Pretty Stupid

Honest words, raw essays, and unbothered storytelling. It’s pretty stupid.
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Hosted by the creator of The Bird and the Baby Substack, this show leans away from the polished, industry song-and-dance to explore the grit, the strange beauty, and the absolute absurdity of living. Shot through a 1990s alternative lens and dripping with Southern Gothic atmosphere, each episode serves as a companion to the upcoming third-person memoir, The Sovereign Seed. Expect raw essays, honest words, and brushstroke mercy. New tracks and new reads drop when they drop. Subscribe to the show, or don't—either way, it's cool. Find the writing, the music, and the community at substack.com. www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com

Episodes

  1. Oct 12

    Burning Down the House

    In this episode, Stephanie reads her raw and deeply personal essay, Burning Down the House. Triggered by a final, transactional letter from her father cutting her off, she explores a lifetime of systemic emotional destruction—starting at age nine when her father burned the only physical archive of her deceased mother’s love. But the arsonist always misunderstands the nature of fire. Drawing lines from her own childhood basement to the historical ashes of King Jehoiakim, the Maya codices, Nazi book burnings, and the Mongol siege of Baghdad, Stephanie explores why tyrants frantically try to incinerate realities they cannot control—and why they always fail. This is an episode about panentheism, religious trauma, the terrifying magic of Steps 4 and 5, and discovering a wild, holy grit that refuses to bow to someone else’s narrative. Inside the Episode: * The Transactional Court: Facing the brutal ledger of conditional family love and the letter that tried to declare her worthless. * The Destroyer’s Mistake: Looking at the historical lineage of the “arrogant penknife” and why burning the evidence of a different reality never actually destroys it. * The Two Fires: Differentiating between the tyrant’s fire that devours, and the holy fire that illuminates without consuming. * Where Was God? Re-framing the dark basement of childhood through panentheism, moving past the Lamb, and encountering the fierce survival instinct of the Lion. * The Workbench of Recovery: How physically writing a searching and fearless moral inventory kills the illusion of secret control and breaks the cage of victim mentality. Key Takeaways: * “The arsonist always misunderstands the nature of fire. They think fire is the final period at the end of a sentence. They do not realize it is merely a terrible transition.” * “Sometimes, the divine presence doesn’t show up as a quiet whisper to make us compliant; it shows up as a fierce instinct to keep us alive.” * “We do not match their arson with our own; we out-create it.” Links & Resources: * Visit the Website: Head over to The Bird and the Baby to find more independent writing, art, and updates: https://substack.com/@thebirdandbaby?utm_source=user-menu * Support the Art: Shop the companion tracks and supporting merchandise mentioned in the episode: Merch: https://the-bird-and-the-baby.printify.me/ Tracks: https://thebirdandthebaby.bandcamp.com/ * Become a Founding Member: This project is completely independent and algorithm-free. If you believe in this space and want to back my work from the ground up, consider stepping in as a Founding Member. Get full access to The Bird and the Baby at www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com/subscribe

  2. Oct 1

    Reading: The Isolation of the Performer

    In this episode, Stephanie reads her raw and deeply personal essay, “The Isolation of the Performer,” exploring the invisible barricades we build to hide our wreckage, the suffocating scripts of small-town culture, and the painful process of letting the performer die so a true sub-creator can be born. Stephanie examines how we use the stages of our lives—whether a raised pulpit, a community theater, or a podcast microphone—to control exactly how much of our scars people are allowed to see. She traces the psychological trap of absolute autonomy through the life of Ayn Rand, who fled Soviet collectivism to build an unyielding philosophy of self-reliance, only to end her life trapped in a fiercely legalistic circle of her own making. Unpacking her own survival machinery, Stephanie shares a shattering memory from a suffocating August night when she was nine years old. Forced onto creaking carnival rides just two hours after her mother’s funeral, she learned the ultimate performer’s tactic: how to split herself in two, wear the mask her environment demanded, and let her real self evaporate into the dark night sky. From weaponized honesty to the profound depth of the St. Francis prayer, this episode is a quiet, terrifying, and ultimately beautiful journey into the daily death of the ego—and the radical mercy that waits when we finally step off the Ferris wheel. In This Episode, We Discuss: * The Stage as a Barricade: How performing allows us to control the dimensions of our wreckage while keeping others at a safe distance. * Small-Town Boxes & Weaponized Faith: Navigating environments where everyone knows everything, growth is viewed as a threat, and sacred words are used for compliance. * The Illusion of Ayn Rand: How a philosophy of total independence can inadvertently transform a person into the exact monster they were running from. * The Carnival Ride at Nine Years Old: A raw look at how childhood trauma alters our psychology and forces us to hide our bleeding hearts in plain sight. * True Honesty vs. Rebellious Performance: Recognizing that our words cannot fix our past or change the people who broke us, and learning to lay down weaponized honesty. Featured Companion Track: * “In Dying We Are Born” – An original track curated and produced by Stephanie to capture the emotional gravity of this piece. The track mirrors the internal shift of the essay, blending a raw, intimate acoustic performance with an eerie children’s choir before exploding into a wall of thick, fuzzy 90s alternative rock with a distinct Smashing Pumpkins vibe. Connect & Support: * Read More on Substack: Subscribe to Stephanie’s publication, The Bird and the Baby, for more essays and updates: * Buy the Companion Track: Purchase “In Dying We Are Born” on Bandcamp. Every purchase directly fuels this space and funds the writing of her upcoming novel, The Sovereign Seed: https://thebirdandthebaby.bandcamp.com/ * The Book: Stay tuned for more dispatches from The Sovereign Seed. Get full access to The Bird and the Baby at www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com/subscribe

