Shows
The Canterbury FailsThre Prestis of Peblis: Threefold Bait and Switch with a Mid Whisky SourThe set up is so juicy: dissolution, gluttony, corruption--but no, it's a moral Scottish march through politics, ethics, and penance, with a 3x3 drink that does what it should but not what it could.2025-05-0355 minThe Canterbury FailsProverb from Winfrid's Time: A Macronic Prosimetric Shorty with a Burly and Surly Complexity of a DrinkBuried in an eighth-century Latin letter from a monk who keeps his name a secret is a two-line maybe heroic nugget of juicy maybe heroic wisdom. We read it.2025-04-1852 minThe Canterbury FailsMoney, Money, Money: A Dour maybe-anti-Money poem and a gross drink you might have had stealing liquor from your parentsMatt and David try to grapple with a late Middle English anti-money tract, but there isn't much to work with, and the cocktail is a citrusy paean to sadness.2025-04-0539 minThe Canterbury FailsÆlfric's Mid-Lent Sunday: Stirring Metaphors and a Stirred DrinkA reflective reading of Jesus and his loaves and fishes, chock full of allegorical goodness, and a world class Old Fashiouned (TM): thank you Canada!2025-03-1550 minThe Canterbury FailsInsta-Fails: Four Middle English Lyrics and Four BreweriesA very special stunt episode where Matt and David read unseen (by them, but no doubt Furnivall has read them all) and give their gut reactions / hot takes, as they peregrinate through breweries in Port Moody. Chaos, 80s music, and revelry ensue. 2025-03-0239 minThe Canterbury FailsThe Rime of King William: Chonky Anglais Fizz and Angry Rhyming CoupletsA poem in Old English that is wildly ambivalent but brutally clever coupled with a vegetation-rich perversion of an English classic.2025-02-1551 minThe Canterbury FailsThe Fraternity of Drinkers: Initiation Rites with Quarts of English AleA gentle tail-rhymed parody about a brotherhood of drinkers that no one has every written about: a perfect Fail.2025-01-1845 minThe Canterbury FailsÆlfric's Homily on the Nativity: Invisible Wolf and Thicc-DranksÆlfric gets all teacherly about Jesus's birth and Matt and David suck down 3000 calories in 5 minutes. It's great.2024-11-3052 minThe Canterbury FailsOn the Corruptions of the Times: Bad Poetry, Matt Weeps, and a Pencil Shaving CocktailThe vaguest and most general milquetoast fifteenth-century poetry on how bad things are (they are bad people!) with a drink that makes Matt and David question their credibility.2024-11-1648 minThe Canterbury FailsA Voice Crying Out and a Fortified City: Old English Prose Psalm 30Alfred shouts out his sorrows while Matt and David (both the Biblical and the actual) knock back a Bob Dylan x vermouth fanfic love fest. With fire. And a monastic chaser. 2024-11-0251 minThe Canterbury FailsThe Juggler and the Baron's Daughter: Dicey Magic Seduction and a Citrusy Gin BombA Middle English ballad about a sketchy juggler with bad intent and a potent bittersweet and floral ringer.2024-10-1945 minThe Canterbury FailsOld English Saint Pantaleon: Dumb Ways to DieAn inventive and violent life of a kid doctor with the citrusy and herbal Milk of a Lion. 2024-09-2844 minThe Canterbury FailsHow the Plague Was Ceased at Rome: Shoddy Sticky Bun and Fungal BourbonLydgate's anti-Plague miracle poem with pestiferous angels paired with a medieval medicine-infused citrus bomb.2024-09-1453 minThe Canterbury FailsKalamazoo Fails IIA live and in-person episode recorded in Kalamazoo Michigan at the International Congress on Medieval Studies featuring Usha Vishnuvajjala, Marty Schichtman, Laurie Finke, S.C. Kaplan, Sarah Baechle, Erin Sweany, and Dana Oswald. Decapitated wolves! Penis pilgrimage! Terrible romance! Fun was had by all.2024-05-311h 08The Canterbury FailsCapture of the Five Boroughs: Political Lackeyism (or how to kiss Edmund's heroic ass)A mediocre and short (thankfully) Old English encomium for Edmund that confuses Danes and Vikings paired with a rich and potent New York transplant cocktail. And David got one of those cherries he likes. 