Episode list

WAKE is a cold reading of Joyce's Finnegans Wake, just because. Today, in a preamble episode, we start by unraveling some of the history of the book, before the reading starts. We spend time with the long and winding context that precedes this reading, and we decide whether or not we will take it on or throw it all out.

The WAKE reading begins in earnest, with the first half of chapter 1. Join Toby and TJ as we discuss thunder, museyrooms, and Joyce casually dropping poetic gems on the very first page. Progress: 16 pages complete, 612 pages to go; 2.55% read.

Against all odds, WAKE chugs along, and we finish chapter 1. Toby and TJ discuss Finnegans Wake-inspired band names, typography, and bring the dramatic in a performance of Mutt and Jute. Progress: 29 pages complete, 599 pages to go; 4.62% read.

WAKE rolls on like so many thunderwords, as we explore the first part of Chapter 1.2 of Finnegans Wake. We consider the slanders heaped on poor old HCE (Here Comes Everybody), tiptoe around racially problematic language, and ponder whether speedcasting Joyce on a treadmill is an incentive for cardiac health. Progress: 44 pages complete, 584 pages to go; 7% read.

WAKE gets musical. We welcome our first guest, musical genius Meg Logue, who has arranged and performed potentially the most melodious cover ever of The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly. We discuss gravelly voiced Irishmen, German opera, singing at wakes, and agree that we'd all like a sip of whatever Poolbeg's on. Progress: 47 pages complete, 581 pages to go; 7.4% read.

Joyce promised 'Sdense' in 1.3 and boy did he deliver. This week Toby and TJ learn their lesson for being overly confident last time with a dose of reality. For the first half of this challenging chapter, we discuss Wake-inspired tattoos, how to handle critics and slanderers, and find a use for sharkskin smokewallet. Progress: 61 pages complete, 567 pages to go; 9.7% read.

Thanks to a ringing endorsement from heroic bookcaster and comedy legend Michael Ian Black, WAKE has gone communal. That is, we've found a place to discuss the verbal maze that is The Wake. For more information, go to Patreon and search for the podcast title.

The attacks come thick and fast on HCE in this week's reading of WAKE, from court appearances to name-calling, from canoodling to gun violence, it's amazing that he's able to rest at all. This week TJ reads the palimpsest that is Finnegans Wake, along with Toby and Toby's brilliant 12 year old daughter, Bridie Malone, as we confront our growing international audience by producing little of actual use. Progress: 74 pages complete, 554 pages to go; 11.78% read.

WAKE loves guests. This Bloomsday week, Toby and TJ welcome the incomparable Dr. Natalie Hoskins, professor of communication, to give us her professional perspective on pleasure reading, broadcasting thoughts, and desperately looking for meaning in the subtext. Also, Natalie joins us to read from 1.4 of the Wake, where Festy King defends himself, HCE hides in a coffin, and Kate Strong seeks more tips. Will we make sense of it? Spoiler: nope, but we make up for it with plenty of ambient construction noise. Progress: 90 pages complete, 538 pages to go; 14.33% read.

This week is the total piece of work that Wagner dreamed of, with GMWKS co-creator Jordan Morille joining Toby and TJ to take on the Wake. With a baby on his hip, and delving deep into his actor's experience, Jordan popcorn-reads from the second half of 1.4, where we meet disguised ex-nuns, Dirty Daddy Pantaloons, and TJ's 'Wake' tattoo quotation. Then, we consider the gesamtkunstwerk, Dada, Sigur Rós, and the immortal question: just what is Joyce's deal? Progress: 103 pages complete, 525 pages to go; 16.4% read.

