Before today's episode, Toby and TJ had never heard the word "stramash", but now we can't stop saying it! Scottish musician, editor, author, and all-rounder Tommy MacKay joins the WAKE fold, not only to teach us this ever-so useful Scottish term for chaos, but also to discuss his amazing Joyce-music 'stramashups', the pitfalls of adaptation, pioneering punk music, creepy death masks, and the things that may or may not be appropriate to say to a younger sister. Yes, Shaun is up to all sorts of trouble this time around, lecturing Issy and her classmates in a mansplainy way that has shades of Laertes and Ophelia, but way filthier. It's an accessible, rollicking chapter, and the only one so far that features Denti Alligator, so everyone wins.

This week's readers: Tommy MacKay, TJ Young, Toby Malone

Progress: 448 pages complete, 180 pages to go; 71.34% read.

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

The hundred-letter 'thunderwords' are arguably the most enduring, well-known, and mystifying feature of Finnegans Wake, jumbles of letters cobbling together words from far-flung languages to create a word salad of difficulty that seems to stand as emblematic of the overall challenges of the Wake. In this bonus episode, we spend a few minutes considering all ten thunderwords, their 1001 letters, and the insight of eminent Wake scholars including Marshall McLuhan, Eric McLuhan, and Bernard Benstock. Now that WAKE has spoken all ten thunderwords, we have mashed them all together, in case you've ever desperately wanted to hear what they all sound like, entirely butchered, in chronological order, with no breaks. What more could you want?

This week's personnel: Toby Malone

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Hooraymost! It’s the dirtiest chapter featuring insect erotica in all of literature, so grab your doodlers and bungholes, we’re going spizzing! Best of all, beloved Wakexpert Lucy Brazier finds room on her fagroaster to get down to some Clowntalkin about the savage rivalry between Shaun and his brother as we cover chapter 3.1! We wonder about narrative-minded donkeys, ponder what it would take to have the smell of an old woman come off you, name-check Monty Python, and plan a letter-based tourist trap, all ahead of the one thunderword that has 101 letters, just to prove a point. It’s a pervy, raucous episode of WAKE, and we couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

(Apologies for the sound quality on Toby's mic, it's an ongoing problem that will be fixed)

This week's readers: Lucy Brazier, TJ Young, Toby Malone

Progress: 428 pages complete, 200 pages to go; 68.15% read.

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

We find ourselves at the end of Book Two, and you know what that means: another ever-popular recap episode! Using the mind-bending brilliance of the László Moholy-Nagy Finnegans Wake Diagram as a jumping-off point, Toby and TJ try to rank the chapters of Book 2, nostalgically reconsider Night Lessons, and compare the text to a disparate collection of cultural touchstones. Topics may include, to varying levels of detail: JJ Abrams, Luigi Pirandello, Riverdale, The Master and Margarita, the Berliner Ensemble, Punchdrunk's Sleep No More, Passing Strange, ChatGPT, andThe Sound and the Fury. Join us in the temporary high that is generated when two readers assume that hubris isn't really a thing, and that surely they're well past the hardest part now...

(Apologies for the sound quality on Toby's mic, it's an ongoing problem that will be fixed)

This week's chatters: Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 399 pages complete, 229 pages to go; 63.54% read.

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

This week we break things down to the quark level to bring you mythical love stories (featuring a king named Mark), ghost-written historical romances, interminable sentences, and Joycean numerology. Jackie Mahoney joins the team and expertly weaves their way through questions of whether chapter 2.4 is about Tristan and Isolde, or if it's more about about the four perverts leering at them from the dock, and we finish up with a rousing consideration of Joyce as Beyoncé, the author as God, squelchy onomatopoeia, and, inevitably, the music of Evanescence.

Trigger warning: descriptions of bodily noises.

(Apologies for the sound quality on Toby's mic, it's an ongoing problem that will be fixed)

This week's readers: Jackie Mahoney, TJ Young, Toby Malone

Progress: 399 pages complete, 229 pages to go; 63.54% read.

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Hray! This week TJ's fiancé Taylor Hoover joins us to close down the bar, avoid the insults, and drink up all the dregs left over! Find out just what disqualifies one from becoming a limousine lady, the logistics behind transcribing crowd noise, and the relationship between Joyce, Charles Marowitz, and Tron: Legacy. Don't hide, seek this week's episode of WAKE!

(Apologies for the sound quality on Toby's mic, it's an ongoing problem that will be fixed)

This week's readers: Taylor Hoover, Toby Malone, TJ Young

Progress: 382 pages complete, 246 pages to go; 60.83% read.

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

Richard Harte is one of the world's preeminent interpreters of Joyce: a 25 year veteran of Bloomsday performances, and the undisputed star of One Little Goat Theatre Company's parallel (not competing) Finnegans Wake podcast, currently under development as a film and exhaustive live chronicle of the Earwicker clan. When Toby joined the audience to watch his old friend Richard perform 1.5 of the Wake at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library last week, he knew we had to get Richard on to talk about the Wake: and talk he did! In this joyful bonus episode, hear all about how many times Richard has read the Wake (the answer may surprise you!), the spiritual feeling of walking the Dublin locations of the book, the logistics of preparing the live readings, and plans for the future. It's a crossover episode, and we couldn't be happier to have Richard along with us.

This week's personnel: Richard Harte, TJ Young, Toby Malone

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!

WAKE buys you a third round and settles in for yet another Tale at the Inn, where we prominently feature multiple guns, KC Jowls and the little-known horror film Coach with the Six Insides. We bid welcome to another of Toby's former students, Ryan Benson Smith, for a lively discussion that includes a Wake-Ramones mashup, the Bluey theme song, and how media romanticises the Irish. Along the way, we enjoy a sparkling reading with the growing knowledge that everyone we're reading about is going to have a terrible headache tomorrow.

This week's readers: Ryan Benson Smith, TJ Young, Toby Malone

Progress: 370 pages complete, 258 pages to go; 58.92% read.

For early drops, community and show notes, join us at our free Patreon, at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/wakepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or check out our Linktree, at ⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/wake.pod⁠⁠. We welcome comments from everyone: even, nay, especially, the dreaded purists. Come and "um actually" us!