📚 Dollar bin books, gorillas, Easter Island, The Base, buried treasure 🗿 Gaby Dunn 🌈
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Bonjour!
This week we’re getting to peek into the podcast app and listening life of Hannah Zoe from The B-Sides, a pop music and politics appreciation project.
Hi! This is Hannah from The B-Sides. We’re both a podcast and a newsletter, which means we get to reach people wherever their eyes or ears are. If you subscribe to this particular newsletter, you might not understand just how many of our supporters are ONLY podcast people or ONLY newsletter people. Can you imagine choosing only one?? Me neither.
Since launching Season 2 of our podcast this week (you should subscribe, of course) while this pandemic is still full-on raging, I’ve been curious to learn how people are or are not listening to podcasts, and I’m grateful to Podcast the Newsletter for sharing this info and allowing me to share with you how I listen.
Pictured: The B-Sides, And The Writer Is…, Switched on Pop, Reply All, Las Culturistas, FANTI, Who? Weekly, Tight Lipped
What app I use: Apple. I know. I’m bad.
Speed: 1x. What can I say? I like hearing words as they were intended.
When I listen: This is where it gets hard. With my commute now consisting of moving from my bed to my table 12 feet away, my commute listening has dropped. Now I listen when I tidy or clean, or when I write Get Out the Vote postcards for progressive candidates I love.
How I discover: Slowly. I’m old fashioned: I need a recommendation from someone I trust. The exception, however, was when we were gearing up to launch our first season. During that time, I was voraciously searching for any music or pop culture podcast, and would try any.
My recommendations
Tight Lipped: This groundbreaking show was created by one of my most beloved friends from college and is a “public conversation about a very private type of pain,” vaginal and vulvar pain. If you care about the state of healthcare in this country, it’s imperative you take a listen to one of their (rare) episodes. They’re also using their podcast as an organizing tool, which - as a former community organizer - makes me unbelievably excited.
Reply All: I love the internet, and I love learning about how it affects our lives.
Switched on Pop: This show takes a similar approach to pop music as we do - taking the music seriously, but the hosts don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re musicians and experts, and their analysis is delightful.
And the Writer Is: For more peeks behind the scenes of the music industry, I absolutely love these in-depth interviews with some of the least known songwriters behind the best known songs.
Still Processing: The King and Queen of smart, rich, delicious pop culture analysis.
The B-Sides: Obviously ;)
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Gaby Dunn
Photo courtesy of Robyn Van Swank
Gaby Dunn is a writer and podcaster and queer advocate, and the creator of Apocalypse Untreated, which follows: five mentally ill teenagers in an inpatient wilderness program during the apocalypse who are facing the end of the world and the end of their prescriptions. Follow Gaby on Twitter here.
Apocalypse Untreated is totally different. How was the writing process different?
I didn't know how to write an audio fiction podcast. I had to learn the ways it's different from a screenplay. You can't show so you have to tell. You have to think about what sounds could go here and how to convey action with just noises and words. It was such a great and fun challenge.
What do you hope Apocalypse Untreated does for people?
I hope it teaches them a bit more about different mental illnesses and I hope it dispels myths about bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and suicidal ideation. I hope people hear it and either feel seen or reevaluate why they feel scared of mental illness or why they hold ableist beliefs about neuro-atypical people. I hope it creates some authentic representation of these too often villainized communities.
The characters in Apocalypse Untreated are teens–is this show for teens? Or do you hope speaking through them will help adults identify with their own mental health, too?
I think this is for everyone but I did specifically want to target teens because I think they are really infantilized and talked down to about mental health. It's all swept under the rug as like, teen angst or them being dramatic. Or, it's really made to be about optics for the parents and making sure the parents feel like they're still good parents. As if the teenager's mental health is the parents failing somehow. So rarely does it allow for the teen to actually explore what's going on with them or to talk about it in any real way, especially because therapists might be reporting back to the parents. These are all things I felt when I was having these problems as a teen. I just didn't feel heard. So this is for everyone but I hope teens feel like they relate.
How were you able to create characters dealing with kids in an inpatient program? How did you maintain sensitivity?