    Reading: The Isolation of the Performer

  3. Sep 17

    Reading: The Old Crowley Medicine Show

    In this episode, Stephanie reads her recently published article, “The Old Crowley Medicine Show: Dispatch No. 6.” Explore the exhausting trap of spiritual contracts, the illusion of absolute personal autonomy, and the quiet, unyielding gravity of grace. Stephanie traces the deceptive engine of human willpower through two seemingly opposite yet strikingly similar figures: early 20th-century occultist Aleister Crowley and 1970s prosperity gospel preacher Reverend Ike. By looking at their parallel rises and tragic falls, she exposes how we try to manipulate reality and bully the Divine into a personal vending machine—only to find that when we try to conquer spiritual gravity, the ground always wins. Sharing a deeply personal excerpt from Chapter 1 of her upcoming novel, The Sovereign Seed, Stephanie unpacks the vast, quiet chasm between two structures on a childhood Midwestern farm: the white-knuckle control of the trapeze bar and the radical, unearned peace of a narrow porch glider. From her own recovery journey at age forty-three to the ancient streets of the Roman Empire, she looks at how early Christian rebels like Paul and John subverted the dominant, self-reliant Stoicism of their day by introducing a Person who wrote the laws of the cosmos, rather than a cold system that demands you simply grit your teeth. Ultimately, this episode is an invitation to step off the stage of the ego, break the loop of the spiritual haze, and rest in the quiet, protective rhythm of the Spirit as a true sub-creator. In This Episode, We Discuss: * Words as Structural Forces: Understanding sub-creation and the derivative power of human language. * The Medicine Show Peddlers: How Aleister Crowley’s occult philosophy of Thelema and Reverend Ike’s church-branded “Thinkonomics” used the exact same psychological haze to force a contract with the universe. * The Trapeze vs. The Glider: A childhood memory from The Sovereign Seed illustrating the deceptive sting of the adversarial voice and the exhausting trap of autonomy. * Triage for a Shattered Spirit: The limits of Stoicism and why the mechanics of the human machine cannot fix its own fundamental glitch. * The Metric of a Sub-Creator: Why breaking the loop shifts our focus from manipulating outcomes to finding true alignment with the Source. Featured Companion Track: * “The Deep Magic Doesn’t Taste Like Sugar” – An original, curated track produced by Stephanie to score the emotional atmosphere of this dispatch. Driven by a heavy, low Bösendorfer bass note and a restless piano rhythm reminiscent of Tori Amos, it sounds like an eerie, theatrical confession in the dark. Connect & Support: * Read More on Substack: Subscribe to Stephanie’s publication, The Bird and the Baby, for more essays and updates: https://substack.com/@thebirdandbaby * Buy the Companion Track: Purchase “The Deep Magic Doesn’t Taste Like Sugar” on Bandcamp. Every purchase directly funds the writing of her upcoming novel: https://thebirdandthebaby.bandcamp.com/ * Shop the Look: Find supporting merchandise and companion art pieces in the official store. * The Book: Stay tuned for more dispatches from The Sovereign Seed. Get full access to The Bird and the Baby at www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com/subscribe