The purists are here. The purists are here. Toby and TJ get legit with the presence of long time lover of Joyce, a man who has read the Wake multiple times, and has used it as a major inspiration for his own work. Neil Wechsler is your favourite playwright's favourite playwright: an award-winning, cerebral, self-deprecating ball of energy who is here to show us that there are plenty of ways to be a purist. This week we read the first half of Chapter 1.5, and talk Beckett, Freud, and Albee, and discuss the pitfalls of fixating on the rabbit hole. This week's readers: Neil Wechsler, Toby Malone, TJ Young Progress: 113 pages complete, 515 pages to go; 17.99% read.

Neil is back, and we are going to hear some opinions. TJ and Toby welcome the brilliant Neil Wechsler back to the pod to finish reading 1.5 and then get into some analysis of what we've heard over the last two episodes. We'll talk about the unexpected benefits of reading aloud, find out what feels just like a really good university course, and establish the Neil Wechsler drinking game to get you sauced. Progress: 125 pages complete, 503 pages to go; 19.9% read.

For this week's perzacto episode, we are joined by world-changing director and all-round delight Aili Huber, as we consider the first half of the least user-friendly quiz in literary history. We have our first ever tap-out (it's easy to get lost on the page if your eye wanders), consider Dr Seuss, the gish gallop, and e.e. cummings, before we bring it all home by considering how Finnegans Wake might fit within the parameters of Aili and Toby's 2021 book Cutting Plays for Performance. In short: don't know; none; infinity. Progress: 148 pages complete, 480 pages to go; 23.57% read.

We would never consider ourselves mooks, nor would we gripe about the task in front of us, but finishing 1.6's Quiz (along with the needlessly complicated tale of the Mookse and Gripes) made us wonder whether Joyce might learn a little from Sad Girl Lit. We get a call from the other side of the planet and welcome Toby's hugely accomplished arts administrator sister, Georgia Malone, to talk about the book that "everyone owns and no one reads", the use of Joyce as a medal of honour among moody young blokes, and lay out our credentials for the knowledge of useless facts. Georgia gives us a refreshing take on how best to enjoy WAKE (come for the preamble, skip the Joyce bit), calls Joyce a wanker, and considers the place of Australian accents, Aesop, and Magic Eye pictures in understanding the work. Progress: 168 pages complete, 460 pages to go; 26.75% read.

It's a WAKE of firsts: the first episode recorded in Australia, the first episode with two guests, and, most difficult of all, the first episode without TJ. When schedules don't mesh, there's nothing for it but to plough on, for the Wake waits for no man (or musical workshop). This week comes to us from the echoey comforts of Toby's parents' house in Perth, where Mick and Jo Malone unveil their roles as the people most responsible for getting Joyce into Toby's head. We talk sibling rivalry, Irish revolutionaries, and whether Shem has reason to be upset about his treatment. Inconvenient, David. Progress: 182 pages complete, 446 pages to go; 28.98% read.

TJ is back, and WAKE, the podcast of the history of the future, rolls on its unstoppable way. This week, we consider just why siblings are generally awful to one another as Shaun reads Shem to filth to round out chapter 1.7. We discuss Toby's favourite bookstore (Lane Bookshop Claremont, represent!), Latin stories of bowel evacuation, the Mighty Ducks, Moby-Dick, and Alan Ayckbourn: so, in general, a normal day at the office. Progress: 195 pages complete, 433 pages to go; 31.05% read.

It's the most watery episode of WAKE so far, as we cruise past the 1/3 complete mark and tackle the legendary 1.8: "Anna Livia." Toby takes hubris to a whole new level by attempting to read the entire chapter, cold, without breaks, or assistance, as TJ furiously circles all of the river-name puns. We discuss remarkably knowledgeable washerwomen, the fine line between gossip and mythology, how Joyce would react to ChatGPT, and get to hear the voice of the man himself. Water you waiting for? Dive in. Progress: 216 pages complete, 412 pages to go; 34.39% read.