I read tons of books about people being in inpatient programs. I interviewed schizophrenic teenagers. I worked with a co-writer on the project. And I centered the teens' perspectives. I very specifically did not make any of them the butt of any jokes. They make jokes about themselves. They tell their own stories. I also pulled from my own experiences with bipolar disorder and suicide. I think specifically suicide is very misunderstood and I've been suicidal and attempted suicide and I think people believe they understand why someone would do that but I'd never seen my specific story shared in any media that didn't villainize the person so that came through in the character of Arlo. Much of it is my own experience.
How much research went into creating Apocalypse Untreated?
So much. I read so many books. But also, like I said, a lot of it is my own experiences with suicide or bipolar or even disordered eating.
Can you tease us with anything exciting coming up in Apocalypse Untreated?
I'm very excited about a character named Sasha and a speech she gives about ableism. I am also excited for the gay lady drama.
Why are you the perfect creator for this project?
I've lived through much of the mental health issues these characters experience. I felt a burning need to express my annoyance with the current representation of mental illness. I am bipolar. I have suicidal ideation. I have disordered eating. And I can write. So when those two things combine, I feel I have to try and create more authentic representation, and I can only do that through pouring my own experiences onto the page.
If you were going to create another podcast, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it, what would it be?
Queer woman rom com! Trans adventure story! Or a part II to Apocalypse Untreated.
Women in podcasting are constantly being criticized for their voices. What is your relationship with yours? How would you describe your voice?
My voice is loud and deeply nasal. It's quirky. Like a cartoon voice. I don't mind it. I only care when it seems like I'm talking over people so I try to monitor that and make sure I'm letting other people talk.
What shows do you love?
I love Web Crawlers. Homecoming. I loved S Town. I loved Root of Evil. I love You're Wrong About. I love a lot of shows. I love Sibling Rivalry with Bob and Monet. I mean, there's so so many. There's a pod for everything.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Heavyweight launched its new season with Vivian, a story about a woman in search of the partner of her deceased uncle Elio. Elio was closeted and gay in New York City in the 80s, and his family refused to recognize his partner, Marcelo. (Vivian included, though she was only a child.) Elio eventually died of AIDS, and it was Marcelo, not Elio’s own family, who was there for him to the end of his life. On The Vivian episode, Jonathan Goldstein connects Vivian with Marcelo so that she can apologize, invite him to be recognized as her uncle’s partner and therefore uncle (finally,) and talk about her own coming out story. The story is kind of a heart-fuck, but Jonathan is an empathetic listener and storyteller, and it is his lightness and sincerity that made this episode so exceptional.
💎BTW💎
🎙️My mom and I will be on Judge John Hodgman this week. Tune in Wednesday!
🎙️American Hysteria is back with a smart look at true crime and our most sensational boogiemen: uncaught sadistic geniuses, sociopathic hippy cults, allegedly handsome men with broken arms calling you into their cars, and silent killers slipping into your window at night. Chelsey ties these stories to victim’s rights and the just-world hypothesis in a way that deepened my understanding of why we are so obsessed with this genre. I think the phrase, “serial killers are fucking losers” needs to be on a t-shirt.
🎙️The confounding scam story Chameleon (subtitled “Hollywood’s Con Queen”) but doesn’t have me asking who-dunnit so much as what- or why-dunnit. The gist: someone, impersonating powerful female producers, is scamming Hollywood gig workers (personal trainers, photographers, make-up artists…), calling them with a promising job offer that takes them to Jakarda. But when they land, there is no producer. There is no movie. It’s all a fraud. They find themselves in uncomfortable and odd but not particularly dangerous situations, get fed up and fly home. Then they receive a call from the “producer” chiding them for leaving the job, the job that didn’t seem to exist. Presenters and journalists Josh Dean and Vanessa Grigoriadis are attempting to get to the bottom of the story and they swear that an exciting finale awaits us. The production levels are heavy on this show, and there is a lot of arguably non-essential information about the people who were duped, but the craziness of the story makes up for it all. I don’t know how you could possibly listen and have any idea what is going on. Unless, I guess, you’re Hollywood’s Con Queen herself.
