Here Be Monsters
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
HBM159: Final Haircuts
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During a moment of personal turmoil, Rocky Villanueva gets an email from a long-time client. His client is in his final weeks of life, and is ge...
The Thaw & Die Grenze
09 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff walks to the edge of Berlin and explains why the Here Be Monsters feed has been quiet for so long. On the way, Jeff talks about plans for up...
HBM158: An Illusion
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
n the midst of a stressful move, HBM producer Jeff Emtman finds comfort in the phasing techniques developed by minimalist composer, Steve Reich. ...
HBM157: The Raw Whatever
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Allen H Greenfield is a UFOlogist and occult researcher. He’s also a father of three. His first child, Alex was the subject of HBM1...
HBM156: Heavy Load-Bearing Body
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Berlin’s Schwerbelastungskörper is a massive concrete structure that, today, is hidden in plain sight between a railroad and an apartment building....
The HBM Art Exchange is Back!
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Here Be Monsters Art Exchange is back!It’s a really simple and wonderful thing where you, gentle listener, can mail a piece of art to a stranger...
HBM155: Ghosts Aliens Burritos
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Content Note: pervasive language, brief mentions of bigotry.Alex Greenfield says that there was no such thing as a normal day when he was a kid. ...
HBM154: Ancient Roman Recipes
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sally Grainger was originally a chef, but in her 20’s, she was gifted a copy of an ancient Roman cookbook called Apicius. Apicius is a bit of a...
The Straight and Narrow
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2012, a street preacher walking three small dogs tried to convince Jeff Emtman of his way of thinking about gender and the afterlife. In this ...
HBM153: Klänge from Berlin
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The composer Pauline Oliveros thought there was a difference between hearing and listening. She defined hearing as a passive act, something done...
HBM152: Dirt Becomes You
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What do you want to happen to your body when you die? It’s a touchy topic where tradition, religion and death denial all come into play. ...
HBM151: Blowgun Time Warp
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Season 10 of Here Be Monsters starts and host Jeff Emtman hallucinates his adolescence while working long hours. Scenes from middle school dance...
Season 10 is Coming!
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Season 10 is nearly here! The season starts on March 9th and episodes will be released on a rolling basis until all ten shows are published.Want...
Leaving Spotify
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I’ve decided to remove my work from Spotify. It’s not just their recent controversies around Joe Rogan, it’s a much bigger problem with th...
HBM150: Cold Water
01 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The origins of Julia Susara’s chronic fatigue are hard to pin down. She still doesn’t know exactly how it started but suspects that a deeply...
HBM149: The Daily Blast [Neutrinowatch]
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A short episode from the new show Neutrinowatch: A Daily Generative Podcast. Each episode of Neutrinowatch changes a lil’ bit every day. ...
So What Exactly is Episode 149?
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 149 is an odd duck for sure. It changes every day due to some coding trickery that is happening behind the scenes. That episode is ...
HBM148: Early Attempts at Summoning Dream Beings
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As a teenager, HBM host Jeff Emtman fell asleep most nights listening to Coast To Coast AM, a long running talk show about the world’s weirdnesses. ...
HBM147: Chasing Tardigrades
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With much of the world shut down over the last year, HBM host Jeff Emtman started wondering if there were smaller venues where the world still felt op...
Theodora is @hypo_inspo
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A brief follow-up to last episode: you can now follow our AI-powered friend Theodora on Twitter! She tweets several times a day, giving bad advice, g...
HBM146: Theodora
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How does a computer learn to speak with emotion and conviction? Language is hard to express as a set of firm rules. Every language rule see...
HBM145: The Juice Library
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Like so many others, Amanda Petrus got a bit lost after college. She had a chemistry degree and not a lot of direction. But she was able to find...
HBM144: Keeping A Place
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
HBM Host Jeff Emtman has always been afraid of losing his memories. Places he cares about keep getting torn down.In this episode, Jeff bikes arou...
HBM143: Laughing Rats and Dawn Rituals
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Animals sometimes make noises that would be impossible to place without context. In this episode: three types of animal vocalizations—describe...
HBM142: The Vastness of the Universe
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
1,420,405,751* hertz is a very important frequency. It’s the frequency that hydrogen radiates at, creating radio waves that can be detected fa...