We pause the reading of the Wake this week to look back on Book One: HCE, ALP, Shaun, Shem and Izzy have led us on a wild, rumour-filled ride, and we want to process that before we move on. In a free-wheeling conversation, we consider Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, theatre riots, The Magus, Beowulf, the prophetic dream lucidity of Buffy Summers, Cain's Jawbone, I Think You Should Leave, and The Midnight Gospel's Dada roots. Come for the typical lack of analytical depth, stay for the soon-to-be-regretted promise that the podcast will culminate not only with tattoos, but with a stage adaptation about TJ's hero, Festy King. Progress: 216 pages complete, 412 pages to go; 34.39% read.

Book Two is underway at the Wake, and it's taking the voices spanning three different continents to take us there. This week Toby and TJ are joined by the delightful Brit Lucy Brazier, author of Finnegans What? Finnegans Wake - a Guide by an Idiot to discuss inappropriate sibling games, river poo, Oscar Wilde, underwear fetishes, and Francophobia. Despite her book's subtitle, Lucy is no idiot, but offers insight and humour that demonstrate the value of re-reading, even we are all left in a state of merry confusion. Progress: 240 pages complete, 388 pages to go; 38.22% read.

The games are afoot on WAKE, but we are fortified and ready to cast our disapproving glances over the debauchery. For the second half of Chapter 2.1, we welcome genuine teenager, Cormac Malone, to start us off, before we churn our way to the door-slammiest of thunderwords yet. We consider whether reading the Wake is just like a Tough Mudder race, and whether HCE is Neo from the Matrix. Toby reveals the Irish town in which he spent New Year's Eve 1999, and we consider what it would take to require demanding a theatre curtain to "drop by deep request." As we prepare for Night Lessons, it's all fon and gheims until sumbuddy looses an ay. Progress: 259 pages complete, 369 pages to go; 41.24% read.

Grab your notebooks and start practicing your filthiest marginalia, it's Night Lessons time. When confronted with the most logistically challenging chapter of the Wake (columns. footnotes. diagrams. marginalia!), Toby and TJ sent out the Neil-Signal, and brought in our favourite purist-in-the-nicest sense, Neil Wechsler, to establish order. In this first part of three episodes reading this complex chapter, Toby, TJ and Neil inhabit the schooldesks of Shem, Shaun, and Issy, and have some fun navigating the minutiae. Progress: 277 pages complete, 351 pages to go; 44.11% read.

Just like a well-ordered barndance, Toby, TJ, and Neil shuffle one step the right to find new dance partners, with all new takes on the mighty columns of Night Lessons. With footnotes that would make David Foster Wallace blush, Latin, French, and a parenthetical that spans five entire pages, Joyce is really making us work this week. Come sit in the back of the classroom, keep your spitballs to yourself, and try not to carve anything into the desks. Progress: 292 pages complete, 336 pages to go; 46.5% read.

Welcome to WAKE, where language is king. This week we reach the thrilling conclusion of the Night Lessons episode, and get into a little bit of analysis amidst the chaos that reigns when TJ's internet drops out mid-recording. We discuss Neil's ongoing beef against Cognitive Science and the laws of language, discover the benefits to earning knowledge, and establish all the reasons we should trust Joyce. After three weeks of column-based fun, this is the satisfying conclusion you were looking for, as we spit in the eye of all those purists who said that Night Lessons would be the chapter to break us. Progress: 308 pages complete, 320 pages to go; 49.04% read.

It's a milestone episode of WAKE, as we sail past the halfway point on an auspicious anniversary day for Toby. TJ is out sick this week, so we checked our list of dream interim co-hosts and came up with a winner: Toby's brilliant former dramaturgy student, K'hari Constantine. Toby and K'hari dive into the first part of Tales at the Inn, with the detailed story of the Norwegian Captain, and along the way consider how the Wake sounds in a sheriff's drawl, why it's important to let your tongue taste the words, how the text fits into the greater macrocosm, and, of course, why Joyce just isn't that into you. Progress: 332 pages complete, 296 pages to go; 52.87% read.