🎙️The Heist explores how power works in a Donald Trump presidency, which sounds like it could be a bit stiff (or infuriating) but The Center for Public Integrity + Sally Herships (my teacher at Union Docs Radio Boot Camp!) have figured out a way to make this story feel like flashy true crime and an ode to one of Trump’s greatest swindles to the middle class, starring lots of characters and stories that often get left on the cutting room floor of other news stories reporting on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. I’m a few episodes in and found an interview with a wealthy Republican doner surprising and a segment on Steven Mnuchin stomach-churning but also pretty funny. The Heist is fun, packed with clear information and important analysis from Sally, and there isn’t anything like it.
🎙️On Neon Hum’s Dirt Cheap, husband/wife team Amanda Meadows and Geoffrey Golden read through books you’d find in dollar bin, your grandmother’s basement, or a very strange garage sale. It’s kind of like adult storytime—I can visualize Amanda and Geoffrey sitting in front of a classroom full of podcast listeners, holding the book up in the air flipping the pages as they read through the text. And in my visualization, they are laughing, because Dirt Cheap is very funny. For season one, they’re reading Murder in the Glass Room, a Los Angeles noir novel starring a misanthropic bookie-turned-detective. Amanda and Geoffrey guide us through the book, which is so oh-my-god bad, pointing out the book’s most outrageous lines, details, and themes.
🎙️You’re Wrong About fans, rejoice! Sarah Marshall’s Why Are Dads is in full swing and her YWA co-host Michael Hobbes has also launched his own project with Aubrey Gordon called Maintenance Phase, a show that promises to “debunk the junk science behind health fads, wellness scams and nonsensical nutrition advice.” The first episode offered a criticism of our culture’s bias against fat people, the bullshit that is the body positivity movement, and our laser-focused obsession with associating thin with healthy. I realize that this might not sound like much fun but it is. There’s chemistry between Michael and Aubery, it seems they’ve been friends for awhile. And they are unafraid to talk about how in America, most media and podcasts about “health” are kind of the opposite. Those shows aren’t really good for you. Maintenance Phase (I think) is.
🎙️Sounds Like Hate is an amazing audio documentary series that focuses on extremists and how they can disengage from a life of hatred. The episode Baseless shines light on The Base, an international terrorist group that wants to stir racism and launch a race war in the US. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Geraldine Moriba and Jamila Paksima listened to 83 hours of secret recordings of white supremacists talking within their “vetting room” about things that neo-nazis probably don’t want us to hear, like pushing for recruitment. And it’s tough to hear. This is a three-part series, and on part one, Geraldine and Jamila discover how much like Al-Qaeda, these groups are recruiting people from the military, and that many of them are active members in the military. In this episode we hear from a reporter who put himself in danger to infiltrate The Base and their strategy to collapse America. These people are violent and afraid of being doxed and infiltrated, and hellbent on a race war. Lots of spooky episodes are being dropped on feeds right now, it’s Spooky Season after all. But this is the most terrifying thing I’ve heard in a long time.
🎙️I wrote about The B-Sides for Bello Collective’s 100 Outstanding Podcasts of 2019, and I’m thrilled they’re back for another season, starting out with a bang, Why It’s Sexist To Hate Pop Music. Hannah, Becky, and Mimi unpack 4 common criticisms of pop music that are rooted in sexism, and suggest that the “next time you hear a (probably cishet dude) person telling you why they hate pop music, ask yourself if their hatred is just thinly-veiled misogyny.”
🎙️Episode one of Louder Than A Riot, The Conspiracy Against Hip-Hop, plants a hip-hop conspiracy theory into our minds, and what comes next is a 3-part series about a man whose tragic life story proves that there is truth to this seemingly preposterous claim that there is a direct and deliberate line drawn between hip-hop and mass incarceration. 20 years ago, New Orleans rap phenom Mac Phipps was accused of a murder he’s still serving time for, that most people think he didn’t commit. In reporting on the trial, as hosts Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael do, it doesn’t take exaggeration or spin to prove that this case was completely nefarious. It’s shocking. This mini-series is dedicated to clearing Mac’s name and explores the corruption (and rap lyrics) that put him behind bars.