HBM141: Filthy Riches
17 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When a group of broke college students start throwing lavish feasts, HBM host Jeff Emtman begins to wonder at the source of the food, initially assumi...
Season 9 = February 17th
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Season 9 will be here soon! We’ll bring you ten new episodes about fear, beauty and the unknown. We’ll see the fight for survival...
HBM Continues as an Independent Podcast
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For the last five years, Here Be Monsters has been a part of KCRW. And in those years, we’ve put out a 100+ episodes under KCRW’s imprint.&n...
HBM140: The New Black Wall Street
24 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There used to be a neighborhood in Tulsa where Black people were wealthy. They owned businesses, built a giant church, a public library. Some Black Tu...
HBM139: Acceptable Pains
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hedonism seems pretty appealing right now—seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. On HBM137: Superhappiness, the hedonist philosopher, David Pearce imag...
HBM138: Did Neanderthals Bury their Dead?
27 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a large cave in the foothills of Iraqi Kurdistan. It looks out over green and yellow fields and a river far below. Starting in the 1950’s,...
HBM137: Superhappiness
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
David Pearce thinks it's possible to end suffering. He’s a philosopher* who studies “hedonic zero”, the state of being which is completely neutr...
HBM136: Jacob's Lost Biography
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2012, Jacob Lemanski started writing his autobiography a few words at a time when he signed his name on the digital card readers at the grocery sto...
HBM135: Dying Well
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We live in a culture of “death denial”. That’s what Amanda Provenzano thinks. She sees it when medical professionals use euphemisms like ‘pass...
HBM134: Questionable Hobbies of the Socially Isolated
01 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Searching for something to do during government-mandated social distancing, Here Be Monsters host Jeff Emtman recently digitized his cassette collecti...
HBM133: Prey of Worms
18 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bodies are odd. Anyone who can see their own nose will tell you the same. So will anyone whose diet changed their body odor. And so ...
HBM132: Moral Enhancement
04 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Natalia Montes was a teenager living in Florida when Travyon Martin was killed. She says his picture reminded her of her classmates, “It could...
HBM131: A Cure for Carsickness
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bethany Denton has a long history of carsickness. Ever since she was a little girl, long car rides made her nauseous and gave her stomachaches. Once, ...
HBM130: Mother Pigeon / Sister Marta
05 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mother Pigeon says the wild animals of New York City are hungry. So she feeds them.Each morning, a flock of about 150 pigeons waits for her at h...
HBM129: The Underearthlings
22 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Lars Christian Kofoed Rømer claims his red hat is mere coincidence. He wears it because his mother-in-law knit it for him 15 years ago and he quite l...
HBM128: Seeing Auras
08 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Colby Richardson’s mom got leukemia when he was young. He has trouble remembering her. Soon after her death, Colby and his siblings wound up at a ho...
HBM127: QALYs
25 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us want to help. But it can be hard to know how to do it, and not all altruistic deeds are equal, and sometimes they can be harmful.&nbs...
HBM126: Sounding the Deep
11 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How familiar are you with the shape of the continents? What about the shape of the seafloor? If you’re unfamiliar with the contours of ou...
HBM125: Deepfaking Nixon
27 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a beautifully written speech that was never delivered. Written for President Richard Nixon by Bill Safire, the speech elegizes astronauts Bu...
HBM124: Banana Softies
13 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Gene” says it started because he wanted to be a veterinarian. So he took a job as a research associate at a vivarium that studied cancer drugs. H...
HBM123: Water Witches
30 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Some time in the 90’s, Kathy Emtman received a gift from her husband, Rick. It was a pair of bent metal rods, each shaped into long ‘L’. Nothing...
HBM122: Should Cows Have Names?
16 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Paros lives in two worlds. In one world, he’s an animal welfare specialist and mixed animal vet, meaning he works with both “companion” ani...
HBM121: True North
02 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Angels saved Here Be Monsters’ host Jeff Emtman once. They picked him up and took care of him after a bad bike crash. It was just one of...
Season 8 = October 2
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
HBM120: Own Worst Interest
05 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the fall of 1989, in Vancouver, Washington, a short, 29 year-old man named Westley Allan Dodd raped and murdered three young boys. The boys were br...
