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The Twist Podcast Android News Edition: Science, Politics, Entertainment and Culture Small Plates
If you’ve been listening to The Twist Podcast for any length of time, you know that Mark and Rick have opinions about things. Science, politics, food, entertainment, and the general state of the world as it lurches forward into whatever this era is going to be called when historians get around to naming it.
So we did what any reasonable pair of podcasters would do: we cloned ourselves.
Meet the android versions of Mark and Rick — same voices, same sensibilities, significantly less coffee dependency — and they’re here every week with The Twist Podcast: Android News Edition, your weekly roundup of everything worth knowing and a few things worth arguing about. Will we go weekly? If the interest is there and we can hire more robots.
Each week we’re covering four beats: science, politics, food trends, and entertainment. Politics, because ignoring it hasn’t been working out great for anyone. Science, because it tells you more about the world than just the news does. Food trends, because you deserve to know that beef tallow is making a comeback and tiramisu is officially everywhere. And entertainment, because even in complicated times the shows we watch and the stories we tell matter.
New episodes drop every Friday. Find us wherever you’ve always found The Twist, same feed, no new subscriptions required.
— Mark & Rick
(The originals. Probably.)
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One Thing or Another: Life, Aging, and the Absurdities Of It All Now A Free Audiobook
OR LISTEN AT YOUR LEISURE HERE
Getting older was supposed to come with wisdom. Nobody mentioned the absurdity.
In One Thing or Another: Life, Aging and the Absurdities of It All, Mark McNease takes a clear-eyed, warmly funny look at the indignities, surprises, and occasional revelations of growing older. With the timing of a seasoned storyteller and the honesty of someone who has lived enough to laugh about it, McNease finds humor in the everyday moments most of us are too busy — or too embarrassed — to examine closely.
From the small humiliations of a body that no longer cooperates to the baffling speed of a world that keeps changing without asking permission, these columns remind us that aging is something we’re all doing together. We might as well laugh.
One Thing or Another is the perfect companion for anyone who has ever caught their reflection and thought, when did that happen?
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Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast: Night Flight to Murder Town – A Marshall James Thriller (Chapters 19 – 21)
Welcome back to Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast, with Night Flight to Murder Town – A Marshall James Thriller, chapters nineteen through twenty-one.
It’s 1992, and Marshall James is forty blocks into his first real walk through New York City — down through Chelsea, where hope is spilling out onto the sidewalk in front of every coffee bar. He’s thirty-three, starting over, and beginning to believe that might actually be possible.
That belief gets complicated fast. A tour of Muscles Gym leads to a dinner invitation from Leland Jenner that Marshall knows he shouldn’t accept — and accepts anyway. Meanwhile, he learns that Trent has his own standing Tuesday arrangement with a certain Senator Daniel Roth.
Then we jump forward. Marshall and his partner Boo arrive in Lambertville to look into the murder of a famous author — last seen alive at the bed and breakfast where they’re now unpacking. The canal, the locked rooms, and a housekeeper with perfect comic timing are all waiting for them.
Chapters Nineteen, Twenty, and Twenty-One. Night Flight to Murder Town.
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The Twist Podcast Android News Sunday Edition: Four Features, Two Clones, One Love
If you’ve been listening to The Twist Podcast for any length of time, you know that Mark and Rick have opinions about things. Science, politics, food, entertainment, and the general state of the world as it lurches forward into whatever this era is going to be called when historians get around to naming it.
So we did what any reasonable pair of podcasters would do: we cloned ourselves.
Meet the android versions of Mark and Rick — same voices, same sensibilities, significantly less coffee dependency — and they’re here every week with The Twist Podcast: Android News Edition, your weekly roundup of everything worth knowing and a few things worth arguing about. Will we go weekly? If the interest is there and we can hire more robots.
Each week we’re covering four beats: science, politics, food trends, and entertainment. Politics, because ignoring it hasn’t been working out great for anyone. Science, because it tells you more about the world than just the news does. Food trends, because you deserve to know that beef tallow is making a comeback and tiramisu is officially everywhere. And entertainment, because even in complicated times the shows we watch and the stories we tell matter.
New episodes drop every Friday. Find us wherever you’ve always found The Twist, same feed, no new subscriptions required.
— Mark & Rick
(The originals. Probably.)
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The Twist Podcast 323: Arrival of the Androids, Fonthill Castle Fun Facts, and Courtney Bryan Talks AI (Interview Part 2)
Mark and Rick are back with a packed episode. First we pull back the curtain on something new coming to The Twist, our Android News Edition, a dedicated midweek (for now) show where Mark and Rick’s android selves plug into entertainment, food trends, politics, and culture.
Then, step inside one of Pennsylvania’s most extraordinary and eccentric landmarks: Fonthill Castle. Built by archaeologist and tile-maker Henry Chapman Mercer in the early 20th century, this concrete marvel in Doylestown is a labyrinth of rooms, passageways, and tiles, and it’s full of secrets worth knowing before you visit (or even if you never do).
Finally, Rick continues his conversation with Courtney Bryan in Part 2 of their fascinating interview.