🎙️Pretend’s The Treasure Hunter (part I) tells the story of a Florida treasure-hunting CEO tricked by a conman, which is a blast to hear because buried treasure but also kind of confusing because everyone seems so crazy and crooked, I don’t know who to root for. It feels like scammer vs. scammer—perhaps these people deserve each other. The episode starts talking about Seafarer Exploration, a treasure salvage company who hired Dr. Michael Torres to help track down a 300-year-old Spanish sailboat sunken off the coast of Florida which was rumored to be full of buried treasure. Seafarer Exploration is suing Torres, because he wasn’t who he said he was, but Torres argues Seafarer Exploration knew exactly who he was and exaggerated his credentials to investors. On part I, host Javier Leiva calls up Torres, which starts fuzzying up the story. He can back up everything, kind of. He points out the shadiness of Seafarer Explorations. This reminds me of one of those dinner parties on The Real Housewives—everyone is bad and whoever happens to be talking at the time is the one I hate the most.
🎙️Often when I ask my mom how her day was, she says, “I did Jane.” Which means she did the Jane Fonda Workout, a workout I can remember her doing in our living room in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania when I was four. Jane is back with a vengeance, what with her recent political activism and the fact that quarantine closed down gyms across the country, giving her home-workouts a second life. For Decoder Ring, Willa Paskin reached out to Jane Fonda in hopes Fonda would help her unpack the cultural mystery of the Jane Fonda Workout, but Willa got more than she bargained for. Fonda insisted on dragging her friend Leni Cazde (lovingly) onto the episode. Leni is the actual inventor of The Jane Fonda Workout, a woman was cut out of the business and never received a dime until recently. This episode (it’s part one) treats the Jane Fonda Workout like a puzzle to be solved, and is also the story of two women trying to fix a friendship after decades of burying the truth about what drove them apart.
🎙️An episode of Side Door, The Gorilla Epidemic, illustrates something that humans and wildlife share more than a planet: disease. It takes us back to the 80s, when a mysterious, highly contagious illness started spreading through the world’s mountain gorilla population. Biologists feared it could be the end of the species. But much like many Americans, gorillas don’t want to wear masks or social distance, and eradicating the disease (which they couldn’t identify) seemed impossible. (But maybe not as impossible it it will be for us humans to roll-out a successful COVID vaccine.) This is the story of how close these gorillas came to extinction and the love and guts and brains it took for scientists to stabilize the population.
🎙️Pindrop returned for season two, this time bringing us to Rapa Nuiwith, also known as Easter Island, a place layered with unusual things. There’s of course the Moai (the statues,) the island’s remoteness, and the fact that while it is a place only 10,000 people call home, more than 120,000 people visit it each year. What does a place like that do during pandemic, when tourism has completely gone dry? It’s forced the people to reassess the island’s strengths, what the residents are able to produce on their own, and return to a life from long ago, before Easter Island could rely on tourism to survive. COVID reset Easter Island, kind of like how it reset many of us.
🎙️Family Secrets is a beautiful balm for the soul and Dani Shapiro, is a sharp yet gentle, kind host who almost seems semi-enlightened to me! The connections she has with her guests feels authentic. But one of my favorite things about the show is that just feels so literary. Most of the guests (who share their own family secrets) are writers, so the conversations are super rich and lyrical. On You Used To Smile, Saeed Jones talks about the secrets and threads connecting his grandmother, his mother, and himself, and being a gay Black man in the South.
🎙️When I talked to Amory Sivertson last week, she recommended an episode of her show Endless Thread, Geedis. It starts with a community of Redditors trying to track down the creator of a weird, un-googleable cartoon character. What comes next is Amory and Ben’s death-defying (slight exaggeration) attempt to track down Geedis’ origins. It’s a tricky mystery that they actually end up solving, and they deserve an award for it. You can hear the excitement in their voices as they get closer and closer to their mission, and the excitement is contagious. You feel like you’re tracking down Geedis with them.