As the whiskey and Guinness flow, the Tales at the Inn get all the more outlandish, Taff and Butt get out of hand, and a Russian general cops it. This week in WAKE, we geek out about geeking out with Carly Derderian, consider whether Thornton Wilder cribbed The Skin of Our Teeth from Finnegans Wake, relax our mouths enough to speak like a Newfoundlander and unlock the meaning of the language of the Beatles. And TJ is back. Progress: 354 pages complete, 274 pages to go; 52.87% read.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

No one ever likes to WAKE alone, but sometimes the occasion calls for it. On a dark day in WAKE-world, Toby takes the reins solo to deal with the apuckalips, or at least what feels like it. Along the way, Jaun's entirely inappropriate conversation with Issy provides a distraction, tempered by side discussions of chaos theory, John Cage, Idiocracy, and hope for the future. Progress: 473 pages complete, 155 pages to go; 75.32% read.

Grab your torches and buffs, it's time for another episode of Survivor: Finnegans Wake edition... Experts say that the best way to manage unprocessed trauma is to talk it through, to normalise what you've experienced. Here at WAKE we are all about offering all angles and perspectives on Finnegans Wake: and it was only a matter of time until we interviewed someone who did not enjoy the experience. Fascinating polyglot Ana Dahlberg is a professed lover of Joyce, a participant in Bloomsday festivities, and is a certified member of an extremely exclusive club: she has survived finishing Finnigans Wake. Today, we talk to Ana about her experience, which ran the gamut of emotions, from frustration to exasperation to bewilderment to rage, and all the way back again, in such a fashion that the only way she could describe it was to suggest Morrissey write a song about her and the book that just doesn't care what she thinks. In this delightful, non-reading episode, join Toby and TJ with Ana, with the rarest of insights about how it feels to actually finish the Wake (spoiler: not as satisfying as you'd hope).

Under a full moon and with a pint of Guinness in hand, WAKE welcomes our very first Dublin-based reader, as correctly-accented Sarah Kane joins Toby and TJ to kick off Chapter 3.3. Sarah tells us all about participating in Bloomsday as a neophyte Joycean ("a lifeguard that can't swim"), slips into a Joyce fugue state regardless of best laid plans, and reminds us that a cold read is really just what the kids nowadays call Rawdogging. With the glorious Irishness of it all to bring us through, we discuss Joyce reading groups, Sweny's Pharmacy, Anthony Burgess, and, in a bombshell twist none of you saw coming, TJ's authentic Irish heritage.

It's always a treat when your smartest friend can join you for a chat: especially when it's the kind of smartest friend who makes you feel smarter yourself. Yes, award-winning visionary Neil Wechsler is back with us again to read a part of 3.3, roll past the 500 page mark, and to get deep into the weeds on meaning, immersion, expectation, and whether or not it's actually a bad thing to be pretentious. It's likely a good thing that we gave ourselves a pass on pretentiousness, because then we immediately get right into name-checking Socrates, Freud, Borges, Albee, Camus, and Lorde as we consider what it looks like as denizens at 'the middle' of the Wake. Come listen to our exagmination of the facts "thus being reduced to nothing," and then, when all is said and done, stop to consider what it all would sound like... underwater. Progress: 516 pages complete, 112 pages to go; 82.17% read.

Break out Mr. Tunney the grocer's Christmas almanac, clear your schedule for Edwin Hamilton's Christmas pantaloonade and the Christmas pantomime Sinbad the Sailor, it's time for a twelfth night feast dance with the Morkan Sisters, with the chrism for the christmass: in other words, it's the WAKE Christmas episode. As we take a break on the reading for the holiday period, Toby spends a little bit of time considering how James Joyce approached Christmas in all four of his major works, through the eyes of wistful schoolboys, red-faced drunken uncles, dreamers and roamers, with quaintly underwhelming gifts, half-hearted sobriety pledges, and epiphanies on mortality. Happy holidays from everyone at WAKE: we hope you get your holly and ivy for him and for Christmas.

