In the first episode of Season 10 of Momus: The Podcast, Lauren Wetmore speaks with scholar and writer Cait McKinney about Dodie Bellamy’s “Barf Manifesto,” an essay McKinney returns to often with love and a sense of irresolution. Written in response to Eileen Myles’s poem “Everyday Barf,” Bellamy’s manifesto proposes a way of thinking and writing that embraces the body’s appetites, attachments, and embarrassments.
McKinney considers how writers develop their ideas in relation to others, the value of learning conventions in order to trouble them, and the teachers who shaped their intellectual practice. The conversation turns to McKinney’s book “I Know You Are, But What Am I?,” in which broken talking Pee-wee Herman dolls become a way of thinking about ungovernability, and to the political histories revealed through watching Frasier and ER. Throughout, McKinney makes a case for taking popular pleasures seriously, while reflecting on the possibilities of academic writing, and the productive force of shame.
Momus: The Podcast is edited by Jacob Irish, with production assistance from Chris Andrews.
Thanks to this episode’s sponsor, The Blue Building, for supporting our work.
