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Podcast Miscellany, #2
[Originally Published April 17, 2016]
Issue #2
Gentle readers,
Apologies for taking so long to get this out to you all, but I promise: there are some audio gems in this edition of the newsletter. Thanks so much for subscribing! If you missed Issue #1, you can check it out in the archive here.
This time, I’m going to break my recommendations into two categories: recent individual episodes I really enjoyed, and new podcasts or mini-series that I’m enjoying or excited about.
So, without further ado, here are some of the best things I’ve listened to in the last couple of months!
Episodes
This American Life: Anatomy of Doubt
We all know that when rape survivors come forward, they are often accused of lying, of seeking attention or having changed their minds about a consensual encounter. In this episode, the chilling story of a rape survivor who was blown off, belittled, and charged with false reporting, up until the moment when a police department in another state caught the man who raped her.
Radiolab: Debatable
This is a story that’s very close to home for me — a story about college policy debate. It’s the story of Ryan Wash, a debater from Emporia, who was part of the first black/queer team to win the National Debate Tournament. It’s a powerful story about Ryan’s experience of exclusion in the debate community, and how he fought to make debate a home for himself. It’s very much Ryan’s story, and I wish Jad and Robert had done a bit more to explain the position of more traditionally minded members of the debate community, but it’s still one of the best and most interesting pieces of reporting about college debate that I can think of in recent years.
How to Be a Girl: School, Part I and Part II
I’ve been waiting months for Marlo Mack to drop another episode in her series of stories about raising a transgender child, and this double-episode didn’t disappoint. What makes this podcast so amazing isn’t that the stories are terribly dramatic; it’s the beautiful everydayness of the recordings Mack makes of her daughter — talking, laughing, playing — that contrast poignantly with Mack’s worries about her daughter’s safety and happiness. In these episodes: the challenges and worries of enrolling her daughter in a new school, where none of the other students know she’s trans.
Another Round: Practical Tactical Brilliance and A Cat Named Toussaint
Tracy and Heben’s interviews on Another Round are fun, irreverent, and exciting. These two episodes are great examples of them at their best. In the first, they interview Lin-Manuel Miranda — a fascinating and illuminating conversation about the way that race, heritage, and rap influenced the writing of Hamilton. I was inspired to finally listen to the musical itself, and — holy moly — it’s fantastic. In fact, I listened to little else for the following week (one of many reasons this newsletter is so late!). The other episode is an interview with Wendell Pierce, whom many of you may know as Bunk from The Wire. Pierce talks about his New Orleans heritage, and the challenge of finding something to identify with in the character of Clarence Thomas for the upcoming HBO movie, Confirmation.
Song Exploder: Clipping — Work Work
Speaking of Hamilton, this episode of Song Exploder deconstructs a song by the rap collective Clipping, fronted by Oakland native(!) Daveed Diggs, who plays Jefferson and Lafayette in the show. I was captivated by the way that Clipping works to foster creativity under constraint, for instance, by forswearing drum machines and instead using a variety of field recordings to lay down a beat.
Radio Diaries: Radio Diaries Turns 20!
To celebrate their 20th anniversary, Radio Diaries revisited their first ever radio diarist, Amanda Brand. Brand’s audio diary, from 1996, captured a series of incredible conversations with her parents about coming out as a gay teenager. The episode layers these recordings with Brand’s reflections twenty years later.
Criminal: Perfect Specimen
What happens when the victim of a mysterious murder attempt is not a person, but Texas’s most famous and beloved tree?
Serial: Thorny Politics
I enjoyed this season of Serial, though it lacked some of the binge-inducing, captivating qualities of season one. Nevertheless, I thought this episode was fascinating, and it works well as a standalone story. For someone like myself, who has generally been a fan of Obama’s approach to foreign policy (with major exceptions, of course), this episode was a revealing portrait of a moment when the administration, a bit tone-deaf to aspects of military culture, made an unforced error in its public handling of the Bergdahl rescue.
Strangers: Worth Saving
This one is a bit of a counterpoint to the TAL episode above. The story of Annie Bradley, raised by parents who told her that women shouldn’t make decisions for themselves, and how she responded when she was assaulted as a teenager traveling Europe. Bradley is a gripping storyteller, and this is a fascinating tale.
Death, Sex & Money: Dead People Don’t Have Any Secrets
What happens when your spouse is in a coma, you discover he’s having an affair, and he dies before you can talk with him about it? How do you simultaneously balance anger and grief, while wondering whether your marriage would have survived? Always perceptive and revealing interviewer Anna Sale talks to Amanda, who went through this experience.
Scene on Radio: Losing Yourself
What if life’s most emotional moments happen when no one is around to record them? That’s often the case with patients receiving difficult medical diagnoses, but not so for this radio producer, who recorded her experiences after being diagnosed with a serious illness.
WTF: Abbi Jacobson & Ilana Glazer
Love Broad City? Listen to this! Don’t love Broad City? Might want to skip this one.
ARRVLS: Movements
You know that feeling of intermingled loss, regret, hope, and excitement when you’re about to move from one city to another? In this episode, two radio producers try to capture those feelings by intermixing their audio diaries, as one of them moves from the west coast to the east coast, and the other does the reverse.
Sampler: I Don’t Sweat
Sampler is a podcast about podcasts. I know, *eye roll*. But it’s often actually a lovely show, highlighting beautiful moments from shows I might never listen to otherwise. This episode had some great moments, curated by Gimlet’s Alex Blumberg to reflect the idea that podcasts have “arrived”: Marc Maron talking to President Obama on WTF, Tracy and Heben interviewing Secretary Clinton on Another Round, and Justice Sotomayor talking baseball fandom on How to Do Everything.
New Shows and Series I’m Excited About
On Trumpcast, reporters and editors at Slate tackle the Trump phenomenon from every possible angle, ranging from the hard-hitting to the satirical. Come for the hilarious readings of Trump’s ridiculous tweets, stay for the serious journalistic analysis. This podcast has adopted what I think is completely the right tone in covering Trump, treating him as both a risible buffoon and a dangerous threat to the country.
Baltimore: The Rise of Charm City
This great new show from WEAA tells stories from Baltimore’s past and present — everything from the Afro-American, to past mayors, to Blacks in Wax. The most recent episode, Whistle Stop in the Name of Love, is a lovely portrait of Penn Station and Station North, looking at how the neighborhood is trying to balance transformation and tradition.
This mini-series collaboration between WNYC and The Nation looks closely at gentrification at Brooklyn. Though extensive reporting and field interviews, it paints a picture of the economic, political, social, and racial forces driving gentrification, as well as the characters involved, from tenants, homeowners, and landlords to shady real-estate developers and city politicians. It’s a fascinating look the personal, impersonal, political, and criminal forces radically reshaping American cities.
The Heart: Ghost
I love almost everything The Heart produces, and this mini-season entitled ‘Ghost’ is no exception. These short episodes, blending memoir with audio drama, and beautifully sound produced as always, explore the way that past loves often continue to haunt us.
Phew, that was a bit long, sorry. I’ll try to get the next edition out a bit sooner this time time. As always, I welcome your feedback or suggestions.
Happy listening!
Eli
Originally published at tinyletter.com.