There are few things more synonymous with Ireland as a creamy, rich pint of Guinness. Plenty of time has been spent on James Joyce's relationship with the black stuff, yet few have really considered just how much of a role Guinness plays in Finnegans Wake. Through dozens of allusions, references, and cunning puns, the pride of St. James's Gate bears out an outsized presence through the dream-life of HC Earwicker, and for this special New Years Eve episode, Toby and TJ take a break from reading the Wake to clean a glass, pour to the harp, let it settle, top it off, then try to split the G. Our hearts are full, and our glasses are too: let's raise a glass to Joyce, the Wake, and a potential future Guinness sponsorship for the podcast. Sláinte.

Numerologists rejoice: WAKE has hit the master number, and to celebrate, our old pal JJ has chosen to drop the subtlety and let his freak flag fly. Leonard Cohen may have said there was a crack in everything, but we don't want to know what people would accuse HCE of doing with it. Join us to discuss the Smashing Pumpkins, one man shows, adaptation theory, Yinzers and their Jawns, hundred year old pornography, and whether or not Toby and TJ have become... gasp... purists? Progress: 532 pages complete, 96 pages to go; 84.71% read.

After months of pondering the motivations of those who choose to take up the mantle of the Wake, and particularly those who get together with like-minded individuals to drink and read and discuss, we finally decided to get to the bottom of the phenomenon. Zoe Patterson is a PhD Candidate at Trinity College Dublin, whose doctoral studies centre on James Joyce reading groups. We talk about the varying usefulness of reading guides (which of course we here at WAKE pretend don't exist), people who jump on the "Joyce Train" halfway through the journey, how reading groups can resemble both Bible Study and Addiction meetings, and end on the earth-shattering revelation that this very podcast has now become academically relevant.

What happens when you put an erudite Canadian-Australian in a room with a verbose Australian-Canadian? This week, as TJ suffers through a department meeting at work, Seth Austin of the "hold my beer" W.A.S.T.E Mailing List joins Toby to take on the maelstrom that is HCE's defensiveness masking desperation. With perspectives on Giambattista Vico, father-son power struggles, and Oedipus Rex, we allow ourselves to be surprised by the text, where turnintaxis pop up where you least expect them.

I hope you have your alarm set, because the dreamer is stirring. Toby and TJ welcome old friend Jason Rothery--acclaimed playwright, novelist, and fellow theatre survivor--to help us read 3.4: 'Dawn.' In typical incisive form, Jason unleashes insight and enthusiasm as James Joyce acquires himself a brand new fan. From considerations of Finnegans Wake comprehension akin to the Suzuki method of music instruction, to André 3000's flute album, no topic is off limits, as we skim the surface, ponder translation, and think about how Joyce teaches us to "mean differently."

Often, when you show the Wake to an uninitiated reader, the first reaction will be "that's weird." Today we embrace the weird and lean into the unconventional, with a delightful, insightful chat with the overseer of the Weirdoverse, Bobby Campbell. For this bonus non-reading episode, we discuss the major role of Robert Anton Wilson in Joyce culture, psychedelics, language creation as class warfare, and ponder the questions over whether the Wake is written in English, whether Joyce had syphilis, whether Joyce was psychic, and whether Joseph Campbell was citing his insider sources. As we consider the mile-long Alka-Seltzer tablet that is the Wake, we settle on questions of the work's place as a sacred text, whether Modernism remains unsolved, and gather our courage to brave the intimidating but friendly purists on Reddit.

It's an episode of WAKE to make Grim Grandma Grunt, as Toby and TJ return from a long reading break to finish up Book 3. With three special readers providing their dulcet tones, we discuss whether there is any actual use to academic summaries of the text, see Joyce's perspective on parenting, puzzle over more cricket innuendo than you could ever possibly need, and agree that without the Wake, there's no Star Wars. Join us for the thunderslog.

