-Alastair-McIntosh.pdf]

Alastair recommends:

 * Alice Walker’s poetry—Horses Make A Landscape Look More Beautiful [https://alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/horses-make-a-landscape-look-more-beautiful/]
 * And Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael (get the volume that condenses the six volumes into one)

#5 Alastair McIntosh on Donald Trump's psychohistory, Calvinism in the Western soul, and Scotland reborn

Seth Kantner [https://www.sethkantner.com/] is an Alaskan photographer, hunter, fisherman and author. He’s written two of my favorite books: Ordinary Wolves [https://milkweed.org/author/seth-kantner], a fictional book about a boy growing up with the ways of his indigenous neighbors; and his latest book, A Thousand Trails Home [https://www.mountaineers.org/books/books/a-thousand-trails-home-living-with-caribou], about Alaskan caribou and our relationship with them. Topics include…

Upgrade to paid

 * Ken thinks that couples in arctic cabins should be highly qualified to write marriage advice books. Seth splashes cold water on that idea, saying all they’re doing is avoiding conflict.
 * Knitting, the first videogame?
 * The drawbacks (face-blindness) of being homeschooled in a sod igloo.
 * Middle school, is there a point?
 * Kim Kardashian vs Seth Kantner. In the fight for cultural dominance, sadly Kim wins.
 * The merits/necessity of slow writing.
 * How it’s good to have a phobia of wasting somebody’s time.
 * Plus, the fascinating topic of race relations in arctic Alaska.

#4 Seth Kantner on sod igloos, slow writing, and arctic racism

Out of the Wild is a podcast hosted by writer Ken Ilgunas. We discuss nature, adventure, simple living, culture, history, and politics. 

https://kenilgunas.substack.com

Ken I

Shows