Episodes
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Haviah Mighty drops by the Cavern after a big win: Sheâs the winner of the 2019 Polaris Prize for the album, 13th floor. Lauren and Haviah get into how to work with a producer, writing for discomfort, and using your voice as an instrument. âMy approach is to open up minds so that the ignorance wonât be so wilful.â
Our favourite moments: âIâm talking about these themes that can constitute discomfort, depending on what the listener looks like. My intention when giving the information is for there to be a dialogue based on the information.â [4:30]
âWhen you say âI donât see color,â youâre dismissing all of the people that do⊠My approach is to open up minds so that the ignorance wonât be so wilfulâ [7:05]
âIâm not DIY in the âI want to do everything myself wayâ; Iâm DIY in the âI want my input to be considered way.â [10:19]
âI was listening to the new Da Baby recordâŠHe has a cool energy.â [14:28]
âYou can pull inspiration from anywhereâ [15:25]
âIâm very into music. I have a great ear. I feel like I know enough about how things sound to know what notes I canât hitâŠâ [17:26]
âI took one hip-hop class and I wasnât even the best one! I just know that I donât consider myself to be a dance so itâs funny when people are like, âYouâre such a good dancer.â [18:55]
â[My sisters] are just really talented people. Involving them just makes the most sense.â [20:00]
âI donât have to be as critical of being a good music because my standards are really high.â [25:08]
âMy competitiveness, my musicality? Thatâs kind of instilled.â [26:12]
Haviah Mighty's 2019 tour is coming to Halifax (October 26), Mississauga (October 27), Edmonton (November 7), Calgary (November 8), and Brampton (November 30). Tour dates can be found on her site.
CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel.
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Author, funny woman and busy person Eden Robinson calls into the Cavern from Kitimat, British Columbia to talk nail polish, carting around family in a big car and the gift that menopause gives you. Edenâs books include Traplines, the Giller-nominated Son Of A Trickster, and Blood Sports. Her trilogy, the Trickster series, is becoming a miniseries for CBC and her novel, Monkey Beach, is becoming a film. âIf you need stories, take the bus.â
Our favourite moments: âDad had Parkinsonâs. He found that seal fat was very helpful. The cousins who hunted - in the beginning, they would bring us neat little packets of seal...but towards the end, they were just leaving, like, half a seal in a bucket. [5:40]
âHe was always embarrassed that I wasnât a lady. And I was always like, 'You taught me to buck wood and change oil. I donât remember any tea parties.'" [7:00]
âI find [that] if I try to write to an outline or if I write to a plan, my muse gets inhibited.â [14:14]
âI was realizing how few years I have left if Iâm writing a book about every five years. Okay, there are books I wonât be able to write.â [21:30]
"I also donât have a lot of anxiety about what people think about me. I remember being very concerned about that. And them menopause just wipes that out.â [22:40]
CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel.
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Missing episodes?
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Carly Lewis, journalist, kind woman and spectacular human being, joins host Lauren Mitchell in the Cavern. Carly has written for the Globe and Mail, New York Magazine, the Atlantic, Hazlitt and more. She talks about the value of feeling isolated, getting away from your anger and making sure your parents drink water. âI feel like everybody has a little invisible suitcase with them and in that suitcase is their anger.â
Our favourite moments: âYou should strive to be the person you needed when you were younger.â [3:27]
âI had to learn how to feel safe in myself. And that was a hard-fought lesson.â [7:40]
âIt was also really important to me to be a strong loner.â [8:45]
âAnytime I have made a platform for myself that is based on anger or taking up space to be vocal about sexual assault or harassment or anything like that, I have left that space feeling tremendously guilty.â [9:20]
âI feel like everybody has a little invisible suitcase with them and in that suitcase is their anger.â [11:17]
âNow that Iâve gotten more powerful just by virtue of getting older, Iâm less angry. Even though thereâs so much to be angry about, but Iâm not walking around the world furious in the way that I kind of used to be.â [12:35]
This is when I learned to ask for forgiveness, not permission: When I asked my mom if i could sleep over in an orchard in Grimsby Ontario with a bunch of boys and my mom was, like, absolutely-the-fuck-not.â [15:35]
âIâve stopped thinking about happiness as a state or a promised land or a quest. Iâve started thinking about it as a fog that just kind of comes or goes awayâŠâ [22:30]
âSomething out there does not want me to have a stable place to live...Something out there wants me to get used to be transient.â [26:45]
CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel.
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Georgia Webber, writer and illustrator, comes to the Cavern of Secrets to talk about what it means when you canât express yourself, learning to draw again, and allowing the possibility that someone will say âyesâ and help you. Georgiaâs graphic memoir, Dumb, is about what it means to become voiceless and how it changes you.
Our favourite moments: âIf thereâs something that calls for my voice to be raised at all in a really loud way, I can push it if I want to and I most of the time really want to. But itâs a bad idea.â [4:43]
âI had always wanted to make comics but I didnât feel like I was good enough to start. Which is a terrible trap to be caught in.â [5:34]
I hit send. I woke up the next morning and I felt - god, Iâm gonna sound like such an asshole right now - I felt the closest thing I can to enlightened.â [10:05]
Itâs much harder for us to accept something that changes constantly and itâs much harder for the wide broad us to accept complicationâ [14:55]
âItâs also fascinating to collaborate with someone and have her voice at the centre of it but she canât see what Iâm doing. Sheâs exercising a massive amount of trustâŠâ [17:00]
âThis idea of disability as a shift in health paradigm as the rest of the world to accept is something that Iâm grappling withâ [24:00]
âI could see all the accommodations that were being made for people who had those different needs and being in that space and sharing it with them was not a detriment to my experience in any wayâ [28:05]
CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel.