It's an episode to savour, as Toby and TJ look back on the always entertaining Book 3 of the Wake, and all the fun we had along the way. With great guests, amazing community, purist support, and laughs aplenty, Book 3 has been all the fun you'd expect from the segment of the Wake set just before the dawn. With discussions that include global simulacra, along with legendary Wakeists like Bernard Benstock, Simon Loekle, Ben Watson, and Richard Harte, we throw the doors wide to encourage you to access the inaccessible here on Wake, where the Tap-Out button is no longer welcome.

Peter O'Brien is an artist, a visionary, and a life-long Joycean, with the energy to not only dream up one major Finnegans Wake-centric artistic offshoot, but is busy scheming about how to top it. We first became aware of Peter as a brilliant artist, using "letterism" to artistically annotate the pages of Finnegans Wake. Exhibited around the world and widely published, most would be satisfied with that: but not Peter, who is now pouring his unmatched attention into a new opera despite (by his own admission) knowing little about music. Join us on this fascinatingly palimpsestuous discussion that touches on the nature of genius, memorisation, Glenn Gould, Virgil, nudity, and Wagner, and shows us that you may think you can be finished with the Wake, but it's never really finished with you.

Ever have trouble remembering things? Phone numbers? Grocery lists? Names of casual acquaintances? If so, get ready to feel very self-conscious, because on this week's WAKE, we meet the indomitable Neal Kosaly-Meyer, a musician who decided, entirely of his own volition, to spend seventeen years memorising and performing the entirety of Finnegans Wake. Seriously. Toby and TJ caught Neal as he prepared to take on the punishing 'Tales From the Inn' chapter (premiering December 2025), where we discuss memorisation, how the Wake is like music that most people neglect to play, rhythm, and, of course, offer WAKE's first and definitive opinion on Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl. Don't forget: it's a new WAKE.

With stubbornness and defiance, WAKE welcomes the wonderful Igor Belokrinitsky, representative of the Ukrainian Wake in Progress Finnegans Wake reading group. Igor joins Toby and TJ for a wide-ranging conversation about the true meaning of indomitability, where Joyce stands in to tell prescient lessons about colonialism, independence, identity, language and exile, which speak directly to the plight of the brave, besieged Ukrainians. We talk about Thomas Pynchon, Nestor Makhno, Monty Python, Joseph Cornell's boxes, and the brilliant mind maps created by Linda Lotiel for each Ukrainian reading session. In war, schadenfreude is necessary, so take your shots at the Russian General if you're a true Wake Otaku, and gird your wedgewords for an episode that is just as generative as it is consumptive. WAKE stands with Ukraine.

Flushed with their firestuffostered friendship, WAKE celebrates St. Patrick's Day by exploring all of the many ways that Finnegans Wake refers to whiskey: Ireland's beloved, potent créatúr. Joined by world whiskey expert and former Sweny's volunteer Fionnán O'Connor, we explode some myths regarding monks, St Patrick, and potatoes, brush off our pub stool wisdom, prepare the worm on our darling little stills, and consider the role trust plays in what is simultaneously the oldest and youngest whiskey industry in the world. So, tuck yourself into a snug in your local shebeen with a ball of malt, and don't forget to get in on a round: we bet you can't stay for just one.

If sleep is the panacea of all ills, WAKE has found the very experts who can tell you exactly why that's the case. On this week's special bonus episode, Toby and TJ welcome internationally renowned neuroscientists, Professors Adrian Peyrache and Arjun Krishnaswamy, to talk about what's going on inside our brains while we sleep. In an episode that's part TED Talk and part HCE Talk, we break down insights into the sleeping brain, including how memory relies on good sleep hygiene, sleep paralysis, brain compasses, real-time dreaming, and how mice dream of mazes. We hear Adrien's critique of the science of 'Inception,' position the Wake as the first-ever Large Language Model, and finally gain definitive proof of who the dreamer is. Oh, and with a whole section on erotic dream-infused cave paintings, this is a discussion that will definitely not put you to sleep.