    Reading: The Old Crowley Medicine Show

  4. Sep 3

    Reading: The Light in The Shining

    What happens when the sanctuary we build to keep out the world’s darkness secretly becomes our prison? In this reading of Dispatch No. 5, host Stephanie Harrison explores the structural boundaries of faith, trauma, and survival through the starkly contrasting lenses of two childhood friends. Spurred by a visceral memory of a sleepover watching Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, this episode journeys into the shifting landscapes of a midwestern winter, a childhood home that operated like a dark courtroom, and the annual trek of a group of girls launching an expedition into the frozen timber. Drawing on the theology of J.R.R. Tolkien’s eucatastrophe, C.S. Lewis’s prevenient grace, and the contrasting paths of Narnia’s siblings and Edmund, Stephanie strips back the polished layers of standard sermons. What remains is a raw meditation on how we build our “dragon skins”—and how some of us only find the Savior when the fortress walls completely collapse. The Musical Companion Track Title: “Right Beneath the Stage” * About the Track: This original piece was curated and produced by Stephanie to score the heavy, emotional atmosphere running underneath the written words. It blends the haunting rhythms of late-80s darkwave with the delicate, melancholic textures of baroque chamber pop. * Where to Listen: While high-quality, standalone versions of these musical companions will eventually be available on Bandcamp, this raw sketch is shared here exclusively as an immersive, sonic backdrop for The Bird and the Baby community. In This Episode, We Explore: * The Architecture of Fear: How an evangelical upbringing treats the home as a sacred sanctuary, vs. how a survivor of domestic abuse experiences that same perfect fortress as a dark courtroom. * The Frozen Timber: Reliving the ritualistic January treks onto black ice, finding a wild, sacred freedom outside parental panic, and touching an electrical spiritual energy that words can’t translate. * Prevenient Grace vs. Eucatastrophe: Moving past the demand for a sudden, magical rescue, and finding the quiet, divine presence that goes before us into the dark rooms of our lives. * The Illusion of Safety: Why we choose our “dragon skins”—whether made of strict boxes and rules or hardened by trauma and fierce independence. * The Raw Reality of Survival: Confronting the church’s preference for the tidy “Prodigal Son” story over the messy, unpolished truth of the pigpen. Mentioned in this Episode & Further Reading: * The Shining (Film directed by Stanley Kubrick) * Rosemary’s Baby (Film/Novel) * Stand by Me (Film / Stephen King novella) * The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe & The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis * Essays on The Inklings and Oxford’s legendary Eagle and Child pub Connect & Support * The Writing & Community: Read the original piece and subscribe to the Substack, The Bird and the Baby, at stephanieharrisonauthor.com * The Music: Buy the Dylan-inspired companion track “Tangled Up in True” on Bandcamp to directly fund The Sovereign Seed at https://thebirdandthebaby.bandcamp.com/ * The Merch: Grab official Pretty Stupid supporting apparel on Printify at the-bird-and-the-baby.printify.me * Become a Founder: If you love the art and want to back it early, consider joining as a Founding Member on Substack. Get full access to The Bird and the Baby at www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com/subscribe

    Reading: The Light in The Shining

  5. Aug 20

    Reading: Tangled Up In True(isms)

    In the second episode of Pretty Stupid, host Stephanie Harrison reads her recently published article, “Tangled Up In True(isms)”. Stepping away from the crumbling rural kingdoms of Little Dixie, this episode dives straight into the pitch-black waters of survival, generational traps, and the terrifying nature of real grace. We dismantle the tidy, commercially viable “addiction memoir” to look at the raw, jagged reality of what it takes to actually survive the monster. From the beautiful, tragic altars of 90s grunge rockstars whose threads snapped too soon to a metal chair in a smoke-cleared room, we explore what happens when you finally stop waiting for the “good” in a violent man and look at the wreckage left behind. It is a fierce, uncomfortable, and deeply honest look at survivor’s guilt, the generational patterns we carve into the earth, and the realization that gratitude and trauma can live in the exact same room. Stick around until the very end of the episode for the world premiere of this week’s companion track, “Tangled Up in True”—built to sound like a restless, late-night party in Austin, Texas, with heavy nods to Bob Dylan. Every single music purchase directly funds the writing of Stephanie’s upcoming book, The Sovereign Seed. In this episode, we talk about: * The Tame Lion: Why real grace is dangerous, terrifying, and completely out of your control. * The Snapped Threads: Reckoning with survivor’s guilt and the grunge icons who crushed under their own weight. * The Ghost Behind the Door: The brutal reality of living amends and loving a child from behind a locked front door. * The Father’s Footsteps: Unpacking the ancient traps and patterns we inherit before we even know we are walking them. * The Sub-Creator: Channeling Tolkien and Lewis to hand our fragmented, pitch-black threads over to a Master Weaver. Subscribe to the show, or don’t—either way, it’s cool. Connect & Support * The Writing & Community: Read the original piece and subscribe to the Substack, The Bird and the Baby, at stephanieharrisonauthor.com * The Music: Buy the Dylan-inspired companion track “Tangled Up in True” on Bandcamp to directly fund The Sovereign Seed at https://thebirdandthebaby.bandcamp.com/ * The Merch: Grab official Pretty Stupid supporting apparel on Printify at the-bird-and-the-baby.printify.me * Become a Founder: If you love the art and want to back it early, consider joining as a Founding Member on Substack. Get full access to The Bird and the Baby at www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com/subscribe