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Sarah Hagi, writer and queen of Twitter @geeklylonglegs, comes to the Cavern of Secrets to talk about the Garfield restaurant, the Blackest cartoons and how to have fun (again) as a writer. âIt was intended to be a joke piece where I was like, yeah, Bugs Bunny is black.â
Our favourite moments: âIn a lot of ways, editors only hit me up when itâs like âooh, we need a little spice hereâ which is annoying.â [9:55]
The thing about when you make something your brand. And I donât know how it happened but I associated myself with Garfield but it happened somehow. And to this day, people are always sending me something to do with Garfield. Like, people who do not know me. And it feels great But again, Iâm like, âOh no is this why Iâm single?â [10:50]
âI was walking down Bloor with my friend and I was really sad and crying, then I was like âWhatâs Garfield doing on that storefront?â [11:59]
âI spent my whole life thinking, âJulia Stiles? Sheâs got RHYTHM. Only to realize now that she cannot danceâ [21:37]
âI didnât go to my prom. I went to Dairy Queen.â [23:51]
CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Vicky Mochama and Sarah Daniel.
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Monica Heisey, author, comedian, TV writer and all around warm and funny individual joins host Lauren Mitchell in the Cavern to talk about the years that have passed. After a three year hiatus, Cavern of Secrets is back. Since then, Monica has become even more successful, gotten a divorce, and moved to London where sheâs delighting the locals with her British accent. âI was more of a Greek mythology girl than a horse girlâŠâ
Our favourite moments: âMy friend Lindsey [Weber] who is a host of and creator of Who Weekly says the best dirt - the worst dirt - is in a little-known podcast before [someone] got super famous.â [3:12]
âIâm not sure confidence is real. I think itâs something weâre projecting onto other peopleâŠâ [6:01]
âEveryoneâs trying and not sure theyâre doing it rightâ [9:18]
âOne thing that [divorce] gave me was: I was so sad, I was just very heartbroken that it didnât work. It led to this wonderful freedom. These petty occupations that have taken up so much of my time ... I care a lot less about things but in a way that feels good.â [10:18]
âIn a way, the very difficult emotional things was...very good?â [12:54]
âIâm doing a lot of developing [tv shows] right now and production companies will say, we donât want to limit you, youâre the creative. And in theory, thatâs nice. I feel like that episode where school closes and Lisa Simpson is jumping around in front of Marge and saying âGrade me! Please! Grade Meâ [15:00]
âItâs such a disaster to say youâre writing a second book because everyone believes you.â [16:15]
âOn LUSH products, there's a picture on the bottom of the person who made the product and it was this man named Brandon and he had big ear spacers. Every time I was putting my thigh chafe cream on, I just pictured Brandon saying "Good for you. You do whatever's good for you."â [18:57]
âAll my favourite shows are British comedies so I just want to go over there and [say] âPlease please, here I am!â [25:12]
âThey have a list of awards that you can win âor equivalentâ. And I had to say that the Canadian Screen Awards is the Emmys for Canada. Just put it on your list! Itâs real!â [26:55]
CREDITS: Cavern of Secrets is hosted by Lauren Mitchell. Produced by Ellen Payne Smith & Katie Jensen, with assistance from Jay Cockburn, Vicky Mochama, and Sarah Daniel.
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The specific way men interview women (5:05), Rory Gilmore, journalist (17:17), and the Avril Lavigne riots of 2021 (48:27)
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Saving lives and fighting fires (13:58), protesting at Standing Rock (23:16), and riding in cars with cops (37:18)
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The glamorous life of an intern (8:20),the incredible whiteness of CanLit (22:15), and playing video games for the story (44:40).
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The O.C. at the height of its O.C.-ness (7:00), is this bolognese feminist? (19:00), and where were you when A Seat at the Table dropped? (39:38)
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Flossing to live (7:27), shining in a shiny room (21:44), and the blessed life of a comedy writer (33:52).
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Embracing your accents (9:12), little voices yelling things (14:25), and the high cost of telling your story (17:47).
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Branding yourself a feminist (06:37), defining care and ability (12:01), and pouring one out for Sum 41 (22:30)
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Terrible Calvin Klein ads (12:23), building safer raves (32:07) and how to get into Berghain (40:41)
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Does anyone need an MBA? (10:48) knowing what you want in your 30s (15:41) and slamming some kombucha and sinking into the ocean (34:02).
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Living off of peanut butter and stale crackers (8:14), preserving Black history in Canada (13:47), and how we save our abolitionist museums (30:55)
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A five on beauty (10:56), singing Deborah Cox (20:21), and why North Dakota is better than L.A. (27:30)
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The public life of a book (6:40), the song of a lapsed Christian (21:57), and not getting salty about your partnerâs edits (30:10).
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The business of making your book a film (5:36), when adaptations arenât (14:40), and why we need stories (24:45).
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Lemonade and intergenerational trauma (1:41), building a life in Drakeâs jacket (14:04), and the saddest Reddit relationship post (22:36)
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