2024-04-0652 minThe Canterbury FailsFeast of Tottenham: Impossible Food in a Bad ParodyA barrage of nonsense luxury food items coupled with a surrealist filmic stiff drink.2024-03-2348 minThe Canterbury FailsWulfstan On Isaiah's Visions: David and Matt Wander East Van BreweriesA very special episode we like to call Canterbury Fails Ales Trails: a pilgrimage to several imbiberies punctuated with discussion of a bilingual apocalypto-prophetic wake-up call to the the English who are clearly eyebrow-deep in dissolution (much like the hosts).2024-03-1156 minThe Canterbury FailsBird with Four Feathers: Flimsy Penitential Allegory and Repugnant HubbaBubba JuiceA Middle English bird cries out for mercy, while we suck down the WORST potpourri vanilla chemical peach asscrap2024-02-1650 minThe Canterbury FailsOld English Hexameron: Creation and Libation!Ælfric lays out the first six days of creation--ecotheory, gender, epistemology (according to Coley)--and we have a stunning cocktail and IPA chaser. 2024-02-0354 minThe Canterbury FailsJack and his Stepdame: Explosive Farts and Compulsive DancingA comic almost-fabliau about a boy, three wishes, and apocalyptic flatulence, with a layered cocktail that hides the darkness in the light.2024-01-2055 minThe Canterbury FailsSpecial Episode: The PastonsMargaret was both a medical and military rockstar. Do not mess with her.2023-12-0826 minThe Canterbury FailsPeri Didaxeon: How to make yourself blindAn Old English barrage of healing recipes--dung! venison! breast milk!--with a cozy medicinal hearth warmer.2023-12-0253 minThe Canterbury FailsSpecial Episode: Beetles, Buttholes and Bowel MovementsWho'd have thought that the super classy and amazingly sophisticated Marie de France wrote poems on exploding ass and pregnant men?2023-11-2726 minThe Canterbury FailsComplaint Against Fortune: MehAn anonymous Boethius-lite (TM) prison poem coupled with an opaquely frothy egg creme abomination. 2023-11-1841 minThe Canterbury FailsBede's Death Song: Library SuperheroThe short Old English death lyric embedded in an emotional Latin letter about an expiring superstar scholar, coupled with an explosive lemon and anise dropshot.2023-11-0454 minThe Canterbury FailsThe Colkelbie Sow: Utter InsanityA poem so unruly and excessive that it cannot be summarized: unhinged bananas bull goose loony. With a trifecta of Penny cocktails.2023-10-2158 minThe Canterbury FailsPassion of Saint Maurice: Old English CarnageÆlfric's life (and death) of the saint Maurice and his 6665 friends, plus a potent bitter smoky and sweet masterpiece.2023-10-0757 minThe Canterbury FailsTale of the Five Beasts: Scots GoodnessA beast fable dream vision mirror of princes with a potent and delicious Scottish cocktail.2023-09-2354 minThe Canterbury FailsEnigmatic Cryptography Incest RiddleAn Old English prose riddle that many or may not be about incest, and a page of secret codes, coupled with a curdled hellscape of coconut, citrus and sulphuric eggy blobs. 2023-09-0952 minThe Canterbury FailsA Very Special Episode Live from the International Congress on Medieval StudiesRecorded live in front of a real audience in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the Canterbury Fails had six brilliant guest stars: Brian O'Camb and Mary Kate Hurley on some marginal and doubly obscure Latin-Old English proverbs; Carissa Harris and Noëlle Phillips on a testy fifteenth-century beer ballad; Irina Dumitrescu and Denis Ferhatovic on a very twisted French fabliau. I know. Right? Unbelievable. Also weird drinks, hijinks, minor kinks, and deep thinks.2023-05-181h 03The Canterbury FailsA Delightful Rustic Burlesque TournamentA bunch of yahoos battle it out over a reeve's daughter, while we drink an oily peach-potpourri disaster.2023-04-2247 minThe Canterbury FailsAn Old English Poem about Bones Cooked by Cooks in a Cooking PanA degenerate and grotesque Old English psalm paired with a smoky golden delight.2023-04-0747 min
The Canterbury FailsA Description of Man's Members (really!)A wild and all too detailed description of male members; actually, no, it's a political allegory in verse, and a sevenfold rich whisky marvel. 2023-03-0442 minThe Canterbury FailsThe Old English ChrodegangA stultifying set of rules for churchmen with a flaming rum-blast of venom, scorpion-style.2023-02-1846 minThe Canterbury FailsVery Special Episode: Council of Trees and the Knight's TaleIn this stunt episode, David and Matt adventure downtown to a super fancy cocktail lab and--switching it up--attempt to match a medieval text to the drink. Amazing cocktail and mainstream (non-Fail) text. An ambient noise odyssey in self-consciousness, grotesque wealth, and canonical literature. Special thanks to our very cool bartender and bonus thanks to our audio engineer splice-master. 