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On the Map: Hidden Staircases and Spooky Portraits at Fonthill Castle, Doylestown, PA
On the Map: Fonthill Castle, Doylestown, PA
Our friend Kathi Hill was here for her annual two-nighter. On Sunday we went to Fonthill Castle in Doylestown, a large imposing castle you can see from the road that we’ve passed a zillion times and never gone to. It’s a must! It’s the kind of place that makes you want to book two nights in an upstairs bedroom, light a candle, and write something a horror story by the light of the moon. Built in the early twentieth century by Henry Mercer — archaeologist, Arts and Crafts visionary, and the obsessive genius behind the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works next door — it’s a concrete labyrinth of rooms, hidden staircases, and ceilings encrusted with thousands of his own handmade tiles pulled from the kilns just steps away. The gothic atmosphere is not manufactured. It grew here, out of one man’s magnificent strangeness. He was also a lifelong bachelor, which adds a little fill-in-the-blanks to it all.
We walked through it on a guided tour and I and immediately started thinking about the horror stories I could write there. The ceilings are all low, the rooms are small, and everything is concrete. If you’re anywhere near Bucks County, put it on your list.
Tours run regularly and can be booked through the Mercer Museum website at mercermuseum.org. Fonthill Castle and the Tile Works are both on site.
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New Home, Same Great Content
In case you’re wondering, I’m leaving Bluehost after more than 15 years using them to host my websites. To make a long story brief, the sites became so slow I couldn’t take it anymore. No advice or suggestions needed: I tried everything. Coupled with the price tag, I said let’s move.
I like Hostinger, where you’re reading this, and I’m ready to make a move. All my sites will be on here, as dedicated pages (Your Write Path, MadeMark Publishing, and Vivid Press.)
This may take a little while, but not too long – I’m among the more tech-savvy people I know, and moving everything over here shouldn’t take more than a couple weeks, if that. There’s a lot of work to do “behind the curtain,” so to speak, with redirects, emails and all that, but it will get done seamlessly and quickly. So welcome to where “all things are of the substance of dreams.”
Mark
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Lost in Time, Found Again: Vivid Press Brings Three Forgotten Classics Back to Life
FROM THE VIVID PRESS CATALOG
Lost in Time, Found Again: Vivid Press Brings Three Forgotten Classics Back to Life
A Marriage Below Zero, The Willows, and Carmilla — newly available in Vivid Press Editions
Some books were ahead of their time. Some were buried by it. And some were simply waiting for readers who were ready for them. At Vivid Press, we believe certain stories deserve a second life — not as museum pieces, but as living texts that speak directly to who we are now. That conviction is behind our newest Vivid Press Editions: three works of extraordinary power that have been overlooked, undervalued, or quietly allowed to slip into obscurity.
We are proud to announce that A Marriage Below Zero, The Willows, and Carmilla are now available in Vivid Press Editions — beautifully republished and ready to find the audiences they always deserved.
Alan Dale’s 1889 novel was scandalous when it appeared — and then it largely vanished. Written by a woman under a male pen name, A Marriage Below Zero is a sharp, darkly comic indictment of a marriage between a woman and a closeted gay man, told from the wife’s increasingly desperate point of view. It is a story about denial, social performance, and the loneliness of being the person in the room who sees clearly what everyone else refuses to acknowledge.
What makes this novel remarkable is not just its subject matter — which was virtually unspoken in mainstream fiction of the era — but its voice. The narrator is observant, wry, and wounded in equal measure. She is not a victim so much as a woman trapped by the conventions of a world that offers her no honest language for what she’s experiencing. Over a century later, the novel reads with startling freshness. The Vivid Press Edition presents the full original text with a new introduction placing the work in its literary and cultural context.
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Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast 83: Night Flight to Murder Town – A Marshall James Thriller (Chapters 16 through 18)
Welcome to Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast and another three chapters of Night Flight to Murder Town: A Marshall James Thriller.
Marshall James arrives in New York and gets his first look at Muscles, the gym where he’ll be working, courtesy of Trent. He’s told the previous manager had to go away and has not been seen since. The new one, Leland, can’t quite hide his interest in Marshall. And Trent makes it clear, without raising his voice, that everyone in the room knows exactly where the lines are.
New York is a city that demands a verdict, and Marshall’s is immediate. He loves it, against his better judgment. But love doesn’t mean safety. Trapped in Trent’s luxury apartment with a man whose pager never stops buzzing and whose overseas calls carry the unmistakable sound of crime, Marshall knows he needs to run. He just needs money first, and a map.
Meanwhile, back in the future, Marshall and his husband Boo arrive at a bed and breakfast in Lambertville. Their host Kyle Callahan jokes that their room is the “murder suite” and it’s been been good for business. Marshall will soon learn the truth of it, as they explore the river town they just might move to.
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The Twist Podcast 322: Annual Spring Issue, New Letters from Jo, and Rick Interviews Courtney Bryan (Part 1)
Welcome to The Twist Podcast, Episode 322. Spring has officially arrived, and Mark and Rick are celebrating the season with a jam-packed episode. We kick things off with some springtime conversation — what’s blooming, what’s buzzing, and what’s got us looking forward to warmer days ahead.
Then it’s time for the Twist Hit List, our own humble ‘must’ list, covering TV, films, books, food, and culture. Listener favorite Jo is back with a new Letter from Jo, with her trademark wisdom and humor. And in this week’s featured interview Rick talks with Courtney Bryan for Part One of a wide-ranging conversation about artificial intelligence.
All that and more on this week’s The Twist. Subscribe, share, and join the conversation.
THIS WEEK’S SURVEY
Another spring is here. What to you want to do first?
Get more active without the sweaters and thermals
Garden, plant, walk in the grass, open the windows
Clean out and start fresh (figuratively if not literally)
Nothing — I like my routine as it is
Wait impatiently for summer
Something else (please say what in the comments)