HBM119: An Episode of Pebbles and Twigs
22 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The end of our seventh season draws near! Just one more episode until we hang up our podcasting hats for a few months. We don’t want you to miss us ...
HBM118: Mountain Seabed
08 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Life on earth began in the oceans. And it used to be simpler. For the first few billion years, life consisted of microbes that didn’t really s...
HBM117: Grave Oversight
24 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sudan has been involved in ongoing civil wars since 1983. The wars were about religion, culture and resources. By 2005, approximately two million civi...
HBM116: Finest and Most Rotten (Going Forward)
10 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mar 21, 1919 - NEW YORK CITYAn anonymous writer for the New York Tribune stands at 154 Nassau. The writer asks passers-by a simple question: “...
HBM115: Bound in Walton et al.
27 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A highway robber with many aliases lay on his deathbed after contracting a bad flu. He dictated his life story to his captors before succumbing ...
HBM114: Envisioning AIDS
13 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In a warm and dark room in the winter of 1987, people lay on the ground with their eyes closed. A facilitator from the Shanti Project guides tho...
HBM113: The Last Ones
27 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Bethany Denton’s been thinking about grief a lot lately. In 2017, two of her friends, a mother and a daughter, died unexpectedly just two months apa...
HBM112: Negative Space
13 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Back when HBM host Jeff Emtman was a photographer, he used to solve his problems with walks in the woods. There, he’d see the ways that branch...
HBM111: Waiting for Earth
29 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Motherhood always seemed non-negotiable for Bethany Denton. Her upbringing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints certainly instilled this...
HBM110: Big Numbers
16 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For two thirds of his life, HBM host Jeff Emtman has been thinking about the distance to The Moon in terms of corn snacks. Bugles specifically. ...
HBM109: Untitled Noises of New York (Sound Matters)
02 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
HBM host Jeff Emtman travels to New York City in an effort to fulfill open-ended recording assignments issued from afar by Tim Hinman for an episode o...
HBM108: Witch of Saratoga
19 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Angeline Tubbs may have been as old as 104 when she died alone in the woods, in a hut she made with her own hands. She came to America with a Br...
HBM107: Carlo Surrenders
05 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Carlo Nakar spent more than twenty years in the United States before he was called by God to return to the the Philippines. It happened during one of ...
HBM106: Beautiful Stories about Dead Animals (part 2)
21 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is a special two-part episode, in which Kryssanne Adams describes the many times where she’s seen death or inflicted it upon animals. Content ...
HBM105: Beautiful Stories about Dead Animals (part 1)
07 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Before Kryssanne Adams was old enough to understand death, she found a dead mouse and carried it around with her in a plastic Easter egg shell. ...
HBM104: Scrapheap Reactor
24 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Max Turnquist advises against wearing shorts while dumpster diving for used lab equipment. Almost every day, Max visits a university parking garage, w...
HBM103: Fate's Notebook
10 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Somewhere in Maritza Gulin’s basement, there’s a typewritten notebook that belonged to her father, Reynaldo. The notebook contains essential advic...
HBM102: Breath Holder
26 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Archer Mayo has always loved finding lost things. He grew up on several navy bases and spent much of his childhood swimming and looking for human detr...
HBM101: Much Corruption
12 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up, Jeff Emtman had a hard time balancing his piety for the One God with his piety for the Gnomish lord Berwyn. Generally, he deferred t...
Season 7 Soon!
21 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
HBM100: Faraway Minds
06 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Anna Klein thinks that tea tastes better on the Faroe Islands. She thinks the water’s more pure there, and the Northern Lights let the sky be ...
HBM099: Spell for the Repulsion of Astral Vampires
23 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There’s currently an invisible, supernatural pandemic affecting the world, or so claims HBM host Jeff Emtman. What else could explain the wide...
HBM098: Feed the Queen
09 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Victoria Bug Zoo is home to dozens of species of insects and arachnids, and two leaf cutter ant colonies.There's the new colony, with a three year...
HBM097: Fox Teeth
25 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the Westfjords of Iceland, people wait for birds to come ashore so that they can gather the feathers they leave behind. These birds, called E...
HBM096: Are We Still Afraid?
11 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Here Be Monsters is almost 100 episodes old. It’s grown a lot since Jeff was a scared 22 year old learning audio editing in his basement. So as we a...