2023-01-2948 minThe Canterbury FailsRats Away! A Middle English CharmA broken-down shattered poeticalish charm against vermin with a swingin' big city celebrity tipple.2023-01-1435 minThe Canterbury FailsExcommunication! Curses! Woe!A fiery blast of excommunication ritual with a literally on fire tequila citrus blowout. 2022-12-1040 minThe Canterbury FailsThe Book of Quint EssenceAn alchemical slog in Middle English prose matched by a neoplatonically perfect cure-all.2022-11-1938 minThe Canterbury FailsLorica of LaidcennGod and his army protects every last one of your weird little body parts, while you sip a herbal smoky kick to the the triform brain (and liver).2022-10-2944 min
The WPHP Monthly MercuryThe Canterbury Fails x The WPHP Monthly Mercury: MONKS!!!What do the medieval period and the Romantic period have in common? Well, at the very least, badly behaved monks. In Episode 4 of Season 3 of The WPHP Monthly Mercury, hosts Kate Moffatt and Kandice Sharren team up with David Coley and Matt Hussey and their podcast, The Canterbury Fails, for our first-ever crossover episode. This is, in the words of our friends at The Canterbury Fails, "A late medieval music theory complaint and literally the best most bonkers depraved monk freak show mock-gothic novel paired with a gin-soaked tea (do re mi!) and repugnant Jolly Rancher retro-cocktail."2022-10-281h 07The Canterbury FailsWPHP Monthly Mercury x Canterbury Fails: MONKS !!!A late medieval music theory complaint and literally the best most bonkers depraved monk freak show mock-gothic novel paired with a gin-soaked tea (do re mi!) and repugnant Jolly Rancher retro-cocktail. With awesome special guest stars Kandice Sharren and Kate Moffatt. 2022-10-151h 03The Canterbury FailsVoice Crying in the WildernessAn elegant and informed exposition of John the Baptist's birth paired with a cloudy red seafood drink. 2022-09-3035 minThe Canterbury FailsThe Babee's BokeA pedantic grind about table manners with a syrupy cocktail for babies.2022-09-1731 minThe Canterbury FailsSPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT plus two micro-fails and hotdogwater beerWe interrupt summer hiatus to invite proposals for a live Canterbury Fails: do you want to be on the Fails? We want you to be on the Fails. We're hosting a live participatory episode at Kalamazoo in May 2023. Please listen and submit; website here: wmich.edu/medievalcongress.
Plus two micro-fails: barbaric scrawl and Ovidian lament2022-07-3026 min
The Canterbury FailsA wayle whyt as whalles boneA maligned Harley lyric about birds in a lady's underclothes paired with a whale-poop tinged concoction: a cetaeceous sazerac.2022-06-2541 minThe Canterbury FailsWhitsunday (Tongues of Fire and a Dove)A homely homily that keeps things very rote, with the BEST cocktail.2022-06-1134 minThe Canterbury FailsA Treatyse of Fysshynge with an AngleA fifteenth-century fishing handbook by a very chill nun, accompanied by a Herculean face-punch.2022-05-2850 minThe Canterbury FailsAdrian and RitheusWack-ass trivia in Q+A form, someone might call "Dylanesque" with the sublime nectar of the BVM's infinite glory. 2022-05-0745 minThe Canterbury FailsAdam Davy's DreamsA dumb-ass political dream vision and kooky conspiracy theory with a potent citrus and herb concoction. 2022-04-1641 minThe Canterbury FailsOld English Boethius Meter 30Homer and Virgil buddy-pic with a fizzy tree-licker.2022-04-0235 minThe Canterbury FailsA Talk of Ten Wives on their Husbands' WareA parade of penis jokes with a disgusting double cocktail.2022-03-1236 minThe Canterbury FailsOld English Life of Saint MachutusA monotonous litany of fascinating miracles chased by a revivifying kick.2022-02-2649 minThe Canterbury FailsQuatrefoil of LoveA droning dove sermon paired with smoky and herbaceous medicine.2022-02-1236 min
The Canterbury FailsKentish HymnA stultifying blanditude of Kentish verse paired with a trinitarian face-melter.2022-01-2940 minThe Canterbury FailsWright's Chaste WifeA late Middle English not-fabliau with a whipped frothy refresher.2022-01-1539 min
The Canterbury FailsPharaohAn Old English "scrap of monkish experimenting" and a cumin-forward cocktail.2021-12-2239 min