🎙️I love Ben Hamm’s The Secret Room because Ben has created this space for people to open up to him that feels totally healing for the storyteller, and fascinating for the listener. Ben works hard to try to understand the storyteller and their motivations with empathy. The Klan is a conversation with Noelle who, while snooping around her grandmother’s house (Dani Shapiro always says on Family Secrets that so many of her stories kick off with a snooping anecdote) discovers Klan robes, and eventually, that her relatives were Klan members. Her discovery shook her identity and relationship with her family. Why Noelle decides to share her secret with Ben—but not her husband, who has his own interesting past—deepens the story from one that reveals a shocking secret, to one who forces a woman to grapple with her past and her own involvement in racism.
🎙️Nocturne captures what happens in the dark, and this episode, Home, follows Freddy, a 56-year-old man who used to live in a tent with his cats. He tells his story—before he was unhoused he has a degree and lived in a nearby apartment with his partner Maria, who has passed away. And though he doesn’t fear death, he is still mourning Maria. In his tent, he worried about his cats, he prayed, he practiced gratitude. But this piece is about how nighttime intensifies the dangers of being unhoused, the drunk people who pissed on and slammed into his tent, a man who threw a firecracker at his tent. Freddy lived in constant stress in fear. At the time of the interview, Freddy was no longer unhoused—he has found an apartment. But adjusting to a real home wasn’t as easy as you’d think, and Freddy talks about missing life in his tent. The episode is part audio diary, part interview set near Echo Park Lake, and you feel like you’re there with him, listening to cars zoom, the songs floating out of the windows, and ducks squawking in the nearby lake.
🎙️ Jacke Wilson brings on writers to deep dive into the greatest stories of all time (and other fun bookish things) on The History of Literature. On an episode on Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, Jacke reads the text and draws modern comparisons to the story with guest Evie Lee. The conversation goes from banning books, to The Lottery’s significance today, to circumcision. (Trust me, it totally makes sense.)
🎙️I listen to The Best Advice Show every day—each episode is a teensy tiny (2-minute) burst of quick advice from regular people like you and me and the most famous people on earth, podcasters. I was hooked on Ma’ayan Plaut’s episode on plating months ago and have been listening ever since. Podcasters like Avery Trufleman, Dallas Taylor, Lulu Miller, Gretchen Rubin, Julie Shapiro, Keisha (TK) Dutes, and Ann Friedman are featured with their own advice, which always feels both helpful and personal to the advice-giver, revealing an amusing side of them you probably didn’t know.
🎙️On Girls on Porn’s Deep Fake with SX Noir, hosts Rachel and Laura talk to SX Noir about the intersection of sex and technology. It’s a funny, smart conversation about why women are (rightfully) more worried about the harm technology brings to sex than men (so interesting,) what women can do to make porn better (create it!), labor rights, capitalism, ethical porn as an oxymoron, a sick burn on The Wing, and how easy it is for people to use deep fakes in porn.
🎙️Tracy Clayton and Akoto Ofori-Atta are building the quintessential 90s Playlist for My 90’s Playlist, a show that breaks down beloved 90s hits, why we love them, and why we get nostalgic for them. The first episode honors TLC’s “No Scrubs.” I do wonder if someone not schooled in 90s music (Backstreet Boys, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, A Tribe Called Quest) would enjoy it. But for me, the show is comforting in itself. I feel like I’m on the floor of my childhood bedroom with my friends, flipping through mix tapes and burning CDs.
🎙️Real quick: if you are looking for spooky stuff, check out Stories with Sapphire, Radio Rental, Ghosts in the Burbs, this fantastic episode of Euphomet about possessed items and my favorite episode of Ologies ever, this one about pumpkins, which is not so spooky but it’s decorative gourd season, mother fuckers, and this is a joyful celebrations of this autumnal icon.
🎙️Launching tomorrow: Blinkist is releasing its newest audio format—Shortcasts, which repackages highlights from podcasts into bite-sized (15-min) content so you can get the best parts without listening to the whole thing. Shows like The Happiness Lab, So Money, Beyond the To-Do List, Revisionist History, and more are working in direct collaboration with Blinkist to add context and a fresh perspective. Download the Blinkist app to make it happen.
🎙️I love you!