HBM095: The Bats that Stay
28 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Not all migratory bats migrate. We don’t know why some choose to stay behind at their summer roosts. But according to the University of ...
HBM094: The Fatigue of Violence
14 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the nearly 20 years that Susan Randall’s been working as a private investigator, she’s seen Vermont’s most disadvantaged people struggling to...
HBM093: The Brain Scoop
01 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In school, Divya Anantharaman used to get teased for having long skinny fingers like ET. But now she sees them as valuable asset for the intrica...
HBM092: Carry the Scent
14 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Larson does not have an easy job. He searches for missing people with his dog Captain Dexter as a K9 search and rescue volunteer. Robert often ...
HBM091: Hypnosis of Hunger
31 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Producer Bethany Denton found a box in her basement storage room with two old cassette tapes inside. It took her a moment to realize what they were.Co...
HBM090: Two Small Creatures with Human Eyes
17 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Natural history museums are art galleries. Scientifically focussed art galleries, but art galleries nonetheless. Ian Tattersall, of the Am...
HBM089: Human Wish Tree
03 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
HBM088: Riptides and a Sinking Ship
20 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A riptide recently pulled Ariana into open water off the shore of Santa Monica. She thinks it’s her closest brush with death thus far. A...
HBM087: Trifle Not with Sacred Things
07 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It hasn’t been easy for Ashley Fryer to let go of her faith. For thirty years, she dedicated her life to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Sa...
HBM086: Eve is Hungry
29 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In HBM085: Ascended Fiction, we explored a rumor about Scientology and whether there exists a belief that founder L. Ron Hubbard will return to Earth....
HBM085: Ascended Fiction
22 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There’s an office in every church of Scientology dedicated to the founder. It’s a full reconstruction: desks, chairs, books and memorabilia....
HBM084: Are You Sure You're Awake?
08 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Chrissy was having trouble remembering who she was when she woke up. First she thought it was early-onset dementia, then she thought it was schi...
HBM083: Sweet Like Snap Peas
25 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan Graves thinks that store-bought asparagus is as flavorless as potatoes. But that's just because he's spoiled on the really good stuff. ...
HBM082: MI5 MI6 KGB CIA
11 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
John Barner spent his entire childhood fiddling with his dad’s shortwave radio, picking up transmissions from all over the world. He like the way th...
HBM081: Kinnikinnick Nick VS The Bear
27 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Boy Scout Leadership Camp was a bad fit for Jeff Emtman. He was a meek 13 year old who didn’t eat meat and talked to animals with his mind. Re...
23 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Psychic Blob and The Radio Race
09 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
On a hot summer day in 2014, HBM host Jeff Emtman received a bit of amateur, backyard surgery from a fish biologist. It was for the KCRW 24 Hour...
HBM080: The Ocean of Halves
07 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Remi Dun enjoys her job. She's good at it, she makes good money, and she generally enjoys her clients’ company. And although her job rarely gives he...
HBM079: The Tingles
24 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Devaan describes it as a pulsing, tingling feeling on the back of his neck. His preferred stimuli are whispers, shuffling cards, scissors, tapp...
HBM078: Sagittarius Has $45
10 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Sagittarius has been good for the last year. That’s what he told us. He told us that the cage that Luna designed for him is working.&nbs...
HBM077: Snow on Date Trees, then on Pines
26 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Muhammad Tariq still doesn’t know who the men with guns were. They wore masks on their faces when they came into the teachers’ lounge.  ...
HBM076: Griff's Speech
12 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As a baby, Griff Eldridge was quieter than most. But he slept well. He fed. He played with his big brother Ira. And he smiled easily...
HBM075: The Weight of Science
29 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Anita Woodley went to the Rhine Research Center for scientific confirmation. Since childhood, she’d dreamt the future, able to predi...
HBM074: Benedict Arnold Makes People Nervous (Rumble Strip)
01 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
There is an unusual piece of carved grey stone in the hills of upstate New York. It depicts the boot of a notorious American villain who was sho...
HBM073: A Trial Ghost Hunt
15 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ken Arnold and his wife Donna have opposite work schedules, but they are lucky to share a hobby. For the last nine years they have operated an all-vol...