The Kitchen Sisters hit the links at the legendary Bing Crosby Pro Am at Pebble Beach.

The Crosby Clambake - 1981

Going Home Trailer

It's August 2007. Lauren Marks is a 27-year-old actor and a PhD student, spending the month directing a play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She's in a bar, standing onstage, performing a karaoke duet of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'... and then a blood vessel in her brain bursts. When she wakes up in hospital, days later, she has no internal monologue, and a vocabulary of only forty words.

Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/eclipse, and more about Lauren at http://astitchoftime.com.

Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org. Find all our shows at http://radiotopia.fm.

The Allusionist

Allusionist 58: Eclipse

They look like numbers. They sound like numbers. You kinda know they are numbers. But they're not actually numbers. Linguistic anthropologist Stephen Chrisomalis explains what's going on with indefinite hyperbolic numerals like 'zillion', 'squillion' and 'kajillion'.

For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/zillions.

Come to see the live show at the London Podcast Festival in September; tickets are on sale now at http://kingsplace.co.uk/radiotopia. 

Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.  

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm.

Allusionist 60: Zillions

"It's sort of frozen body language; that's what handwriting analysis is about."

Since it caught on a couple of hundred years ago, graphology - analysing handwriting to deduce characteristics of the writer - has struggled to be taken seriously as a practice. But undoubtedly, there are things about ourselves that we can't help but reveal in our handwriting. 

For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/graphology.

Come to see the live show at the London Podcast Festival in September; tickets are on sale now at http://kingsplace.co.uk/radiotopia. 

Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.  

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm, and be a pal and tell us your thoughts about our shows in the annual listener survey: http://surveynerds.com/allusionist.

Allusionist 61: In Your Hand

Crossword-solving is often a solitary activity - over breakfast; on the train; on the loo... But a few times a year, crossword puzzle enthusiasts gather in their hundreds to compete to be the fastest, most accurate crossword-solver. This episode comes to you from a church basement on the Upper East Side of New York City, wherein takes place America's second largest crossword puzzle tournament: Lollapuzzoola.

For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/lollapuzzoola.

Come to see the live show at the London Podcast Festival in September; tickets are on sale now at http://kingsplace.co.uk/radiotopia. 

Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.  

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm, and be a pal and tell us your thoughts about our shows in the annual listener survey: http://surveynerds.com/allusionist.

Allusionist 62: In Crypt, Decrypt

"Accent is identity. It's a way of encoding and signaling - almost completely at an unconscious level for most people - who they feel like they are, who they want to be seen as, what group they feel like they belong to." The podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz investigates how accents have evolved in the UK and USA.

Hear Twenty Thousand Hertz at http://20k.org and find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/evolution-of-accents.

Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.  

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm

Allusionist 63: Evolution Of Accents

You've encountered technobabble when Doc Brown is shouting about flux capacitors in Back To The Future, or when Isaac Asimov writes about positronic brains. Astrophysicist Katie Mack and NASA JPL technologist Manan Arya discuss how science fact relates to science fiction. 

This episode is a collaboration with Eric Molinsky of Imaginary Worlds; listen to his episode about technobabble, featuring ACTUAL HOLLYWOOD TECHNOBABBLERS, at http://imaginaryworldspodcast.org.

The show's online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.  

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm.

Allusionist 64: Technobabble

Roman Mars returns for our annual dose of eponyms - words that derive from people's names. This year: explosive revelations about the origins of the word 'guy'. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/guy. 

CONTENT NOTE: the episode contains a description of 17th century torture and execution. 

The show's online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.  

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. Find all our podcasts at http://radiotopia.fm.

Allusionist 65. Eponyms III: Who's That Guy?

From Me To You’s Alison Hitchcock and Brian Greenley didn’t know each other well. But when Brian was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Alison offered to write him letters. 100 letters later, their lives were changed.

One of the newest members of Radiotopia is Ear Hustle, a podcast made inside San Quentin by and about the men incarcerated there, in collaboration with Nigel Poor. In prison, a letter is a precious thing.

Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/open-me-1. The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. It’s Radiotopia’s annual fundraiser: to keep our shows going, become a supporter (and get some excellent gifts!) at http://radiotopia.fm.

The show's online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Allusionist 66: Open Me part I

You're holding a letter. What's inside? A weather report from 5,000 miles away? Some devastating family history? A single word? A heartfelt dispatch from your past self that's about to change the course of your life?

Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/open-me-2. 

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts on the interwaves. It’s Radiotopia’s annual fundraiser: to keep our shows going, become a supporter (and get some excellent gifts!) at http://radiotopia.fm.

The show's online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Allusionist 67: Open Me part II

Small adventures in the English language, by Helen Zaltzman from @AnswerMeThis for @Radiotopia from PRX.

Visit http://theallusionist.org, and/or subscribe on iTunes http://tinyurl.com/iTunesAllusionist.