    Reading: Tangled Up In True(isms)

  6. Aug 6

    Reading: Mother White's Store is Closed

    In the premiere episode of Pretty Stupid, we dig into the dirt of Monroe County, Missouri, to watch the small agrarian kingdoms of “Little Dixie” crumble. Reading straight from Dispatch No. 3 of The Bird and the Baby, this essay unpeels the skin of a hyper-utilitarian rural culture where local creeks were treated as dead-livestock drainage ditches and family lines were enforced like corporate feudal empires. From a broken concrete bridge guarded by a dead badger to a sweltering farmhouse bedroom where a teenager sneaks a cassette tape of Toto’s Africa, we explore what happens when the transactional machine tries to grind down the human soul. It is a story about generational scars, the literal drowning of local history to build a sanitized tourist lake, and the quiet, defiant act of striking a single match inside a pitch-black cave. Stick around until the very end of the episode for the world premiere of the companion track, “Over the Backtop”—a hollow, scraping, grunge-acoustic song written in the raw spirit of Nirvana’s 1993 MTV Unplugged performance. In this episode, we talk about: * The Leeches of Granville: Playing in sacred spaces ruined by adult utility. * The Mind of Metal and Wheels: Tolkien’s warning tracking straight through small-town bankruptcies. * The Tuesday Girls: Turpentine, oil paint, and volatile farm country matriarchs. * Disposable Appliances: When human beings stop having financial utility to narcissists. * The Exit Code: Refusing to let the world’s rigged gears turn inside your soul. Subscribe to the show, or don’t—either way, it’s cool. Find the original writing, the community, and the music archive at: stephanieharrisonauthor.com 🎸Listen to "Over the Backtop" on Bandcamp: https://thebirdandthebaby.bandcamp.com/ 👕 Grab the Official 'Pretty Stupid' Merch on Printify: https://the-bird-and-the-baby.printify.me/ Get full access to The Bird and the Baby at www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com/subscribe

    Reading: Mother White's Store is Closed

  7. Jul 31

    Introducing: Pretty Stupid

    Welcome to the trailer for Pretty Stupid. This podcast is the audio companion to my Substack, The Bird and the Baby, and the deep soil behind my upcoming Southern Gothic memoir, The Sovereign Seed. I’m not doing the standard song-and-dance here. No Begging for five-star reviews or algorithmic favors. If you vibe with honest words and a little brushstoke mercy, click play above. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app, or follow along directly right here on Substack. Either way… it’s cool. See you around! Get full access to The Bird and the Baby at www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com/subscribe

    Introducing: Pretty Stupid
  • 7 Episodes

About

Hosted by the creator of The Bird and the Baby Substack, this show leans away from the polished, industry song-and-dance to explore the grit, the strange beauty, and the absolute absurdity of living. Shot through a 1990s alternative lens and dripping with Southern Gothic atmosphere, each episode serves as a companion to the upcoming third-person memoir, The Sovereign Seed. Expect raw essays, honest words, and brushstroke mercy. New tracks and new reads drop when they drop. Subscribe to the show, or don't—either way, it's cool. Find the writing, the music, and the community at substack.com. www.stephanieharrisonauthor.com

Information

  • Creator
    Honest words, raw essays, and unbothered storytelling. It’s pretty stupid.
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Stephanie Harrison
  • Show Website
    Pretty Stupid